Karita Suomalainen profile picture
Karita
Suomalainen
Finnish, Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian languages
FT, PhD

Areas of expertise

everyday conversation
Finnish language
Finnish as second and foreign language
grammar
interactional linguistics
person
reference
spoken language

Biography

I received my MA in Finnish language at the University of Helsinki in 2015. In 2016–2020, I worked as a PhD researcher at the University of Turku in the project "Arkisyn: Morphosyntactically coded database of conversational Finnish" (funded by Kone Foundation). I recieved my doctoral degree (University of Turku) in January 2021, after defending my doctoral dissertation in December 2020. Currently, I am a visiting researcher at Aarhus University in "Grammar in Everyday Life" (GEL) project.

Teaching

I have completed Teacher's Pedagogical Studies (60 ECTS credits, University of Helsinki, 2015). I have taught at the Universities of Copenhagen, Stockholm and Turku. I have teaching expertise in the following areas: conversation analysis; grammar; Finnish for foreigners; general linguistics; interactional linguistics; pragmatics.

Research

My main research interests lie in the area of interactional linguistics. In particular, I have worked on referentiality and the use of person forms in interaction. My doctoral dissertation examined the use of second person singular forms in Finnish everyday conversations. In addition, I have also studied the use person form more generally, especially the open use of person expressions, and examined the question of units in language and interaction from the point of view of fixed expressions.

My current research projects focus on the fixed use of verbal constructions expressing person, referential expressions in psychotherapeutic interaction, and the linguistic and interactional means of creating and modulating participation in Finnish everyday conversations. I am also associated with a group of researchers (DanTIN, Aarhus University) working on a grammatical description of Danish talk-in-interaction.

Publications

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