Finnish Texts Research Articles

Geographical and linguistic perspectives on developing geoparsers with generic resources

Geoparsers aim to find place names in unstructured texts and locate them geographically. This process produces georeferenced data usable for spatial analyses or visualisations. Much geoparsing research and development has thus far focused on the English language, yet languages are not alike. Geoparsing them may necessitate language-specific processing steps or data for training geoparsing systems. In this article, we applied generic language and GIS resources to geoparsing Finnish texts. We argue that using generic resources can ease the development of geoparsers, and free up resources to other tasks, such as annotating evaluation corpora. A quantitative evaluation on new human-annotated news and tweet corpora indicates robust overall performance. A systematic analysis of the geoparser output reveals errors and their causes at each processing step. Some of the causes are specific to Finnish, and offer insights to geoparsing other morphologically complex languages as well. Our results highlight how the language of the input text affects geoparsing. Additionally, we argue that toponym resolution metrics based on error distance have limitations, and proposed metrics based on spatial intersection with ground-truth polygons.

Специфика передачи научно-популярного подстиля книги Д. Джонсона и Ю. Нурминена «История мореплавания и навигации» при переводе с финского языка на русский

the article analyzes the translation of popular science literature from the perspective of stylistic uniqueness. Options for preserving the national-specific characteristics of a Finnish-language popular science text on the history of navigation in its Russian-language version are presented. Objective: to identify methods and techniques that ensure the preservation of the characteristic features of the popular science sub-style in translation from the Finnish to the Russian language, namely imitation of live dialogue with a reader, preservation of cultural and landscape realities, and stylistic features of an original text (repetition, introductory constructions, modal and evaluative words). Research materials: the translated text of the Finnish-language popular science book on navigation by D. Johnson and J. Nurminen “The History of Seafaring: Navigating the World’s Oceans”. Results and novelty of the research: in the Russian-language text, the Finnish national color is maintained through the use of toponyms, anthroponyms, and ergonyms. The translator flexibly employed two strategies – domestication in transformation of the syntactic structures of the original, its morphological forms, stylistic features, and foreignization in conveying linguistic and cultural realities and accompanying them with explication. The measured rhythm of Finnish sentences in the Russian language is conveyed through lexical repetition with syntactic expansion, various types of introductory constructions. A feature of the book’s style is the imitation of dialogue with a reader. In most cases, the stylistic norms of the Russian language allow the reproduction of the live contact between the authors and a reader, which is conveyed in the translation text through appropriate modal means. To convey emotional and evaluative content, grammatical and lexical means of expressing modality in the Russian language are used. The “dictum content” in the translated text is expanded, which is due to the intended purpose of popular science literature to present scientific information in an accessible form and popularize knowledge among a wide range of readers. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the fact that it is devoted to a little-explored theme related to the transfer of lexical and stylistic features of popular scientific literature on the history of navigation into the Russian language. For the first time, the work implements an integrated approach to the study of the stylistics of the Finnish-language text and examines the possibilities of translation into the Russian epithets expressing an assessment or judgment about the object of the authors of the book, amplifying particles, in preserving the modality of the original text by using adverbs with the meaning of confidence, possibility and assumption. In the translation into the Russian, the dictum content of the Finnish text undergoes some transformation. Morphological changes are caused by the requirement of stylistic norms of the Russian language.

Extending the Finnish Linked Data Infrastructure with Natural Language Processing Services in FIN-CLARIAH

The DARIAH-EU infrastructure for Digital Humanities (DH) is often focusing on using structured data for quantitative studies, while the EU-CLARIN infrastructure deals primarily with unstructured natural language texts. However, in DH research both texts and structured data are often needed. It therefore makes sense to develop and use both infrastructures together, as suggested in the Dutch CLARIAH programme and the corresponding FIN-CLARIAH initiative in Finland, a new part of the Finnish research infrastructure road map of the Academy of Finland. This poster paper introduces work in FIN-CLARIAH relating to the idea of integrating natural language processing (NLP) tools with the Linked Open Data (LOD) Infrastructure for Digital Humanities in Finland (LODI4DH). We present a plan for NLP services to be opened as part of the Linked Data Finland (LDF.fi) platform. The new services are used for knowledge extraction from Finnish texts for weaving LOD, and on the other hand for language DH data analyses of the published datasets in applications in many domains, such as political culture. The extended LDF.fi platform will provide users with documented APIs for NLP services using unified output formats as well as software delivery as Docker containers, to lower the bar for deployment.

Source language classification of indirect translations

Abstract One of the major barriers to the systematic study of indirect translation – that is, translations of translations – is the lack of efficient methods to identify these translations. In this article, we use supervised machine learning to examine whether computers can be harnessed to identify indirect translations. Our data consist of a monolingual comparable corpus that includes (1) nontranslated Finnish texts, (2) direct translations from English, French, German, Greek, and Swedish into Finnish, and (3) indirect translations from Greek (the ultimate source language) via English, French, German, and Swedish (mediating languages) into Finnish. We use n-grams of various types and lengths as feature sets and random forests as the statistical classification technique. To maximize the transferability of the method, the feature sets were implemented in accordance with the Universal Dependencies framework. This study confirms that computers can distinguish between translated and nontranslated Finnish, as well as between Finnish translations made from different source languages. Regarding indirect translations, the ultimate source language has a greater impact on the linguistic composition of indirect Finnish translations than their respective mediating languages. Hence, the indirect translations could not be reliably identified. Therefore, our results suggest that the reliable computational identification of indirect translations and their mediating languages requires a way to control for the effect of the ultimate source language.

Eighteenth-century visions of the Stone Age

Archaeological concepts of prehistory and the Stone Age are rooted in nineteenth-century scientific discoveries, which extended the human past much further back in time than was previously thought. Without this deep past, the disciplines of archaeology and history would not be what they are today. However, when the division of prehistory into the ages of stone, bronze, and iron was introduced in 1836, it was already an old idea. Stone Age artefacts and the initial phase of human history were discussed in the eighteenth-century academic world, even though the periodisation of history was constructed differently. In the philosophy of the Enlightenment several ideas surfaced which were essential to the formation of archaeology as a scientific practice, and which still affect the way the prehistoric past is imagined. This article examines the concept of a prehistoric, furthest past in Finnish scientific texts, within the framework of eighteenth-century Swedish traditions of science and historiography. How did the scholars in the Academy of Turku view Stone Age artefacts that had a multi-faceted nature in the antiquarian tradition? In what way did their visions of the earliest phase of the Nordic past set up later nationalistic narratives about prehistory?

From Tabermann to Mr. Baudelaire. Allusions and popular culture references in the Finnish comic Northern Overexposure and their English translations

Comics, as other written works, contains allusions that serve many functions and might be difficult to translate due to cultural differences. The aim of this article is to analyse the selected allusions and popular culture references in the Finnish comic Northern Overexposure and compare the Finnish source text with the English target text. In addition, the function of these allusions as well as the relevant cultural background are covered. The examples were analysed with Ritva Leppihalme’s (1997) strategies for translating allusions. The article also provides insight into the Finnish field of comics and the translation process of the selected comic.

Words, clauses, sentences, and T-units in learner language: Precise and objective units of measure?

In research on learner language complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF), syntactic complexity is often studied with quantitative measures based on words, clauses, sentences, and T-units. The findings have been mixed, but segmenting learner language into these units of measure has seldom been problematised, even if the need for accurate coding is well known. The present study explores words, clauses, sentences, and T-units as production units in written learner language using a corpus of 352 L2 Finnish texts (28,813 words). The results illustrate how written learner language can be hard to fit into the production unit categories, which are essential for the most frequently used quantitative measures of syntactic complexity. On the one hand, the results support calls to include explicit definitions of the units of measure when reporting findings obtained with these quantitative measures. On the other hand, they align with calls to introduce new measures to better gauge the changes in learner language syntax as it develops with increasing language proficiency.

Helppoa vai vaativampaa selkokieltä – selkokielen mittaaminen ja vaikeustasot

Selkokielen tarve on viime vuosina kasvanut Suomessa. Samalla on herännyt tarve määritellä aiempaa tarkemmin selkokielen vaikeustasoja ja eroa muihin kielimuotoihin. Miten helppoa tai vaikeaa selkokieli voi olla erilaisille lukijoille ja eri teksteissä, ja voiko tekstien selkokielisyyttä arvioida? Tässä artikkelissa pohditaan, millaisia vaikeustasojen määritelmiä selkokielelle voitaisiin antaa. Selkokieltä on Suomessa aina tuotettu monella vaikeustasolla, mutta näitä tasoja ei ole aiemmin määritelty. Niinpä selkoaineistojen käyttäjät eivät ole voineet tietää, millaista vaikeustasoa jokin selkokielinen aineisto on. Käytännössä erilaisille vaikeustasoille on Suomessa tarvetta, sillä osalla selkokielen kohderyhmistä kielen ja lukemisen vaikeudet ovat erittäin suuria ja osalla taas melko pieniä. Artikkelissa hahmotellaan alustavia kriteerejä kolmelle selkokielen vaikeustasolle, helpolle selkokielelle, perusselkokielelle sekä vaativalle selkokielelle. Selkokielen tarpeen kasvaessa selkotekstien arviointiin ja määrittelemiseen tarvitaan myös uusia työvälineitä. Selkokeskuksessa on viime vuosina kehitetty selkokielen mittaria, jonka avulla on tarkoitus arvioida, onko jokin teksti perusselkokieltä vai ei. Mittari sisältää toistaiseksi tarkimman kuvauksen selkosuomen tekstuaalisista, sanastollisista ja rakenteellisista piirteistä, mutta soveltuuko se tekstin selkokielisyyden mittaamiseen? Tätä kysymystä lähestytään artikkelissa mittarin kehittämistyön ja testaustulosten valossa.
 

Acoustic Voice Quality Index as a Potential Tool for Voice Screening

To diminish the risk of voice disorders in people who are highly dependent on their voices, such as teachers, vocal screening is important already at the beginning of such individuals' professional studies. A reliable, specified screening tool is needed. The Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI) has been found to differentiate normal voices from abnormal voices and to serve as a treatment outcome measure. This study investigated whether AVQI could be a screening tool in combination with auditory- and self-perception of the voice to discriminate normal from slightly poor voices. Experimental. Some 128 female teaching students (mean age 26.39 years, SD 9.80 years) with no diagnosed voice disorders participated in this study. They read aloud a text in Finnish, sustained the vowel /a:/, and filled the Voice Handicap Index (VHI) questionnaire. Voice samples were recorded with an AKG C544L headset microphone, iFocusrite soundcard, and Praat software using a 44100 sample rate and 16-bit amplitude quantization. Five expert voice therapists evaluated the samples to determine the grade of dysphonia (G) using a scale of 0-0.5 (=normal), 0.5-1 (=mild), 1-2 (=moderate), and 2-3 (=severe). Three medial seconds of [a:] and the first 31 syllables of the text were analyzed using AVQI script version 03.01 in Praat (5.3.55). The analysis gives one AVQI score per participant (scale 0-10). The AVQI threshold of normal and disordered voices for Finnish speakers is 1.83; a Gmean = 0.0-0.5 and VHI score <19 were considered normal. Statistical analysis was done using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, Spearman's correlation coefficient, and the independent samples t test. According to the AVQI results, the area under the curve (AROC) was 0.554, which is fair. The Youden index gave a cutoff value of 0.30 with a sensitivity of 85% and a specificity of 81.1%. There were weak but significant correlations between Gmean and AVQI and two AVQI parameters, smoothed cepstral peak prominence and harmonic-to-noise ratio (r = 0.27; --0.24; -0.20, respectively; |P < 0.05); and between total VHI and AVQI score and cepstral peak prominence (r = 0.21; 0.20, respectively; P < 0.05). Furthermore, the AVQI scores differed significantly between the groups with a VHI total score <19 and ≥19. AVQI did not differentiate between voices that had been perceptually judged as normal or slightly abnormal, but a combination of perceptual assessment in the form of AVQI and VHI could better screen slightly deviant voices.

Medicine Radar

Research focusing on online health discussions provides valuable insights into the use of medicines, as well as health-related experiences and difficulties currently not well understood. We introduce Medicine Radar, a tool for exploring health-related online discussions obtained from the Finnish Suomi24 chat forum. The health subset of the entire Suomi24 data consists of 19 million messages written over a time span of 16 years. We outline the method, identify some challenges in analyzing Finnish texts and explain how we overcame them in this specific domain. In particular, we present a novel method for generating domain vocabularies from colloquial texts, which utilizes a combination of machine learning and human input. Medicine Radar is accessible as an open sourced web interface that we hope will inspire and facilitate further research.

Why Is Uncle Paintbrush so Funny? The Case of YouTube Translation of a Syrian Kurdish Wedding Song into Finnish

In late 2009 and early 2010, a craze for a YouTube video titled “Niilin hanhet” (“The geese of Nile”; The Kassitus 2009) and its star, a Syrian Kurd singer who became known as Pensselisetä (“Uncle Paintbrush”), swept Finland. It was not the quality of the performance that made the video stand out from the plethora of YouTube productions, but its subtitling in Finnish. “Niilin hanhet” is an example of a practice known to YouTube users as “buffalaxing.” Named for the YouTube user who pioneered the practice, buffalaxing is a type of phonemic translation that results in rather silly, grammatically incorrect, and salacious phrases that generally—but by no means exclusively—are considered funny by the YouTube audience. In the case of “Niilin hanhet,” lines like “The geese of Nile of my own ass” and “I protect my ass with dusty trips” result from a deliberate mishearing of the Kurdish language as Finnish. More particularly, the outcome is a Finnish text that combines homoerotic imagery with allegedly comedic—and potentially xenophobic—content.

Pauses Reflecting the Processing of Syntactic Units in Monolingual Text Production and Translation

This study explores how the process of translating relates to other types of writing processes by comparing pause lengths preceding syntactic units (words, phrases and clauses) in two types of writing task, a monolingual text production and a translation. It also discusses the grounds for interpreting pause length as a reflection of the cognitive demands of the writing process. The data was collected from 18 professional translators using the Translog keystroke logging software (Jakobsen/Schou 1999). Each subject wrote two texts: an expository text in Finnish and a translation from English into Finnish (Immonen 2006: 316-319). Firstly, phrase boundary pauses were categorised according to type, function and length of phrase. All three features correlate with pause length. On average, predicate phrases are preceded by short pauses, adpositional phrases by long pauses, and pauses preceding noun phrases grow with the length of the phrase. These fi ndings suggest that the processing of the predicate begins before written production of the clause is started, whereas noun phrases and adpositional phrases are processed during writing. Secondly, pauses preceding clauses were categorised with respect to clause type. In monolingual text production, pauses preceding subordinate clauses are on average shorter than those leading to main clauses. In translation, pauses preceding subordinate and main clauses are almost the same length. It seems therefore that, in translation, the main clause and subordinate clause are processed separately despite the fact that the subordinate clause functions as a syntactic unit within the main clause.

Students assessment in 2nd grade mathematics study materials

The aim of the study was to examine how different book series support teacher in the pupil assessment. The focus of the study was on the demand of many-sidedness and continuity of assessment expressed in the curriculum. All materials in three different book series made for 2nd grade were analyzed. All the assessment instructions were collected from the materials and they were quantitatively examined based on their amount and location. The instructions were divided in two groups based on qualitative analysis: hands-on instructions and pedagogical instructions. Based on results Finnish textbook series follow well the concrete aims set out in the curriculum (Opetushallitus, 2004). Instead it is not so straightforward to interpret many-sidedness and continuity because the concepts can be defined in many ways. However, it can be noted that the assessment emphasizes one-sided traditional assessment: teacher gives the assessment, the aim of the assessment is to collect information, the target of the assessment is the learning result, and the method for assessment is quantitative tests. Newer forms of assessment could be found from the researched materials but they didn’t appear very systematically. When researching the continuity of the assessment it was found out that the materials guided teachers to make assessments several times during the semester. The assessment was suggested to perform at the end of the study module. The materials didn’t guide systematically to assess during the study module. FULL TEXT IN FINNISH

Emotions and learning in the chemistry laboratory

In this study, the first-year chemistry laboratory course was renewed and made more intensive, three weeks course. Students’ experiences of the renewed course were examined by analyzing their learning diaries which they were encouraged to keep during the whole course. The purpose of this study was to find out how the intense coursework affects students’ emotions and learning experiences. Thus, the learning diaries were analyzed in order to find out different emotions that students experienced during the course. These emotions were then classified and represented using a model based on a two-dimensional emotion theory. Diversity of students’ emotions during the course gave us important information how emotions influenced on student’s learning and achievement. For teacher it is valuable to understand and deal with the emotions experienced by students while planning and carrying out the laboratory course. This enables not only higher quality teaching, but also more positive learning outcomes for students regarding their chemistry laboratory studies. FULL TEXT IN FINNISH.

Monitasoinen samankaltaisuus: virolaiset ja suomenkielisen tekstin ymmärtäminen

Multidimensional similarity: Estonians and comprehension of Finnish text Previous studies have proven that Finns reading an Estonian text use many different strategies to find the meanings of cognate words. In this article, the factors affecting the Estonians’ ability to understand Finnish are described. It is well known that external similarity promotes intelligibility, but on the other hand, “false friends” can cause misinterpretations if the context does not prevent them. On the other hand, certain concepts connected on the basis of different semantic relationships can contribute to the emergence of correct translation. When dealing with phraseological units the first word primes the occurrence of the second word (target). It is assumed that in the foreign language text the prime, if recognizable in L1, helps to infer the target. In order to test these assumptions, Estonian informants had to translate a short Finnish text into Estonian and explain their choices of translation equivalents for certain words. Most test participants are aged over 20, some of them were 1st year high school students. None of them had had formal instruction in Finnish. he results show that, on the one hand, the relation between hyponyms and hypernyms and, on the other hand, the chain of cause and consequence facili- tates the finding of the meaning of unknown word. However, the translation is mostly based on external similarity of unconnected lexical items which can result in success or failure. The informants justify their proposals for transla- tion equivalents with that kind of similarity but they also rely on the structure of semantic fields and conceptions of coherent texts. The qualities of semantic relations are not bound to the affinity of Estonian and Finnish but to some uni- versal “regularities”, another sort of similarity.

The problem of the Old Finnish passive

AbstractOld Finnish (1540–1809) shows variation between non-promotional and promotional passives. Historically, there is reason to suppose that the Finnic passive was originally promotional and that a shift to a non-promotional passive already took place during Proto-Finnic times. At first sight, the Old Finnish promotional passive could be based on contact with German, Swedish, and the classical languages — but it could also be a Proto-Finnic remnant conserved partially through these language contacts. To ascertain which is the case, I apply the notion advanced byTimberlake (1977)that a syntactic process of reanalysis and extension will first proceed in contexts which are least marked from the viewpoint of the new analysis, to a corpus of Old Finnish texts. The result is that some texts do indeed exhibit a stepwise generalization of non-promotional passives with, for example, indefinite and divisible arguments. This generalization is restricted to non-periphrastic passives: periphrastic passives are generally promotional. I argue that this state of affairs is best explained by assuming that a Proto-Finnic promotional passive remained in use in the language of the Finnish educated elite until early Old Finnish times, and that the non-promotional passive of Old Finnish is innovative.

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

This article approaches literary translation from a contact-linguistic perspective and views translation as a language contact situation in which the translator “moves” between the source and target language. The study touches upon the possible linguistic effects of the source text on the translated text and relates the translation-mediated cross-linguistic influence to other language-contact situations. The study investigates the use of Finnish passive in a corpus of literary texts consisting of Finnish translationsfrom Estonian and German and comparable non-translated Finnish literary texts. The translated texts are compared with non-translated ones by using corpus-linguistic tools, 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. The main objective is to test methodological tools that could be used for this kind of comparative purposes.In addition, the study approaches the question whether translation as a type of language contact affects the use of the Finnish passive in a similar way as an oral language contact situation. All in all, the study shows that there are some features that differentiate the investigated literary translations from non-translated Finnish texts but the evidence is not unambiguous. The article discusses the possible reasons for the mainly non-conclusive results of the analysis and points out factors that should be taken into account in future studies, such as the size of the sub-corpora and the possibly biased text or genre specific stylistic characteristics. The methodology clearly has to be adjusted and more in-depth methods developed in order to acquire a fuller picture of the Finnish passive in literary texts and to confirm what is author, translator, genre or source-language specific in the use of the Finnish passive.

Say Yah to da Finns, Eh! Linguistically Performing Finnishness at Festivals

Abstract This article examines how language is used to perform Finnish American identity at ethnic festivals in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, particularly in the Keweenaw Peninsula, which one festival claims is the “Finnish American nesting place” and “a pivotal center for Finnish American culture” (http://finnfestusa2013.org/). These festivals provide rich opportunities for mapping language and identity, where individuals rely on a range of linguistic practices not only to claim their Finnishness (Wilce 2006), but also to authenticate it by locating it in a particular place through the use of recognizable ethnic and regional features and by enacting it through participation in traditional activities. The significance of language in both defining Finnish American and locating it in the Upper Peninsula is evident in festival advertisements and websites, activities, presentations, and souvenirs, as well as participants' use and display of family names. Meanings associated with these practices and the people–language–place connection are reinforced and legitimized through festival displays, genealogies, census data, traditional folkway demonstrations, Finnish language lessons, the use of Finnish, and references to historical Finnish texts and folklore. More importantly, individuals who come from outside the region and who do not claim Finnish American identities recognize what it means to be “Finnish American” with specific ethnolinguistic features that are recognized as “Finnish.” While social meanings attached to these linguistic practices are key in both their performance and recognition (Beal 2009; Johnstone 2010; Purnell, Raimy, and Salmons 2009), historical processes are also a significant element linking Finnish American identity, language use, and the Upper Peninsula (Remlinger 2007a, 2009), for it is historicity that legitimates these connections (Milroy 2002). Thus, historical, linguistic, and ideological processes contribute to the idea of an authentic Finnish American identity and to locating it in language tied to a particular place.

Responsibility talk in short Finnish texts on personal wellbeing

AbstractResponsibility is a concept with multiple meanings and uses. In relation to wellbeing, it may be used, for example, to define causal agency or taking charge, as well as to define liability and moral obligations to lead a specific lifestyle. In addition, the same issues may also be discussed without using the responsibility concept at all. In this sense, responsibility talk expands beyond the concept and may be seen as a compilation of discourses circling around the concept from different perspectives.In this article, 72 short texts written about personal wellbeing for a Finnish writing competition in 2010 were analysed in order to evaluate how the authors discuss responsibility. The analysis shows that an accountability‐ and blame‐oriented public debate on health and wellbeing is identified by many of the authors in the data. However, for the authors, being responsible mainly means listening to oneself, making decisions and choosing what is good for oneself and for one's loved ones, irrespective of outside pressure to act otherwise. This positively toned definition of responsibility provides a viable starting point for discussing wellbeing in the public domains. Yet the negative connotations also need to be acknowledged. Overall, more theorising and research are still needed.

Marked Subjects in Old Finnish

In the following article, I argue that syntactic borrowing is not an independent mechanism of change, but based on bilingual reanalysis and extension. As a case sample, I examine a frequent modal construction in Old Finnish, namely that involving the auxiliary pitää ‘must’. Where in Modern Finnish this auxiliary takes a genitive or nominative argument depending on such factors as agentivity and clause transitivity, the argument is object-like in a number of Old Finnish texts. I purport to show that this phenomenon rests on the influence of the Latin model pattern of oportet ‘must’ and its accusative and infinitive construction. At the same time, model patterns internal to Old Finnish, specifically those of participial complements to verbs of perception and communication, where the agent of the participle is syntactically the object of the matrix clause, may also have contributed to this development. I argue that in terms of mechanism, the influence of foreign model patterns (oportet) and internal model patterns (the participial constructions) cannot be distinguished: both proceed by reanalysis and (analogical) extension.