Language in Use: Structures and Interaction
Led by: Pentti Haddington (U. of Helsinki) and Marja-Liisa Helasvuo (University of Tampere)

The research in this sub-programme focuses on linguistic form and meaning. It studies how they are manifest in spoken and written discourse, and how they are relate, on the one hand, to human cognition and, on the other hand, to social situations and institutions. Since language is characteristically symbolic, meanings in it are associated to linguistic form and expressed through them. Meaning is also studied in its context; many linguistic structures and features are indexical, which means that they mediate information about contextual features.

One starting point for studying the meanings of utterances, expressions and phrases is to focus on linguistic form (for example by studying individual words, such as particles and study their usage potential, or by studying constructions on utterance or sentence level). One can also start by focusing on a social phenomenon, a social situation or a social action. Additionally, one can study how language is used for producing new meanings and for constructing the world and context around us. In other words, one can study how language is not only a reflection of the world but also dynamically constructs and creates it.

In general, the research conducted in this sub-programme is oriented towards theory, but at the same time, it leans strongly on empirical data that come from different everyday and institutional conversations and written texts. Linguistic patterns, constructions and structures are largely studied with respect to human cognition and linguistic emergence. With this background, researchers in this sub-programme draw on such central theoretical frameworks as interactional linguistics, (systemic-)functional grammar, cognitive grammar and construction grammar. Methodological tools may also come from conversation analysis or (critical) discourse analysis and pragmatics.

Language system is not seen as a unified or static entity but as something that is under constant and dynamic change. Spoken and written discourses are investigated both as structural phenomena and as processes. Typically researchers in this sub-programme study different kinds of interactional situations, institutional and media discourses and textual genres. They study such issues as how language and language use is related to minorities and otherness, how literary texts are connected to different genre conventions and how linguistic structures are related to cognition.