Concluding 'Finding own words': a dissemination seminar

My Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship project has arrived to its closing phase. Now it is time to summarize the results and the most important lessons learnt from planning and implementation. With my colleagues, we organized a seminar on 23 March to share our experiences with the project. The event was part of the seminar series From researcher to researcher organized by our university's Research and Innovation Services.

I open the seminar

My trilingual post on Kone Foundation's Boldness blog

I happily accepted the invitation of Kone Foundation's Boldness blog to write about my work on the management of linguistic diversity, with a special regard to my position as a researcher in a minority position. The text was published today in English, Hungarian and Finnish.

A week of schoolscapes: discussions in Tallinn, Helsinki and Jyväskylä

Between 12 and 17 November, I had a great time filled with exciting discussions about schoolscapes. I gave a guest lecture in Tallinn, I led a colloquium together with my colleague Petteri Laihonen in Helsinki, and I presented a conference paper in Jyväskylä. It was very intriguing to think together about the importance of materiality in teaching and learning from various perspectives at three locations.

A view of Tallinn's Old Town

My new article: Researcher ideologies and the dilemma of getting involved “on the field”

I published an article in Hungarian in an edited volume which targets general audience and provides insights into the theory and methodology of different linguistic fields, including applied language studies. Building on my own experience, my self-reflective contribution analyzes the processes of carrying out fieldwork and writing up research papers. Papers based on own fieldwork data raise questions concerning the retelling of lived experiences in a structured order, for certain purposes. 

Ten days in Norway. Part 1: before the workshop

I feel privileged that I could spend ten inspiring and refreshing days in Norway. First I spent a week in Tromsø and then a couple of days in Oslo. This visit gave me a great opportunity for summarizing what I’ve already done in my Marie Curie project, and I also could make some plans for the future. The visit was focused around a two-day international research workshop ‘Contextualizing linguistic diversity in institutional settings’ I organized together with Prof. Hilde Sollid and Florian Hiss at the University of Tromsø – the Arctic University of Norway. In the first part of my post I share what happened before the workshop. In the second part I will write about the topics and discussions of the workshop, and I will write about my Oslo experience as well.

Tromsø harbor

Back to Norway!

Yesterday I arrived to Tromsø for a week. As I mentioned in another post, we organize a two-day workshop with my colleagues, Prof. Hilde Sollid and Florian Hiss on 8–9 October. I'm happy to be here again!

The first morning view of Tromsø from my hotel

My article in the journal of the Finnish Network for Language Education Policies

I happily received the invitation of the editors of Kieli, koulutus ja yhteiskunta (Language, Education and Society) to share my research experience in Finland. In the article that has just been published, I summarize how "moving to Finland two years ago had given new push to my work". In the lead paragraph of the article, I summarized the main changes in my work:

I have been studying Hungarian education for about thirteen years and I have been addressing the general public with popularizing materials for nearly five years now. However, in Finland these activities become more complex than in my native country. Here, I wish to discuss how my research found larger and larger contexts in two steps: first, by starting to make my research available to wider audiences in Hungary, and second, by turning my focus to an international environment. I claim that these two types of re-contextualization are not only beneficial for me as a researcher personally but also serve the researched communities as well as teachers and other practitioners in a rich way.

Learn more about the journal and the network which publishes it after the photo!

Linguistic Landscape 7 Workshop in Berkeley. Part 2

As promised in the first part of my Berkeley notes, I now share some of my perceptions about the town and the nearby metropolis, San Francisco. I was lucky that I could spend some time before and after the conference with sightseeing. The organizers were also very nice and organized a bus trip to the Muir Woods National Monument; there we could spend great time with a handful of participants. Of course my ears and eyes were wide open for linguistic experiences during my whole trip, especially because it was my first time ever in the States.

Golden Gate Bridge, the ultimate symbol of the Bay region – and probably the inspiration behind the LL7 logo.

Unfortunately I can't reproduce here the audible linguistic diversity that surrounded me, but I can share a couple of pictures about various languages, scripts and semiotic practices that were interesting for me. I also liked the nature, and meeting the Pacific Ocean was a stunning moment of my life. So, let's see the pics!

Linguistic Landscape 7 Workshop in Berkeley. Part 1

In May I had the pleasure to attend the 7th Linguistic Landscape Workshop at the University of California, Berkeley. Since I use the Linguistic Landscape (LL) approach extensively in my research on education-related ideologies, I was happy to learn about new developments in the field. Listening to the presentations, I found two recurring topics being especially relevant for my studies. First: what is the role of the researcher in the documentation and analysis of linguistic landscapes? As it is a field where thousands of photos and videos are analyzed day by day, the question emerges both in a practical sense (how to choose the angle, the scope, the format, etc. for the image we will analyze) and at a theoretical level (what frameworks and analytical methods are available and appropriate for our studies). Secondly, I think numerous contributions made very good points in connection with the relationship between the researchers and the researched communities, raising issues of ethics and social impact. Last but not least, since this was my first visit in the States ever, and I got excited of the cultural heterogeneity I experienced during this wonderful week (but more about this will come in the second part of this post).

Part of the Berkeley campus and the town as seen from the top of Sather Tower or Campanile, a symbol of the university. My image.

Instead of giving a full report, now I try to present some of the ideas that inspired me the most. As you could notice, the workshop was not yesterday, so I had time to think over a couple of issues in the past months.

The papers were presented in three parallel sessions, so it was impossible to listen to all of them. But, thanks to the organizers, you can read a lot about the papers and discussions on a collaborative writing space that contains even photos and handouts. You can also read all the abstracts online.

Contextualizing Linguistic Diversity in Institutional Settings

I am pleased to announce that we are preparing a workshop with two colleagues in Tromsø. In 2013, I presented a paper in Tromsø at the Tromsø International Conference on Language Diversity. There we had very illuminating discussions with Prof. Hilde Sollid who invited me next year to a panel on language ideologies in the classroom at the 20th Sociolinguistics Symposium. As a continuation of our cooperation, I will spend a week in Tromsø this October. The visit includes lectures, a data seminar and the two-day workshop 'Contextualizing Linguistic Diversity in Institutional Settings' that we have just announced and organize together with Hilde and her colleague, Florian Hiss.

Please consider our call for papers that follows after the image!

As I saw Tromsø during my first visit in 2013

Learning Finnish in the sauna

When I arrived to Finland in August 2013, I immediately started to learn Finnish. First I took the staff course 'Survival Finnish', but I was looking for other opportunities as well.


When I went to swimming pools in Hungary, I always liked to take sauna, so from the second day of my stay I regularly went to the public saunas of Kortepohja student village. I'm really happy that I gathered a couple of friends there so I find a good company whenever I go to sauna. Our university has many exchange students and researchers from abroad, so the sauna is a real multicultural place where I always enjoy listening to many languages.

Illustration from the University Yearbook: I, enjoying sauna. – Photo: Petteri Kivimäki (http://www.kamera-petteri.fi/) 

At the beginning, I basically communicated in English, but then I started to use more and more Finnish. Now I have a couple of friends who encourage me in learning Finnish: I can learn a lot from our conversations. However, I think that the situation in itself that I'm exposed to an enormous amount of Finnish talk around me can help me greatly.

The management of diversity in schoolscapes

My first longer paper on the material environment of Hungarian schools has just been published!

The Management of Diversity in Schoolscapes: an analysis of Hungarian practices. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies 9(1), 23–51.

Abstract:

My project in the 'Excellence in Science' brochure

My university published a brochure which provides information about its projects carried out within the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for Research. You can find a description of the three Marie Curie Fellowships in Jyväskylä, including mine, on pages 12–13.

The cover of the brochure (Source: isuu.com)

Loughborough News: 8th Conversation Analysis Day

1

On December 15th 2014, I had the pleasure of attending the 8th International Conversation Analysis Day at Loughborough University. It is an annual event organized by the Department of Social Sciences, regularly at mid-December. The timing is perfect: it is a nice gathering before Christmas, and the end of the year gives the opportunity for an overview of previous year’s work. At the same time, it is useful to think about next year’s plans. Since I did not present a paper, I could fully concentrate on the potential application of the presented results in my work.

The entrance of the campus

Calgary News 2: In and around Calgary

As promised in the first part, I now share a couple of my impressions about Calgary. Before and after the conference, I could look around in the Downtown. On Saturday I enjoyed the company of a couple of guys from the conference so we explored some tourist attractions and bars together. On Sunday, there was a guided tour in the Banff National Park. The scenes were breathtaking and our guide, Petar was really experienced and funny.

The entrance of the campus.

Calgary News 1: The conference

From 1 to 8 September, I spent a great week in Calgary, Canada. I attended the Multidisciplinary Approaches in Language Policy and Planning conference, organized by the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. The conference was very rich in topics and it was especially nice that not only linguists but scholars from political sciences or philosophy also contributed to the discussions. The atmosphere was friendly as there were less than a hundred participants (around seventy, I guess) so it was easy to contact people. Another thing what made this visit so special is that it was my first time in the American continent so I had many new cultural experiences... In this part, I'll write about the conference, and you will soon find another post about my impressions on Calgary and the Rocky Mountains.



Calgary Downtown and Bow River: a nice walk on a cloudy afternoon

Bright ideas from the Jyväskylä Language Campus

Working at the Centre for Applied Language Studies, I can enjoy the benefits of a unique network of linguists from different subfields. This network is called Kielikampus – Language Campus, and is described as follows on their site:

The Jyväskylä Language Campus is a forum of cooperation between four units at the University of Jyväskylä: the Language Centre, the Department of Languages, the Centre for Applied Language Studies and the Department of Teacher Education. It is an exceptional working environment both nationally and internationally as it combines research on language and language use, language teaching and training as well as language education policies.

Source: http://kielikampus.jyu.fi/

Recently, I discovered the blog of Language Campus. The posts are mainly in Finnish so I can understand only a couple of words from them, but I also found English writings, for example by exchange students who visited schools in Jyväskylä. It is interesting to see what these future teachers with various cultural backgrounds highlighted from their experience. As I read, they got new ideas and aspects for practicing their profession.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: training in writing applications

The European Commission, in collaboration with the Research Executive Agency, provided a web-streamed training on Tuesday 10 June 2014 from 2 to 6 p.m. (CET). With the help of this, you can learn a lot about writing your Individual Fellowship or COFUND application. The video and the slides are available from here.

The (second) Nobel Prize diploma of Marie Skłodowska-Curie from 1911 (Source: Wikimedia)

From the panopticon to the streets: a couple of days in Bratislava / Pozsony / Pressburg

What do the students concentrate on while sitting in the classroom? What do we really learn in the school? Experts say that in many cases, a “hidden curriculum” is more important during our school years than the facts and explanations we seem to learn… The Scollons in their book entitled Nexus Analysis: Discourse  and the emerging internet claim that the traditional classroom is like a panopticon: the students are mainly passive viewer-listeners who are not expected to share their ideas or be creative. Instead, they are expected to learn and reproduce what they have heard or read while preparing for the classes. When they “discuss”, they seem to speak about the topic of the course but many times, implicitly, the emphasis is on their personal status in the school… As the authors write about a university seminar:

Popular linguistics online

I've been popularizing linguistics for more than three years on a Hungarian site Nyelv és Tudomány 'Language and Science'. I think this site offers ideal opportunities for discussing several language-related topics such as educational policies, minority rights, exotic cultures, games, IT gadgets, translation softwares or even methods in scientific research. Since I live in Finland, nowadays I especially like a series on Finnish popular culture: with my wife, we usually listen to the songs (for example Jukka Poika's) and learn a lot from the lyrics, its translation and the explanations provided by the authors.

Nyelv és Tudomány – nyest.hu