In the autumn semester of 2017 Tino Oudesluijs visited the University of Tampere as a visiting doctoral researcher on a scholarship of the Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI), where he worked on his Ph.D. project on language variation and change in Coventry between 1400 and 1700. During his time there, he focused on the transcription and analysis of a large part of the project’s Early Modern dataset, comprising local civic records and other administrative texts from Coventry, as well as on writing about that data in its socio-historical context. Being in Tampere allowed Tino to work with and discuss his research with senior scholars working in the field of historical sociolinguistics such as Minna Nevala, Païvi Pahta and Arja Nurmi, but – being in Finland – also with scholars from for example Helsinki, in particular with the people from the DEMLANG project, i.e. Minna Palander-Collin and Turo Hiltunen. Furthermore, he presented his on-going research on a number of occasions to various audiences (other doctoral students, the DEMLANG team, colleagues in Helsinki.).
Besides working on his project, Tino was also able to talk to the doctoral students working in Tampere and experience a different working environment, in which he could exchange thoughts and opinions on how doctoral researchers can approach different projects. His time here has been extremely fruitful and stimulating, and we are grateful to the Finnish National Agency for Education for giving him the opportunity to work here.