2018, October 18–19
Place: Municipalities in Värmland, Sweden (Specific locations withheld for ethical reasons)
Varieties: immigrants' varieties and local dialects
Together with colleagues from Uppsala university: Lena Ekberg (org.), Margareta Svahn, Ellen Bijvoet, Lise Horneman Hansen
Funded by Uppsala university, Dept of Scandinavian Languages.
2014 fall; 2015 spring
Places (hubs): Vaasa, Närpes & Pedersöre in Swedish-language Ostrobothnia, Finland
Varieties: immigrants' varieties, esp. in the Närpes and Pedersöre areas
Organizer and leader together with Lena Ekberg; 2015 fieldwork with four students of Scandinavian languages, University of Helsinki. Project: LIRA; funded by cooperation between the University of Helsinki and Stockholm university, Sweden.
2012, fall
Place (fieldwork hub): Kristinestad, Finland
Dialects: Kristinestad, Kaskö, Närpes, Härkmeri, Sideby, Lappfjärd, Tjöck - all southern Swedish-language Ostrobothnian
Organizer and leader; together with a dozenn students from the discipline Scandinavian languages, University of Helsinki. Funded by the Society of Swedish literature in Finland (SLS).
2007, May 29 - June 1
Place: Älvdalen, Dalarna, Sweden
Dialects: Övdalian varieties of Swedish
Participant in the fieldwork organized by NORMS.
2006, June 3-7
Place (fieldwork hub): Jakobstad, Finland
Dialects: most northern Swedish-language Ostrobothnian dialects and town varieties
Organizer and leader; together with half a dozen scholars from different parts of Scandinavia. Under the auspices of, and funded by NORMS.
2004, winter
Place: Pargas, Åboland, Finland
Dialect: Pargas
Organizer and leader; together with ca ten students from the discipline Scandinavian languages, University of Helsinki.
2003, winter
Place (fieldwork hub): Kuggom, eastern Nyland, Finland
Dialects: Liljendal, Lappträsk, Pernå
Organizer and leader; together with ca ten students from the discipline Scandinavian languages, University of Helsinki.
Publication: Helena Palmén, Caroline Sandström & Jan-Ola Östman (eds.), 2008. Dialekt i östra Nyland. Fältarbete i Liljendal med omnejd ('Dialect in eastern Nyland. Fieldwork in and around Liljendal'). University of Helsinki: Nordica Helsingiensia vol. 14.
1998, winter
Place: Solf, Swedish-language Ostrobothnia, Finland
Dialect: Solv (Sv, mÖb)
Organizer and leader; together with ca ten students from the University of Helsinki General linguistics department, which funded the expedition.
1980-1985
Place: Solf, Swedish-language Ostrobothnia, Finland
Dialect: Solv (Sv, mÖb)
Annual fieldtrips to the village, collecting material for my PhD dissertation Pragmatics as Implicitness, submitted in 1986 to the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley.
I consider fieldwork the best way to get reliable data for linguistic analysis, and I have developed a number of not-so-traditional ways of collecting information and data. For instance, I produced the film "A strawberry-shaped day" as a Nordic alternative to Wallace Chafe's famous Pear film. The Strawberry film has then been used as a prompt and stimulus in order to get narrative and interactive data.
Over the years, I have organized and been involved in several fieldwork expeditions, primarily in Swedish-language Finland. I was also a member of the steering committee of the large-scale data-gathering endeavor Spara det finlandssvenska talet that the Society of Swedish literature in Finland (SLS) financed 2005-2008, resulting in interviews and discussions with some 1,000 (dialect) speakers of Swedish in Finland.
© Jan-Ola Östman 2024