“Hyppy, jump, hoppa” - Multilingual dog handling in Finnish dog sports : A mixed methods study

Abstract

This master’s thesis studies how multilingual commands are used in Finnish dog sports. The study focuses on the language used by Finnish agility and rally obedience athletes in training and competition situations. The goal of the thesis is to find out how and why multilingual commands are used in dog sports and how they reflect the language identity of the dog handler. The material for the thesis was collected through an open survey and half structured interviews. The participants for the study had to do agility or rally obedience and use commands in multiple languages, and they were searched for through social media. The results were analyzed using quantitative data analysis and thematizing, and the results were inspected through the perspectives of human-animal communication, multilingualism and language identity. The study shows that multilingualism in dog handling most often occurs as singular stand-alone command words. The reason for using multiple languages is usually to fill a need, such as a need for new or different command words. While for some people the choice to use multiple languages is tied to multilingualism or their language identity, for most the choice to use multiple languages is out of practicality.