Kielensisäisesti

Kielensisäisesti is a Finnish adverb meaning “intra-linguistically” or “within the language system.” In scholarly use, it denotes phenomena or analyses that pertain to the internal, mental structure of a language, including grammar, phonology, morphology, and syntactic representations, rather than to external circumstances such as social context or communicative setting.

The term appears chiefly in Finnish-language linguistic writing and is not widely standardized in international linguistics. Authors employing Kielensisäisesti may contrast internalist perspectives with externalist or usage-based approaches, or they may describe research that relies on data believed to reflect the speaker’s internal grammar—such as native-language intuitions, grammaticality judgments, or theoretical constraints—rather than superficial performance data observed in actual use.

Versions of the concept can emphasize different facets, from abstract competence models to cognitive processes that operate inside the language system during production and comprehension. Because Finnish terminology can vary, the precise scope of Kielensisäisesti can differ between authors or subfields, and the term should be interpreted in its textual context.

In broader terms, Kielensisäisesti relates to internalist approaches in linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive linguistics, with implications for theories of grammar, language acquisition, and mental representation.