Blog written by Laura Hekanaho One year of LAIF I started as a postdoctoral researcher in LAIF in December 2023. I have enjoyed working on LAIF as my main project. However, this fall, I was fortunate to receive funding for my own FINGEL project from the Research Council of Finland.
FINGEL – Gender exclusive language in Finnish
In my PhD I explored gender exclusive language in English, from the perspective of 3rd person singular pronouns. While I was working on my PhD, a Finnish newspaper called Aamulehti announced they would start using gender inclusive job titles (in 2017). This sparked a lot of public discussion and controversy, since up until 2017, the topic of gender-inclusive language had not been discussed widely in public. What intrigued me was that many arguments circulating in Finnish (social) media mirrored those I encountered in my PhD data on English, as well as in earlier studies on the language. I realized I needed to explore this further, though, of course, finishing my PhD came first.
With FINGEL, I am investigating the use of gender exclusive and inclusive job titles in Finnish; many official job titles used to be masculine in Finnish (think: ‘fireman’ palomies and ‘chairman’ puhemies). I am also studying related language attitudes and ideologies, which is particularly fascinating amidst ongoing change, since I believe language attitudes can help explain the direction of language change. With FINGEL, I am also working with survey data, so there are many similarities with the LAIF project. You can read more about FINGEL here (mostly in Finnish).
So, what have I done with LAIF?
A year of LAIF has flown by, and a lot has been accomplished already. I have mainly been working on getting the survey on Finnish people’s attitudes towards English ready. Since I could not find existing attitude scale measurement that would fit our purpose, I decided to develop two Likert attitude scales myself: one on the influence of English on Finnish, and one of using English in Finland. This process has taken quite a long time, starting with an extensive literature review, formulating statements based on previous research and authentic examples, and then revising and validating the scales with 3 pilots completed so far. Meanwhile I have also developed the main survey, which will include the attitude scales and some additional measurements. Next, I will pilot the full survey and then hopefully proceed with data collection right away – that is to say, although I am starting a new project and that will be my main job, LAIF will go on and I am staying on to complete the survey, so stay tuned for some preliminary results next year!
Thank you, Laura, for everything you’ve contributed to the LAIF project! Please join us in congratulating her on receiving funding for her own project!
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