Learning language, learning culture: Constructing Finnishness in adult learner textbooks

Learning a second language can be considered a primary example of what Berger and Luckmann call ‘secondary socialisation’. Through careful decisions concerning what to include and what to omit, textbooks have the power to direct what a beginner can and should say in their target language. Additionally, textbooks have the responsibility of representing the cultures that speak the language. Much of a language learner’s initial understanding of a national culture in its own language is dependent on the constructions of that culture in their learning resources. This article examines how two widely used series of Finnish language textbooks for adult learners construct ‘typical’ Finnishness and the implications of these constructions for contemporary debates about national identity. Through an application of a version of critical discourse analysis, we show that the hegemonic image of Finnishness conforms to the stereotype of a modern, advanced and nature-loving people. But the image is also middle-class, White and conventional (even conservative) in terms of gender equality and sexuality. We argue that the textbooks have a key role in creating an inclusive sense of the host culture and that this inclusiveness is an asset for language acquisition, although at the moment they fall short of this aim

Characterization of human cytomegalovirus genome diversity in immunocompromised hosts by whole genomic sequencing directly from clinical specimens

Background: Advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies allow comprehensive studies of genetic diversity over the entire genome of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), a significant pathogen for immunocompromised individuals. Methods: NGS was performed on target-enriched sequence libraries prepared directly from a variety of clinical specimens (blood, urine, breast-milk, respiratory samples, biopsies and vitreous humor) obtained longitudinally or from different anatomical compartments from 20 HCMV-infected patients (renal transplant recipients, stem cell transplant recipients and congenitally infected children). Results: De novo assembled HCMV genome sequences were obtained for 57/68 sequenced samples. Analysis of longitudinal or compartmental HCMV diversity revealed various patterns: no major differences were detected among longitudinal, intra-individual blood samples from 9/15 patients and in most of the patients with compartmental samples, whereas a switch of the major HCMV population was observed in six individuals with sequential blood samples and upon compartmental analysis of one patient with HCMV retinitis. Variant analysis revealed additional aspects of minor virus population dynamics and antiviral resistance mutations. Conclusions: In immunosuppressed patients, HCMV can remain relatively stable or undergo drastic genomic changes that are suggestive of the emergence of minor resident strains or de novo infection