Hoffrén, Tuomas (2018). Minä haluan tehdä näin. Minä ajattelen: tämä on hyvä – Natural Semantic Metalanguage suomenkielisessä S2 – kirjallisuudessa [I want to do this. I think: this is good – Natural Semantic Metalanguage in Finnish L2 literature]. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Tampere, Finland. PDF (open access)
Written in Finnish.
How present are NSM primes in Finnish L2-literature? The relevance of NSM for foreign language teaching – be it of Finnish as a second or a foreign language (S2) or of another language (L2) – is based on the assumption that the semantic primes are: 1) easy to learn, 2) common in language per se, and 3) efficient in situations in which the learner has no knowledge of a word or a concept they want to use in the target language. The research question addressed in the thesis is therefore whether these words are taught to learners already in the early stages of their learning.
The research material consists of one widely used S2-textbook: Hyvin menee! (‘It is going well!’) 1. The material is deemed sufficient in determining certain general rules or principles in the area, but the need for further research involving textbooks as well as other materials used in teaching is acknowledged.
The theoretical framework is provided by the NSM approach, on the one hand, and by Second Language Acquisition research (SLA), on the other. Two major areas of research, linguistics and pedagogy, are thus combined. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used. Aspects that need to be acknowledged when using and studying NSM are presented qualitatively. A precise statistical (and therefore quantitative) analysis is based on these aspects.
The analysis shows that the observed 76 primes (an increased number due to differences between Finnish and English) are somewhat unevenly divided in the book. Some primes are very common, others are not present at all. The earlier chapters have fewer primes in them, but the number of primes, along with their distribution, increases notably as the book proceeds. Texts is where the highest number of primes is displayed, but primes are also largely present in the exercises.
The research sets the scene for the elaboration of a possible method of teaching that relies on semantic primes. It outlines a picture of the present situation, on which new research can be built.
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