Bilingual voicing: A study of code-switching in the reported speech of Finnish immigrants in Estonia

Abstract

Through a conversation analytic investigation of Finnish-Estonian bilingual (direct) reported speech (i.e., voicing) by Finns who live in Estonia, this study shows how code-switching is used as a double contextualization device. The code-switched voicings are shaped by the on-going interactional situation, serving its needs by opening up a context where the participants can engage in activities such as assessing the voice-persona, and renewing the current speech event by imposing a context of prior texts upon it. The study shows that code-switching can be used in an interactionally meaningful way even when a) the morphosyntactic and lexical border between the two languages is not strictly salient, and b) when the participants do not orient towards the two varieties as indexical of specific social groups or values associated with them. In light of these results, the conclusion is drawn that although the two languages are clearly interrelated for the speakers, Finns in Estonia still orient towards two relatively distinct sets of linguistic features and operate with this difference as a resource in interaction. These findings are discussed in light of recent sociolinguistic theories that find the opposition of two languages in conversation often to lack any meaning for the participants.

Multilingual Repertoires at Play: Structure and Function in Reported Speech Utterances of Alyawarr Children

“…Frick and Riionheimo's (2013) study of Finnish-Estonian code-switching in reported speech actually found that such strict separation was not necessary, which in general aligns with the present research, insomuch as Alyawarr English and Australian English are closely related varieties with substantial structural overlap.…”

“…I will highlight some of the findings most relevant to the present study. One of the key themes in pragmatic accounts 4 has been the role of reported speech components in "footing" (Goffman 1981;Levinson 1988;Frick and Riionheimo 2013) or stance-taking (Schegloff 1984;Clift 2006). The manner in which the original language production is reported can reveal the particular orientation of the person doing the reported speech to either the original speaker or the content of the production, or both.…”

Literary Translation as Language Contact: A Pilot Study on the Finnish Passive

“…The above-mentioned questions are investigated by analysing the use of the Finnish passive in a corpus of literary texts which consists of Finnish translations from Estonian and German and comparable non-translated Finnish literary texts (matched in size and with regard to genre). The translated texts are compared with non-translated ones, and the results are related to a previous contact-linguistic study on the use of the Finnish passive in spoken interviews of Finnish migrants in Estonia (Riionheimo et al 2014; see also Riionheimo 2013). According to the results of this previous study, the contact with the Estonian language has affected the use of the Finnish passive among a particular group of Finnish migrants living in Estonia.…”

“…Choosing the speaker/narrator inclusiveness or exclusiveness as the subject of this manual analysis is motivated by the earlier research concerning the Finnish and Estonian passives in contact. Riionheimo (2013) and Riionheimo et al (2014) report the results of a case study on Ingrian Finnish, a Finnish dialect spoken originally in the territory of Ingria in Russia (around Saint Petersburg). Due to the complex and difficult consequences of the Second World War, many speakers of this Finnish variety migrated to the area of contemporary Estonia, which at the time of their immigration had been conquered by the Soviet Union.…”

“…Simultaneously, they had to acquire a new language, Estonian. In these particular circumstances, the Ingrian Finnish spoken by these migrants developed into a unique blend of features of Ingrian Finnish, the Finnish standard variety, Estonian and (to some extent) Russian (Riionheimo 2007;2013;Frick & Riionheimo 2013;Kokko 2007).…”