I defended my PhD in Finnish language at the University of Turku in June 2023. In my dissertation (Aarikka 2023), I studied the history of Finnish dialect study and its language ideologies. I am still working on questions related to the history of my field in my post-doc project “In the Footsteps of a Scientific Nomad”, funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, where I study Lauri Kettunen and especially his Finnish dialects [Suomen murteet] series. Lauri Kettunen (1885–1963) was a prolific researcher of Finno-Ugric languages and a professor of Estonian and its related languages at the University of Helsinki. My goal is not only to publish scientific articles but also to write a book about Kettunen.
In 2023–2025, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the “Linguistic Variation, Social Class and Experiences on Inequality in Eastern Finland” project (LINSOC), led by Hanna Lappalainen, Professor of Finnish language at the University of Eastern Finland. In the project, the primary focus of my research was language regard and ideologies related to the connections between language and social class.
I can be described as a theoretically oriented researcher. In other words, I am interested in the basic concepts of my field: how language regard and ideologies affect how language has been and is being studied? I have studied, for example, how and why Finnish dialect research – and spoken language research more broadly – has named the language under study “free”, “spontaneous” and “natural” (Aarikka 2024).
Despite my theoretical orientation, I find fieldwork to be one of the most enjoyable stages of research, which in my case has meant interviewing. The most difficult, important, tiring and rewarding part of interviewing is to really listen to what the interviewee is saying. I think that my most essential task as an interviewer is to create a safe and open space where the interviewee and their opinions are the center of attention.