English Philology at University of Helsinki

Introduction to VARIENG

The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.
- R. W. Emerson
VARIENG is a Centre of Excellence for the Study of Variation, Contacts and Change in English. It has about 50 members from the Universities of Helsinki and Jyväskylä, and is funded by these two universities and the Academy of Finland for the period 2006-2011.

VARIENG members study English in its social, regional and discourse contexts. Special attention is given to the development of the English language from its earliest stages up to its present-day varieties. A recent focus of VARIENG research is language use in contact situations, including those between English and the national languages of Finland.

VARIENG members focus on empirical research. They compile and utilize electronic corpora of English, and develop tools and methods for corpus-based and ethnographic studies. These resources make up an essential part of the VARIENG infrastructure, and also benefit the research community at large.

One of the methodological challenges that VARIENG members have to come to terms with is how to adequately describe linguistic variability. The answer lies in crossing disciplinary boundaries within linguistics, and integrating into linguistic research a variety of approaches and methods from other fields such as social history, research into culture and learning, and computer science.

Every year, VARIENG is happy to host a number of visits by fellow researchers from all over the world.

VARIENG AIMS

• – to produce new findings and collect baseline evidence in and across its three focus domains of Language in Society, Language as Discourse, and Linguistic Processes and Typology.
• to cross boundaries between traditional studies of variation and discourse analysis by creating new interdisciplinary methodologies.
• to create new syntheses concerning variation, contacts and change both in the language system and in language use: in genres and patterns of discourse, and in their social embedding and construction by language users.

Contact information:

Director: Prof. Terttu Nevalainen
Deputy Director: Prof. Irma Taavitsainen
Coordinator: Dr. Heli Tissari

Phone: +358 (0)9 191 23104
Visiting address: Vironkatu 1, 3rd and 4th floors Map
Mailing address: P.O. Box 24, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki

Read more from:

→ eSeries
http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/journal/volumes/index.html

→ Kielen kannoilla
VARIENG’s blog
http://variblog.wordpress.com/

→ VARIENG web pages
http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/