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The Linguistic Association of Finland Master’s Degree Award Competition 2024

Since 2011, the Linguistic Association of Finland (SKY) has awarded a prize for a particularly meritorious master’s degree thesis in linguistics. Last year, the prize went to Noora Ahola for her thesis in the field of general linguistics, Inalienably possessed lexical items: A microtypological analysis of the languages of New Guinea.

The prize is awarded annually at the association’s annual meeting in February. The prize to be awarded in 2025 applies to works completed between 1 October 2023 and 30 September 2024. The amount of the prize is decided annually at the association’s board meeting. The winner will also be awarded a year’s membership in SKY, where the winner of the prize also has the opportunity to present their research at the association’s annual meeting in the spring.

Substantiated proposals for the award are requested from the supervisors of master’s degrees. The thesis to be awarded can represent any field of linguistics and subject of language represented at Finnish universities. Theoretical ambition and a perspective that questions or develops prevailing linguistic theories, methods, and paradigms are considered to be of particular merit, but naturally all proposals are equally welcome. We would like to ask you to pay attention to the length of the theses: an excellent master’s thesis does not have to be longer than a thesis that meets the usual dimensions.

Substantiated proposals and an electronic version of the thesis itself must be sent by email to the SKY board of directors at taivo (at) utu.fi by 15.11.2024. (If the thesis is online, a link to it is sufficient.)

Proposals with attachments can also be sent on paper. Proposals submitted by post and two copies of the thesis itself should be addressed to the SKY board and must be received by 15 November 2024 at the latest to the address:

The Linguistic Association of Finland c/o Silja-Maija Spets
Department of Finnish and Finno-Ugric Languages
Arcanuminkuja 1
20500 Turku.

The proposal is free-form, but it must indicate the author of the work, the topic, supervisor(s), and a brief justification on why the proposed work is worthy of the award (e.g. what new information it brings). Statement(s) of the reviewers of the work may be attached. Late proposals will not be taken into account.

The board of the association will select the work to be awarded at its meeting. The award winner and the supervisor who made the proposal will be notified of the award.

For more information, contact the SKY secretary at smespe@utu.fi.