Helena Halmari

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• PhD in Linguistics, University of Southern California
• Distinguished Professor at Sam Houston State University

The early 1990s saw the proposal for ‘people first’ language: premodified nouns (disabled people) were to be replaced by postmodified nouns (people with disabilities). This usage was widely adopted in the fields of education and psychology. This article examines the distribution of both patterns in the electronic archives of the Houston Chronicle f...

Aims and Objectives/Research Question: This is a case study of a toddler acquiring Finnish in a trilingual (Finnish-Spanish-English) setting. Despite the apparent ease of the child’s acquisition of Finnish, the pressure of the majority language (English) suppresses the use of the acquired minority language. Is it feasible to expect an early-childh...

The focus of this article is the deictic evaluative construction that’s, as used by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential debates. A summative clause, often toward the end of a discourse turn, opened by the distal demonstrative pronoun that, has a persuasive function, evaluating the immediately preceding discourse content. This...

Apologies have been a rewarding target for research in the pragmatics tradition; however, few studies connect apologies to hypocrisy. This chapter is an attempt to do so. I approach the pragmalinguistic aspects of hypocrisy by examining two notorious apologies: Clinton’s 1998 apology for his Monica Lewinsky affair and Trump’s 2016 apology for his v...

One of the salient features of Oxford, MS Bodley 649, a fifteenth-century sermon collection, is its frequent switching from Latin to English – and back to Latin again. Building on Wenzel’s (1994) groundbreaking work on macaronic sermons, I discuss the rhetorical characteristics of English elements in MS Bodley 649, with the purpose of showing that...

This article serves as an introduction to the Journal of Finnish Studies special issue entitled Multilingual Finland, Part I.

This special guest-edited issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, entitled Multilingual Finland, includes the following eight articles: 1. Weckström & Halmari: Multilingual Finland: Editors' Introduction 2. Laakso: Finnish: The Making of a Language beyond Myths 3. Östman: Modes of Expressing Finland-Swedishness 4. Puupponen, Kanto, Kronqvist, & De...

Aims and Objectives The aim of this introductory chapter to Effects of Limited Input, a Special Issue of the International Journal of Bilingualism, is to give a brief overview of how the topic of limited linguistic input is situated within the study of bilingualism and language contact. The seven chapters—which present samples of the varied circums...

One of the salient features of Piers Plowman is the repeated use of Latin. Langland’s Latin quotations are typically biblical, with their content often paraphrased in Middle English. Non-biblical quotations, however, are also included. The grammatical incorporation of the Latin material and its rhetorical functions have been discussed at length in...

Investigations of Finland’s nation-building process have paid relatively little attention to the ethnic and religious minorities, and today’s more diverse Finland has been perceived as a somewhat new phenomenon. Roman, Stadius, and Stark’s edited collection shifts the focus from the ethnically white majority of a culturally homogeneous nation, show...

The editorial for Journal of Finnish Studies 24 (1&2) serves as an introduction to the guest-edited (by Raluca Bianca Roman, Peter Stadius, and Eija Stark) theme issue entitled Counter-Readings on Finnish Nationhood: Minority Strategies and the Making of the Nation.

This theme issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies brings together eight articles, which reflect cutting-edge research on entrepreneuship in Finland. The collection grew out of two important conferences held at the Tampere University of Applied Sciences in 2018 and 2019. Dr. Tiina Brandt from Haaga-Helia University is the guest editor of this colle...

This theme issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, edited by Tiina Brandt, includes cutting-edge research on entrepreneurship in Finland.

This is the series editor's introduction to Journal of Finnish Studies volume 23, issue 2, entitled Enhancing Entrepreneuship in Finland, guest-edited by Tiina Brandt.

See the abstract for Journal of Finnish Studies 19 (1).

Here is the theme issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, 17(1&2), guest edited by Driss Habti and Saara Koikkalainen. The issue is entitled "International Highly Skilled Migration: The Case of Finland."

This open issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies brings to our readers four articles: two on language and scholarship; two on identity and culture. The first article, Frog’s “Echoing Ideas in Discourse on Poetics: From Lowth’s parallelismus membrorum to Porthan’s rhythmus sensus” is an exploration of the intertextual relationships between the idea...

In this article I discuss the variation in eight media headlines of an execution report from August 2019. While some headlines resort to the suppression of agenthood by the use of the passive construction ([is] executed), others use Texas or State of Texas as the subject of the active verb executes. The variation in the phrases referring to the exe...

This editorial introduces the readers to the contents of the Journal of Finnish Studies 23(1).

This panel entitled "J. R. R. Tolkien and the Kalevala" (FinnFest USA 2019, Detroit, MI) addressed the influence of the Kalevala--and Finnish language in general--on Tolkien’s work. The starting point to the panel was Dome Karukoski’s 2019 film “Tolkien." In his writings, Tolkien drew heavily from the universal themes central to the Kalevala and No...

Minna Canth’s (1844–97) play The Workman’s Wife (Työmiehen vaimo, 1885) can be regarded as the first play ever written about the Finnish urban working class. The play is dark and depressing, depicting the plights of Johanna, the protagonist, and Homsantuu, a Roma woman. Both women are being abused by Johanna’s husband, Risto, but they are also bein...

Award-winning Finnish graphic novelist Tiitu Takalo tells the compelling story of the fight to save a historic working-class neighborhood from the threat of gentrification and concrete high-rises in her hometown, Tampere, in Finland. Based on a true story, this graphic novel masterfully interweaves the town of Annikki's rich history, the author's o...

Based on a 2016 online survey of 253 Finnish migrants living in North America, this chapter addresses the attitudes toward and means of heritage Finnish maintenance. Throughout the chapter, comparisons are made between the language maintenance of the old-wave migrants vs. the participants of the survey. While the circumstances of migration have cha...

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This special issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, Engaging the New Mobilities Paradigm in the Context of Finland, brings to the readers twelve fresh examples of research about migration and mobility in Finland. The volume is divided into four sections: Social and Cultural Experiences and Meanings of Mobility (Part I); Everyday Life and Lived Pl...

This editorial serves as an introduction to the Journal of Finnish Studies special issue 22(1&2), entitled Engaging the New Mobilities Paradigm in the Context of Finland, guest-edited by Driss Habti and Tuulikki Kurki.

In this introduction to the Journal of Finnish Studies theme issue entitled The Making of Finland: The Era of the Grand Duchy, the editors outline, in broad strokes, the years when Finland was part of Russia. The second part of the chapter consists of a discussion of the eight chapters that make up this article collection. The contributors approach...

This collection, a special issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, Volume 21 (1&2), includes recent scholarship about events and cultural trends in Finland during the time of the Grand Duchy (1809–1917). The authors' theses are mostly non-traditional and surprising, showing how poverty, famine, illness, and even Finnish food played significant rol...

This report was compiled to provide the Journal of Finnish Studies subscribers, authors, readers, and the general public information about the journal's operations and status as a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal about Finland, with a global reach. The focus of the report is on the past seven years (2011–2017) during which the JoFS has been edited...

In the framework of the politeness theory proposed by Brown and Levinson ([1978] 1987) and developed by Leech (2014; also Culpeper 2011), I will analyze the language used by the seven GOP presidential candidates during the January 14, 2016, Republican Presidential Debates (Full 6th GOP Debate). The question I attempt to answer is the following: can...

This open issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies consists of nine articles and four book reviews. The collection begins with Maria Lähteenmäki's lead article, which offers a political profile of Finland's first female president, Tarja Halonen (2000–2012). Erik Hieta's article on Walter Mattila introduces a newspaperman and editor who sought the pr...

This editorial is an introduction to Journal of Finnish Studies open issue 20(2).

In this presentation, Beth L. Virtanen and Helena Halmari inform the audience of two main venues that support publication efforts in North America about Finnish America: The Finnish North American Literature Association (poetry and prose) and the Journal of Finnish Studies (non-fiction).

This latest theme issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies is entitled Poverty of a Beggar and a Nobleman: Experiencing and Encountering Impoverishment in Nineteenth-Century Finland. The guest editors, Tiina Hemminki and Pirita Frigren from the University of Jyväskylä, have compiled a fascinating collection of articles about poverty in Finland durin...

This editorial serves as an introduction to Journal of Finnish Studies special issue "Poverty of a Beggar and a Nobleman," Volume 20, Issue 2. The issue is guest-edited by Pirita Frigenn and Tiina Hemminki.

This is work in progess--a preliminary exploration into the rhetorical motivations of the language-mixing strategies in Oxford Bodley 649.

The macaronic nature of MS Bodley 649 is the first striking feature that catches the attention of anyone looking at this early fifteenth-century sermon collection. Other, stylistic, features coindicing with switches from Latin to English, appear in these sermons as well: parallelisms, English proverbial elements, and alliteration. In this chapter,...

Today’s Finnish immigrants are very different from the migrants of a hundred years ago: they are typically highly educated and already competent in English at the time they arrive in the United States. For them, relocation is not perceived as permanent, and contacts with Finland remain frequent. However, Finnish migrants also sometimes establish fa...

This issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies consists of ten articles. The topics include literature and literary criticism; food in literature and Finnish cookbooks; multilingual correspondence and Finnish American language use and identity; Finnish expatriates in America; children’s play environments; and Sámi shamanism. Janna Kantola’s article d...

This editorial serves as an introduction to the Journal of Finnish Studies open issue 19(1).

This collection of ten essays, guest-edited by Kirsti Salmi-Niklander (University of Helsinki) and Kati Launis (University of Turku), addresses the topic of Finnish working-class literature and its international influences from the early twentieth century, through the Second World War, and until the present day. Finnish working-class authors had an...

This editorial serves as an introduction to Journal of Finnish Studies 18(2).

A common usage error, snickered at by sophisticated current writers, is produced when someone uses the subject case form of a pronoun (for example I) after a preposition, instead of the historically correct object case form (for example me). This confusion leads, for instance, to the widely attested variation of between you and I versus the correct...

Pia Olsson and Eija Stark, the guest editors of the Journal of Finnish Studies Volume 18, Issue 1, entitled From Cultural Knowledge to Cultural Heritage: Finnish Archives and Their Reflections of the People, have compiled a fascinating collection that focuses on the acquisition and storage of cultural knowledge intended for archives in Finland--and...

This editorial serves as an introduction to Journal of Finnish Studies 18(1)

In several manuscripts of Piers Plowman, the convention of boxing the Latin text in red seems to be fairly prevalent. The switch from English to Latin is made obvious and explicit. The lines in the electronic edition of Piers Plowman, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson Poetry 38 (R), one of the fifty or so extant Piers Plowman manuscripts, illu...

This double issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, guest-edited by Driss Habti (University of Eastern Finland) and Saara Koikkalainen (University of Lapland), continues our journal’s tradition of addressing issues relating to migration. Entitled Highly Skilled Migration and Finland, the issue consists of a collection of ten in-depth chapters both...

This editorial serves as an introduction to the special double issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, guest-edited by Driss Habti and Saara Koikkalainen and entitled International Highly Skilled Migration: The Case of Finland.

Bilingual codeswitching (the interplay of two or more languages in the bilingual speaker’s speech repertoire) can reveal interesting underlying issues of ethnic identity. 467 electronic-mail messages written by three Finnish-English bilingual siblings have been analyzed to detect any variation in codeswitching patterns. The results indicate that, d...

At age fourteen, Jasmin disappears. Her last sighting is at a snack stand, a camel overcoat on her shoulders and a fluffy pet, possibly a chinchilla rabbit, in her arms. The snack vendor also remembers a companion, but the gentleman wore a brimmed hat that shadowed his face. This lead is not pursued, however, because the vendor is somewhat suspect...

The issue includes a set of eight articles focusing on identity, the Self and the Other, and representations at national, tribal, and individual levels. All chapters fall under the general topic of Finnish Studies.

This editorial serves as the introduction to Journal of Finnish Studies volume 16, issue 2.

Alliterative patterns and language switching in Oxford, MS Bodley 649 Oxford, MS Bodley 649 is a collection of late medieval scholastic sermons from early 1400s, written mostly in Latin but with frequent mixing into Middle English. Alliteration is also characteristic of the sermons in this collection. Even though alliteration often coincides with t...

Volume 16, Number 1 of the Journal of Finnish Studies includes the following articles: Anna Kuismin: "Building the Nation, Lighting the Torch: Excursions into the Writings of the Common People in Nineteenth-Century Finland" Sinikka Aapola-Kari: "Finnish Girlhood in the Twentieth Century: Public Representations and Private Stories" Sirpa Salenius:...

This editorial serves as an introduction to Journal of Finnish Studies, Volume 16, Issue 1.

Analyzing a substantial corpus of macaronic sermons from the late Middle English period (Oxford, MS Bodley 649), the authors detect a frequency hierarchy of switching sites in Latin-English intrasentential code-switching. Even though the syntactic constraints for switching are probabilistic and not universal, the data provide evidence for the tight...

In this special double issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, the authors draw upon previously untapped sources and seek to diversify the picture of the so-called "Karelian Fever." From both top-down and bottom-up perspectives, the authors discuss the circumstances that created this phenomenon in Canada and the United States as well as in the USS...

This editorial serves as the introduction to Journal of Finnish Studies' special double issue (Volume 15, Issue 1&2), guest-edited by Markku Kangaspuro and Samira Saramo. The issue is entitled "Victims and Survivors of Karelia."

This chapter looks at alliteration in one of the sub-genres of political speech, the inaugural addresses of the presidents of the United States. The data cover all the delivered inaugural addresses (56 altogether), from George Washington to Barack Obama, comprising over 130,000 words and over 3000 instances of alliteration. Based on quantitative an...

Ratahan se oli se yhteinen nimittäjä Hollon, Hakkarin ja Tuulialan väelle. Seisakkeja oli kaksi-Hollo ja Hakkari 1-ja joka aamu ne toimivat kuin imurit kooten ihmiset yhteen työläisjunan saapumisen aikaan. Iltapäivällä juna sylki väen takaisin seisakkeille ja tyhjin evässalkuin miehet lähtivät eri suuntiin: ylös Hakkarin mäkeen tai sillalle, Holloa...

The poster summarizes our work on the syntactic tendencies of mixing English into Latin in a late 14th-century sermon collection, Oxford, MS Bodley 649.

In this article, we take a look at Gainesville, a northern Florida university town, as a sample of today's (2010) Finnish-American immigration patterns. The Gainesville area has a history of Finnish immigration, but, as elsewhere in the United States, the stereotypical immigrant has changed from a male laborer more to an educated woman. We base the...

http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/tapahtumat/case/Book_of_Abstracts_Case_Final.pdf#page=33

In this paper, I examine variation in the metaphors that Texas death row inmates used in their last statements in reference to their own death. The corpus includes last statements from 295 inmates who were executed by lethal injection between the years 1982 and 2007 and who gave last statements. The vast majority of inmates use metaphors to refer...

This poster brings the focus to the metaphors of death and dying in the last statements of the Texas death row inmates, about to be executed.

BILINGUALITY AND LITERACY: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE (2nd ed.). DattaManjula(Ed.). New York: Continuum, 2007. Pp. xvii + 236. - Volume 31 Issue 1 - Helena Halmari

This is a book review of Charlotta Häggblom's YOUNG EFL-PUPILS READING MULTICULTURAL CHILDREN'S FICTION: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC CASE STUDY IN A SWEDISH LANGUAGE PRIMARY SCHOOL IN FINLAND. Åbo, [Finland]: Åbo Akademi University Press, 2008. Pp. xviii + 324. €28.00 paper. - Volume 30 Issue 3 - Helena Halmari

Death and dying are among the most commonly referenced semantic fields in linguistic discussions of euphemism. This universal yet highly taboo end of everyone‘s worldly existence has produced a proliferation of metaphors, roundabout expressions, and slang terms that attempt to sooth the sorrow or veil the approach of the inevitable. This paper o...

This article investigates the rhetorical strategies deployed by President Clinton and Senator Dole during the 1996 presidential debates. Clinton resorted to implicit persuasion and audience-oriented rhetorical strategies, while Dole's persuasion was more explicit, and he did not avoid the use of "dispreferred" strategies such as opening his answers...

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the speech acts COMMAND and REQUEST and their relation to the choice of linguistic code in naturally occurring bilingual discourse. The following question is addressed: does the bilingual mind conceptualize one or the other of the available languages as the more "appropriate" language for commands; in o...

This article is a case study investigating the maintenance of Finnish in the language of two young Finnish-American bilinguals. The main source of data is a 90mins audio-taped conversation between the research participants, which was recorded in Finland after they had lived eight years in the United States and become fully fluent in English. Three...

In this light-hearted article, I discuss some of the prevalent Finnish swearwords, their euphemistic forms, and the unique semantic fields from which some of them have been drawn.

Contents: 1. Acknowledgements; 2. Introduction; 3. Persuasion across genres: Emerging perspectives (by Virtanen, Tuija); 4. Focusing on private and semipublic discourse; 5. Persuasion in business negotiations (by Bulow-Moller, Anne Marie); 6. Persuasion in judicial argumentation: The Opinions of the Advocates General at the European Court of Justic...

In chapter 1, "Persuasion across genres: Emerging perspectives," Virtanen and Halmari provide the theoretical framework for their edited volume, Persuasion across genres: A linguistic approach; they define the term "persuasion"; and introduce the reader to the content of the book.

Persuasion, in its various linguistic forms, enters our lives daily. Politicians and the news media attempt to change or confirm our beliefs, while advertisers try to bend our tastes toward buying their products. Persuasion goes on in courtrooms, universities, and the business world. Persuasion pervades interpersonal relations in all social spheres...

Persuasion, in its various linguistic forms, enters our lives daily. Politicians and the news media attempt to change or confirm our beliefs, while advertisers try to bend our tastes toward buying their products. Persuasion goes on in courtrooms, universities, and the business world. Persuasion pervades interpersonal relations in all social spheres...

Persuasion, in its various linguistic forms, enters our lives daily. Politicians and the news media attempt to change or confirm our beliefs, while advertisers try to bend our tastes toward buying their products. Persuasion goes on in courtrooms, universities, and the business world. Persuasion pervades interpersonal relations in all social spheres...

DEVELOPING ADVANCED LITERACY IN FIRST AND SECOND LANGUAGES: MEANING WITH POWER. Mary J. Schleppegrell and M. Cecilia Colombi (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2002. Pp. x + 274. $69.95 cloth, $29.95 paper. This volume is an edited collection of essays that was based on a conference organized at the University of California, Davis in 2000. It consists of...