Deaf asylum seekers are a marginalized group of people in refugee and forced migration studies. The aim of this paper is to explore and highlight the experiences of deaf asylum seekers in the asylum procedure in Finland. The data come from linguistic ethnographic methods, interviews, and ethnographic observation with 10 deaf asylum seekers. While living in the reception centers, the study participants have faced a range of linguistic and social challenges. The findings show that language barriers appeared from day one after the participants’ arrival in Finland. The investment and initiatives of deaf volunteers played a crucial role for deaf asylum seekers in their access to and participation in Finnish society. In addition, receiving formal Finnish sign language instruction had a positive effect on their well-being. Drawing on content analysis of deaf asylum seekers’ experiences, I argue that greater awareness, recognition, and support of deaf asylum seekers are needed in the Finnish asylum system. I conclude this paper with a discussion of and suggestions for a better asylum system for deaf individuals.

In this paper we explore the use of multimodal and multilingual semiotic resources in interactions between two deaf signing participants, a researcher and an asylum seeker. The focus is on the use of gaze and environmentally coupled gestures. Drawing on multimodal analysis and linguistic ethnography, we demonstrate how gaze and environmentally coupled gestures are effective semiotic resources for reaching mutual understanding. The study provides insight into the challenges and opportunities (deaf) asylum seekers, researchers, and employees of reception centres or the state may encounter because of the asymmetrical language competencies. Our concern is that such asymmetrical situations may be created and maintained by ignoring visual and embodied resources in interaction and, in the case of deaf asylum seekers, by unrealistic expectations towards conventionalized forms of international sign.

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Tässä artikkelissa tarkastellaan kahden kuuron turvapaikanhakijan, Monan ja Omarin, kielikäsityksiä haastatteluaineiston pohjalta. Artikkelin tavoitteena on lisätä ymmärrystä siitä, miten turvapaikkaprosessin aikaiset kokemukset kielistä ovat muokanneet haastateltavien käsityksiä kielistä ja kielikäytänteistä. Tutkimus perustuu lingvistiseen etnografiaan teoreettisena ja metodologisena lähestymistapana. Aineisto koostuu kolmesta etnografisesta haastattelusta, jotka tehtiin vuosina 2015–2017 vastaanottokeskuksissa ja haastateltavien uudessa kodissa. Aineisto on analysoitu sisällönanalyysin avulla. Tutkimuksesta selviää, että haastateltavien kielikäsitykset ovat muokkautuneet tilassa, ajassa ja erilaisten arvojärjestelmien ja sosiaalisten käytänteiden, kuten turvapaikkaprosessin, keskellä. Uudet opitut kielet ovat haastateltaville kielellisesti saavutettavampia kuin aiemmat käytetyt kielet ja kielikäytänteet.

Reading with relief One cold winter afternoon, we, three Finland-based researchers in Applied Language Studies, decided to share a reading experience. What started out as a book review exercise turned into a reading circle that critically explored ideas at the intersection of ethics, methodologies, and researcher identities in our field. In the introductory chapter to their edited volume, Heath Rose and Jim McKinley (2017) define the pedagogical and academic space in which they situate their book. Doing Research in Applied Linguistics: Realities, dilemmas and solutions promises the reader guidance and insights into how to deal with challenges arising in research conducted with, by and on "real people in real settings"; in other words, the authors present advice and reassurance for situations where things don't go as planned in research. Setting their work apart from existing textbooks in Applied Linguistics (e.g., Dörnyei, 2007; Mackey & Gass, 2005), Rose and McKinley promise to offer not merely "preventative" but also "curative advice" on issues that "arise and must be dealt with during the research process" (2017, p. 4). As researchers at different stages of our careers (doctoral, postdoctoral, and senior), we were intrigued by this book because it dealt with questions we all were familiar with. We were excited to see a publication that discussed research so authentically and did not try to depict the process as (having to be) clean, smooth and polished. For instance, all of us, particularly in the early years of our academic trajectories, had felt pressure to create something completely new or discover uncharted theoretical territories and ended up getting caught in "academic crossfire" (Rose, 2017, p. 27) between conflicting theories or paradigms. This volume provides relief and support for all researchers, especially those who feel such or similar pressures, by uncovering the kind of tacit academic knowledge that is not always openly available but that we all need in order to cope with unexpected theoretical, methodological or processual shifts and challenges. Through conversations around such knowledge of coping, which had previously rarely been made explicit to us, we kept coming back to the authors' notion of "cure". Its implication that something in a research process