B.11 VIRSU (Finno-Ugric languages as target languages)
Within the XIII International Congress for Finno-Ugric Studies, the VIRSU network will organise a symposium on Finno-Ugric languages as target languages. VIRSU (https://virsu-network.univie.ac.at/ ), originally a network of researchers and teachers of Finnish and Estonian as target languages, now aims at fostering wider international cooperation and bringing together all researchers who work on any Finno-Ugric language as a second or a foreign language.
The main goal of this symposium is to prepare ground for cooperations in the area of applied-linguistic research and teaching of Finno-Ugric languages. We especially welcome papers about the teaching and learning of Finno-Ugric minority languages, but presentations dealing with Hungarian, Finnish, or Estonian as a target language are welcome as well, especially if they include a wider perspective, inviting international comparisons and/or targeting a wider, international audience.
Within this framework, the papers presented can deal with a variety of issues, such as
- How does research into the Finno-Ugric languages challenge previous research into second language acquisition?
- How can Hungarian, Finnish or Estonian applied-linguistic research support and inspire research of the teaching and learning of Finno-Ugric minority languages, or vice versa?
- How are bilingualism or multilingualism understood in contexts involving a Finno-Ugric language? How are they realized in the education systems?
- How can relatedness or perceived similarity between languages be taken into account in the teaching and learning of Finno-Ugric languages?
- How can language technology / corpus linguistics / translation studies / etc. be utilized in the teaching and learning of Finno-Ugric languages?
- What kind of special problems do heritage-language speakers of Finno-Ugric languages have (for example, second-generation migrants or dispersed minorities such as Saami speakers in the South)? How can their language acquisition or language maintenance be supported?
- etc.
In addition to English, papers can be presented in Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, German or Russian, in which case visual support in English is strongly recommended.
The publishing of symposium proceedings as such is not planned, but all participants are invited to submit papers based on their presentations to the journal Lähivõrdlusi. Lähivertailuja.
Organizers: Helka Riionheimo (University of Eastern Finland), Maria Kok (University of Eastern Finland), Johanna Laakso (University of Vienna)
Contact: helka.riionheimo@uef.fi