17.05.2011

Language is a product of interaction

Research on language and language use has traditionally been focused on its written forms. Recently, however, the research attention has turned increasingly to spoken language and language use in interactional situations. As a result, our understanding of language has changed.

"Clause combining was previously seen as a static thing, as if clauses and combinations of clauses were ready-made things. However when we look at speech and language as used in conversation and other interaction, we find that it emerges dynamically during the course of interaction and that the interactional situation itself impacts the way that language is used," says Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, FiDiPro Professor at the University of Helsinki Department of Finnish Language.

Professor Couper-Kuhlen has nothing but praise for the FiDiPro funding programme. "It's a very flexible and supportive programme."

This approach to language is called interactional linguistics. Its aim is to study and understand language and language use in different interactional situations. Professor Couper-Kuhlen herself is one of the leading scholars in this field, and her works on interactional linguistics and clause combining are considered basic reading for an understanding of the subject. She has been pursuing this line of research for the past ten years.

"This represents a new approach to language that we are interested in furthering. Language use is a dynamic process, an outcome of interaction that depends very much on the kind of feedback we get from the other speaker or speakers in the conversation." In conversation, speakers often begin by producing the first part of a clause combination and then add on the second part depending on what kind of feedback they get from the other participants in the conversation.

Interactional linguistics is a multidisciplinary field that combines linguistics, conversation analysis and anthropological research. "The University of Helsinki has a well-established research team of sociologists and linguists who are interested in the organisation of conversation and interaction. In fact, Helsinki is recognised as one of the world centres of conversation analysis. My contribution is to support the linguistic perspective in this work. I was familiar with the work of Professor Laury, and I presume they were familiar with my work, too, since I was invited to this professorship," Professor Couper-Kuhlen explains. Professor Ritva Laury is the Finnish host for this FiDiPro project.

Fruitful cooperation

Professor Couper-Kuhlen's FiDiPro project draws together the research traditions of interactional, functional and cognitive linguistics. Its aim is to explore the syntactic and pragmatic nature of clauses and clause combinations in both spoken and written language and to study how clauses and the functions they express are connected in situations of language use: in speech and text.

The research project has gone extremely well so far. "In fact, the project has expanded somewhat from the original plans. We're focusing more broadly now than was initially intended on grammar and action in interaction."

In Finland, Professor Couper-Kuhlen has been keen to expand the scope of research to include the Finnish language - after all, the professorship resides in the Department of Finnish Language. "I have previously worked with English and German and together with colleagues in Japan studied the Japanese language from an interactional linguistics point of view. It's extremely exciting to branch out into the Finno-Ugric language family."

One interesting question that certainly deserves closer attention is why linking words in the Finnish language are typically thought to belong to the first part of a clause combination, while in English they are thought to belong to the second part: "Does this have something to do with the typology of language, its history or perhaps with the way that people think?"

Couper-Kuhlen has four doctoral candidates on her FiDiPro project with whom she meets regularly. In addition, her FiDiPro duties include teaching one course per semester at university. "In this way, I bring my background and knowledge into the research environment here. This has had some influence on students' choice of topics and the methods they have applied in their thesis projects at both Master's and doctoral level."

Professor Couper-Kuhlen also feels it is important that the discussions she has with her students in the English language help give them greater confidence to talk about their work and get across their ideas: "This is valuable coaching for international conferences."

This line of research and the work undertaken by Finnish researchers has been disseminated at international meetings hosted by the FiDiPro project in Helsinki, first at the opening seminar a couple of years ago and more recently in March this year at a dedicated workshop for researchers in this field.

New home town in Helsinki

Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen has moved to Helsinki for the duration of her FiDiPro professorship. Once a month she also visits Berlin to support her ongoing research project at the Freie Universität. The focus of interest in this project at the Berlin Centre of Excellence is on how emotion and affectivity are reflected in conversational story-telling.

Professor Couper-Kuhlen has nothing but praise for the FiDiPro funding programme. "It's a very flexible and supportive programme. For us it means that our doctoral candidates have the funding they need and that we can build effective international cooperation."

"In general, however, I think there needs to be more discussion within the programme on how newcomer FiDiPros adapt and fit into their departments and how people at the department or in the research team adapt to the new team member. This is a two-way road: the aim is to guarantee maximum benefit for both sides and to draw maximum benefit from the funding."

Professor Couper-Kuhlen has a whole host of plans in place for the remainder of her term until 2013. She intends to press on with her research project and together with Ritva Laury edit a selection of papers from the March workshop for publication in a special journal volume. "And Cambridge University Press have invited me to write a textbook on interactional linguistics, which will take up much of my time over the next year or two. The work we have done in Finland will figure prominently in that book."

Professor Couper-Kuhlen hopes very much she can stay in touch with colleagues in Finland after her term as FiDiPro professor. "And not just in order to keep up my language skills!"

"This four-year stay in Finland is a bit like a parenthesis in a sentence. You interrupt what you were saying to put in a parenthetical remark, but then notice that that remark influences what you are going to say next and where you pick up. This visit of mine is like an extended parenthetical remark in my life. I will have been changed during this time, and it will influence the rest of my life."

Text: Riitta Tirronen
Professor Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen portraits: Olli Häkämies

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