{"id":576,"date":"2019-12-17T12:50:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T12:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/?p=576"},"modified":"2019-12-17T12:51:21","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T12:51:21","slug":"philology-pragmatics-and-code-switching-my-first-viva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/2019\/12\/17\/philology-pragmatics-and-code-switching-my-first-viva\/","title":{"rendered":"Philology, pragmatics and code-switching: My first viva"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I had never been to a doctoral defence also known as a viva before, so I was immediately interested when I heard there was one taking place with our very own Aleksi M\u00e4kil\u00e4hde on the hot seat. Aleksi\u2019s doctoral dissertation is called The Philological-Pragmatic Approach: A Study of Language Choice and Code-Switching in Early Modern English School Performances<\/em> and as the title suggests, it examines code-switching in plays and poems by school boys at the King\u2019s School, Canterbury, in 1665\u20131684. Eager to learn more about the subject, I decided to attend the viva, which took place 5 December 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This being\nmy first viva, I wasn\u2019t quite sure how I should dress. The event soon starting\nat the Quantum Auditorium, I hastily did a few Google searches and found out\nthat as an audience member, one is not expected to wear anything too fancy. I\ndidn\u2019t want to go under-dressed, so I took off my hoodie, put on a smart shirt\nand off I went. As I arrived at Quantum, I saw the candidate himself pacing\naround in the hall. I grabbed a copy of the thesis and sat at the back of the\nroom. I looked at the people around me and judged my choice of clothes to be\nfitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A few\nminutes passed. Suddenly everyone jumped up as the candidate walked in,\nfollowed by the custos, Professor Emeritus Risto Hiltunen, and the opponent, Professor\nEmeritus Herbert Schendl from the University of Vienna. The custos and the\nopponent were wearing colourful old-timey robes, which I assumed were\ncustomary, but later learned differ depending on the university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe custos spoke a few words, the candidate briefly presented his thesis\nin Finnish and then it was time for the opponent to ask his questions. The\ndiscussion was more informal and relaxed than I had anticipated. Some questions\nwere more hard-hitting, but mostly it was a friendly discussion about the\ndifference between a code-switch and a loanword, and what kind of consequences\ncode-switching could have. I have to be honest; the discussion went quite deep\ninto the nitty-gritty and at times, I had a hard time following. The highlight\nof the discussion was when Aleksi got up to the blackboard and drew something\nresembling a wedding cake to illustrate the complex nature of a\nplay-within-a-play.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some two\nhours after it began, the discussion ended, and the opponent gave his finishing\nstatement. He commended the candidate\u2019s hard work of developing a new philological-pragmatic\napproach and his detailed analysis of code-switching in the school plays. The\ncustos, who had remained silent the whole time (which is customary) declared\nthe viva to be over. Outside the auditorium, hands were shaken, gifts were given,\nand cake was had. To my disappointment, there was not a top hat nor sword in\nsight. I guess those were saved for later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gratulationes<\/em> to Aleksi on his achievement and\nall the best in his future career!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Text by Otto Tarkka<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photos by Janne Skaffari<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had never been to a doctoral defence also known as a viva before, so I was immediately interested when I heard there was one taking place with our very own Aleksi M\u00e4kil\u00e4hde on the hot seat. Aleksi\u2019s doctoral dissertation … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,25,31],"tags":[32,11,20],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-research","category-special-occasions","tag-phd-process","tag-students","tag-this-disputation-is-now-concluded"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":591,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions\/591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}