Who are you?
My name is Emmi Lahti and I am a grant researcher at the University of Helsinki. I finished my doctoral dissertation on Finnish in 2019. I am especially interested in argumentation and rhetoric as well as on critical discourse analysis. I am fascinated by the various ways in which language participates in the social construction of reality.
What is your research topic?
In my dissertation research, I analyzed the rhetoric of discussions on immigration. As data, I used immigration related discussion threads on Suomi 24 from the year 2015. In particular, I investigated the linguistic construction of various groups, the types of arguments and argumentation strategies used and the ways of showing agreement or disagreement with other participants in the discussions.
The results of the study showed how mutual solidarity and support are expressed by the like-minded discussants who are opposed to immigration and how these participants construct a common view of the world and common argumentation.
How is your research related to Kielipankki?
In my doctoral study, I utilized the Suomi 24 corpora available in Kielipankki – the Language Bank of Finland. The Suomi 24 Sentences Corpus (2016H2) can be used via the Korp user interface in Kielipankki, and the corresponding data referred to as the Suomi 24 Corpus (2016H2) can be downloaded for research purposes. In my study, I ended up selecting the downloadable version of the corpus from which I collected 117 discussion threads for my analysis.
Publications related to Kielipankki
Lahti, Emmi (2019). Maahanmuuttokeskustelun retoriikkaa. Doctoral dissertation. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.
The FIN-CLARIN consortium consists of a group of Finnish universities along with CSC – IT Center for Science and the Institute for the Languages of Finland (Kotus). FIN-CLARIN helps the researchers in Finland to use, to refine, to preserve and to share their language resources. The Language Bank of Finland is the collection of services that provides the language materials and tools for the research community.