The Jyväskylä Discourse Hub crew shares a critical interest in language in society. We foreground a view on language as socially conditioned and consequential practice and examine how multilingual and multimodal resources are used across various spaces and times. We are particularly interested in practices and resources related to identity, power, multilingualism, economy, work, law and various other kinds of personal, institutional and societal arrangements.
Our work explores multidisciplinary, multimodal and rhizomatic approaches in discourse studies. For this, we draw on critical discourse analysis, multi-sited ethnography, interaction analysis and multimodal discourse analysis, nexus analysis and assemblage approaches. In doing so, we reach out to related fields such as applied language studies, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology.
Recent and ongoing research projects
- Cold Rush: Dynamics of language and identity in expanding Arctic economic hotspots. (Academy of Finland, 2016–2020, PI: Sari Pietikäinen)
- Peripheral Multilingualism: A sociolinguistic ethnography of contestation and innovation in Multilingual minority language sites. (Academy of Finland, 2011–2015, PI: Sari Pietikäinen)
- Power play: Discourses of language, identity and mobility in a trans-atlantic hockey market (Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä, 2015–2016, PI: Sari Pietikäinen).
- Northern multilingualism: Discourses, practices and experiences (Academy of Finland, 2008–2011, PI: Sari Pietikäinen).
- Negotiating International Criminal Law: A courtroom ethnography of trial performance at the International Criminal Court (Academy of Finland, 2019–2023, PI: Sigurd D’hondt)
Below you will find links to our individual webpages where you can learn more about our backgrounds and research interests. Our team’s core research areas are also profiled below.
The crew
Sari Pietikäinen
Professor of Discourse Studies, University of Jyväskylä
Research Interests:
Multilingualism, heteroglossia, minoritized language communities, Sámi communities, language ideological processes, rhizomatic discourse analysis, critical discourse studies, media studies, ethnography, visual methods
Sigurd D’hondt
Associate professor, University of Jyväskylä
Sanna Tapionkaski
Senior Lecturer, Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä
Research interests:
language and gender, identity, critical discourse studies, feminist discourse studies, narrative studies, culture studies, literary studies, fan studies, (new) media discourses, fantasy, science fiction.
Sarah Compton
Ph.D. Candidate, Discourse Studies, University of Jyväskylä
Research interests:
My research interests lie at the intersections of language-in-education policy and multimodal-multilingualism. In particular, I am interested in how sign and spoken languages are managed in homes, at school, and within society.
Maiju Strömmer
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Jyväskylä
Research interests:
Language and Work, Multilingualism, Migration, Mobilities, Political economy, Platform work, Second language learning, Work-related language learning, Language and Identity, Linguistic Ethnography, Nexus Analysis, Discourse Analysis.
Minna Tiainen
Ph.D. Candidate, Discourse Studies, University of Jyväskylä
Research interests:
Media, Political communication, Discourse studies
Francis M. Hult
Professor, Department of Education, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Docent/Adjunct professor, University of Jyväskylä
Research interests:
Educational linguistics, Language Policy and Planning, Linguistic Landscapes, Multilingual Education, Sustainability, and Transdisciplinarity
Helen Kelly-Holmes
Lecturer in Sociolinguistics, Assistant Dean of Research, University of Limerick
Docent/Adjunct Professor, University of Jyväskylä
Research interests:
All of my research areas fall under the broad heading of sociolinguistics, the reflexive relationship between language and society, particularly in the areas of public and media language. My specific interest is in the interrelationship between the media, markets and languages.
Anna Solin
University Lecturer, Department of Modern Languages, University of Helsinki
Docent, University of Jyväskylä
Research interests:
Genre, discourse and regulation, language regulation in academia, globalisation, English in academic settings.
Visitors
Lindsay Bell
State University of New York at Oswego
Florian Hiss
Postdoc at UiT—The Arctic University of Norway; project leader of the project “Linguistic and Cultural Diversity at Work” (funded by the Research Council of Norway)
Research Interests:
Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis. Multilingualism in the North of Norway, language and work, language and time, language and responsibility.
Emanuel da Silva
Research interests:
Ethnography, critical sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, critical discourse studies, ideologies of language and identity, the political-economy of language, post-nationalism, transgression, performativity, ethno-linguistic minorities
Anu Karjalainen
Research interests:
multilingualism, language ideologies, ethnography, visual and material methods, language biographies, Finnish communities abroad, Finnish as a second and foreign language
Ingrid De Saint-Georges
Université du Luxembourg
Monica Heller
Professor, University of Toronto
Alexandre Duchêne
Professor, University of Fribourg/HEP
Core research areas
- Discourse and economy
- Discourse and knowledge
- Language and Law
- Multilingual, mobile work/ers
- Media Discourse
- Language and Identity
- Discourse, design and ethnography
- Discourse, rhizome and assemblage