Tietoa blogista // About the blog

This blog documents the activities and events (co)organized by the members of the project Kieliviha/ Språkhat/ Language Tensions. The project is funded by the Kone Foundation and is carried out at the University of Eastern Finland.

Project team:

• Tuija Saresma, PI, Professor
• Karin Sandell, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Eastern Finland and Åbo Akademi
• Karin Creutz, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Eastern Finland and University of Helsinki
• Evgenia Amey, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Eastern Finland

About the project: The project Language tensions focuses on what we term “language hatred” (“kieliviha” in Finnish, “språkhat” in Swedish), which is a form of language-based hate speech, i.e., stigmatizing and harmful communication, targeted at linguistic groups. It can be directed at the speakers of a specific language, but also encompasses wider stereotypes and attitudes. We study expressions of hate directed at Swedish and Russian speakers in Finland, particularly on social media, examining its nature and effects, producers and targets, and platforms on which it spreads. We also examine language-based hate directed at the Finnish-speaking minority in Sweden and Finns in Russia.

Sociocultural, political and cross-border conflicts often manifest in attitudes towards particular linguistic minorities. Language hatred is a practice that creates a perception of “us” as a norm from which other language groups in society deviate. Looking at how language tensions manifest through expressions of hate allows for examining power relationships, belonging and identification, as well as exclusion, such as xenophobia and nationalist extremism. We analyse language-based hate at the intersections of the axes of power: language is only one of the factors that determine a person’s social status, with other factors being gender, “ethnicity” or “race”, religion, sexual orientation, education and socioeconomic class. We take these factors into account in our analysis of the (1) textual-discursive, (2) interactional, and (3) sociopolitical levels of language-based hate, as the phenomenon has become more widespread over the past year.

Our interdisciplinary research team consists of three postdoctoral researchers and a professor who have studied hate speech, conflicts, belonging and exclusion from different perspectives. The project crosses disciplinary boundaries and national borders by focusing on language tensions with regards to different linguistic groups through multiple methods, including qualitative content analysis, internet ethnography, surveys, interviews and analysis of mass data using machine learning methods.