Research Interests: Sociology, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Languages and Linguistics, Pragmatics, and 15 moreSociolinguistics, Statistical Analysis, Linguistics, Swedish, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Swedish Language, Institutional discourse, Greeting rituals, Service Encounters, Indexicality, Pluricentric Languages, Variational pragmatics, Greetings, Interactional Analysis, and General language studies and linguistics
Research Interests: Psychology, Language and Social Interaction, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, Social Interaction, and 12 moreInteractional Sociolinguistics, Academic discourse, Conversation, Swedish Language, Finland-Swedish, Institutional discourse, Interlanguage Pragmatics, Feedback, Pluricentric Languages, Interlanguage and Intercultural Pragmatics Cross Cultural Pragmatics, finlandssvenska, and General language studies and linguistics
This chapter explores multilingualism in higher education in the Nordic countries with a particular focus on the University of Helsinki. It applies policy analysis and discourse analytic approaches in an effort to scrutinize the existence... more
This chapter explores multilingualism in higher education in the Nordic countries with a particular focus on the University of Helsinki. It applies policy analysis and discourse analytic approaches in an effort to scrutinize the existence of language policies at different levels (EU, national, and university), their outputs and outcomes. We provide a showcase of how policy input, output and outcomes can be analysed according to a model applicable to the assessment of policy implementation. Our studies stress the importance of making distinctions between both overt and covert language policies, and between explicit and implicit language use. The study illustrates the nature of covert policies in the universities in Northern Europe that we have studied and the concomitant linguistic manifestations of these policies. A general tendency is an increasing internationalisation within higher education. This is supported by EU-level soft policies. Our findings raise questions about the impact that this policy has on multilingualism. The linguistic scene in higher education institutions in Northern Europe appears to be moving towards bilingualism in national languages and English, with the exception of some minority languages with special status. Our research shows that language policies are essential from a minority’s perspective. A general lack of evaluation and follow-up can, however, be seen. A further broadening of the language repertoires is proposed.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Geography, Sociolinguistics, Conversation Analysis, Institutional talk, and 14 moreLinguistics, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Conversational Discourse, Conversation, Swedish Language, Finland-Swedish, Address Terms, Forms of address, Pluricentric Languages, Pluricentricity, Direct Address, Variational pragmatics, Address Forms, and General language studies and linguistics
This article compares variation in the use of address practices across languages (Swedish, Finnish) and national varieties (Sweden Swedish, Finland Swedish). It undertakes quantitative and qualitative analyses of three sets of transcribed... more
This article compares variation in the use of address practices across languages (Swedish, Finnish) and national varieties (Sweden Swedish, Finland Swedish). It undertakes quantitative and qualitative analyses of three sets of transcribed medical consultations. In Sweden Swedish, address pronouns which lower social distance overwhelmingly dominate. In Finnish, both address forms reducing social distance and practices maintaining greater distance are found, with age and level of acquaintance revealed as the most salient factors. Finland Swedish is located somewhere between Sweden Swedish and Finnish, displaying a stronger tendency than Finnish to use informal direct address forms to reduce social distance, but also showing similarities with Finnish in the use of direct formal address and indirect address. The differences can be related to larger socio-cultural patterns which, however, form a continuum rather than a fixed set keeping the two languages and countries completely apart.
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This study examines positive low- and high-grade assessments in service encounters between customers and salespersons conducted in Swedish and recorded in Sweden and Finland. The assessments occur in a regular sequential pattern as... more
This study examines positive low- and high-grade assessments in service encounters between customers and salespersons conducted in Swedish and recorded in Sweden and Finland. The assessments occur in a regular sequential pattern as third-turn moves that complete request-delivery sequences, longer coherent requesting sections, or request sequences in a pre-closing context. The positive valence of the assessments coheres with the satisfactory outcome of task completion, but their function is primarily pragmatic, used for segmenting the flow of task-oriented institutional interaction. The assessments stand as lexical TCUs, and their delivery is characterized by downgraded prosody and the speaker’s embodied shift away from the other. The analysis reveals distributional differences in the interactional practice: Customers produce task-completing assessments more often than the salespersons, and high-grade assessments are more frequent in the data from Sweden than from Finland. The data are in Sweden Swedish and Finland Swedish with English translations.
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Swedish is a pluricentric language and has official status in both Sweden and Finland. Until recently, most studies on such languages have focused on differences and similarities in grammar and lexicon, and less on pragmatic variation. We... more
Swedish is a pluricentric language and has official status in both Sweden and Finland. Until recently, most studies on such languages have focused on differences and similarities in grammar and lexicon, and less on pragmatic variation. We suggest that a pragmatic perspective is of help in understanding the relationship between national varieties, and in this study we investigate greetings in Sweden Swedish and Finland Swedish. Previous comparisons of the two varieties suggest that Sweden Swedish is less formal than Finland Swedish, and in this article we problematise the concept of formality and discuss whether formality could explain any differences in the use of greetings. We use three data sets from each of the two countries: videorecorded service encounters from box offices and information desks, recorded focus groups, and experiments. Combined, the data suggest that the Finland-Swedish greeting repertoire is larger than the Sweden-Swedish one, and that Swedish speakers in Finland are therefore more sensitive to social distance than their counterparts in Sweden. At the same time, the study highlights the complexity in the use of greetings, and shows that variables such as gender, age, context and degree of acquaintance all play an important part in the use of greetings in both Sweden Swedish and Finland Swedish.
Research Interests: Intercultural Communication, Languages and Linguistics, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, Social Interaction, and 12 moreComparative Linguistics, Swedish, Swedish Language, Language Variation, Finland-Swedish, Sweden, Finland, Pluricentric Languages, Pluricentricity, Variational pragmatics, Greetings, and Pluricentric Language
This chapter investigates the use of imperative-formatted directives in Swedish medical consultations. The specific focus of the chapter is the division of labor between straight, non-modulated imperative turns and imperative turns which... more
This chapter investigates the use of imperative-formatted directives in Swedish medical consultations. The specific focus of the chapter is the division of labor between straight, non-modulated imperative turns and imperative turns which are modulated with a discourse particle or some other verbal mitigating device. The results show that non-modulated imperative turns are embedded in diagnostic work, nominating subsequent actions in a series. Orientations to projected trajectories of action and the other participant's expectations are clearly present when modulated
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I denna artikel diskuterar vi likheter och skillnader i hur kunder i Sverige och Finland framför sitt ärende då de kommer för att hämta eller boka biljetter på teatrar och liknande platser. Forskningen som presenteras i artikeln har... more
I denna artikel diskuterar vi likheter och skillnader i hur kunder i Sverige och Finland framför sitt ärende då de kommer för att hämta eller boka biljetter på teatrar och liknande platser. Forskningen som presenteras i artikeln har ut-förts inom projektet Interaktion och variation i pluricentriska språk (IVIP), 1 vars huvudsyfte är att utforska kommunikativa mönster i sverigesvenska och finlandssvenska med fokus på tre typer av institutionella samtal: servi-cesamtal, lärandesamtal och vårdsamtal (se t.ex. Norrby m.fl. 2014; Wide 2016).
Research Interests: Discourse Analysis, Languages and Linguistics, Language and Social Interaction, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, and 13 moreSocial Interaction, Discourse, Comparative Linguistics, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Conversational Discourse, Swedish Language, Cross-Cultural Communication, Sweden, Finland, Discourse/ Sociolinguistics/ Language and Culture, Pluricentric Languages, Pluricentricity, and Variational pragmatics
The present study investigates the interplay between language, material and embodied resources in one specific type of service encounters: interactions at theatre box offices. The data consist of video recorded interactions in Swedish at... more
The present study investigates the interplay between language, material and embodied resources in one specific type of service encounters: interactions at theatre box offices. The data consist of video recorded interactions in Swedish at three box offices, two in Sweden and one in Finland. Cases representative of the interactions are selected for a multimodal micro-analysis of the customer–seller interactions involving artefacts from the institutional and personal domain.
The study specifically aims at advancing our understanding of the role of artefacts for structuring and facilitating communicative events in (institutional) interaction. In this way, it contributes to the growing research interest in the interactional importance of the material world. Our results show that mutual interactional focus is reached through mutual gaze in strategic moments, such as formulation of the reason for the visit. Artefacts are central in enhancing intersubjectivity and mutual focus in that they effectively invite the participants for negotiation, for example, about a seating plan which can be made visually accessible in different ways. Verbal language can be sparse and deictic in these moments while gaze and pointing to an artefact does more specific referential work. Artefacts are also a resource for signalling interactional inaccessibility, the seller orienting to the computer in order to progress a request and the customer orienting to a personal belonging (like a bag) to mirror and accept such a temporary non-accessibility. We also observe that speech can be paced to match the deployment of an artefact so that a focal verbal item is produced without competing, simultaneous physical activity.
The study specifically aims at advancing our understanding of the role of artefacts for structuring and facilitating communicative events in (institutional) interaction. In this way, it contributes to the growing research interest in the interactional importance of the material world. Our results show that mutual interactional focus is reached through mutual gaze in strategic moments, such as formulation of the reason for the visit. Artefacts are central in enhancing intersubjectivity and mutual focus in that they effectively invite the participants for negotiation, for example, about a seating plan which can be made visually accessible in different ways. Verbal language can be sparse and deictic in these moments while gaze and pointing to an artefact does more specific referential work. Artefacts are also a resource for signalling interactional inaccessibility, the seller orienting to the computer in order to progress a request and the customer orienting to a personal belonging (like a bag) to mirror and accept such a temporary non-accessibility. We also observe that speech can be paced to match the deployment of an artefact so that a focal verbal item is produced without competing, simultaneous physical activity.
Research Interests: Discourse Analysis, Languages and Linguistics, Conversation Analysis, Social Interaction, Discourse, and 11 moreApplied Linguistics, Multimodal Interaction, Intersubjectivity, Conversational Discourse, Multimodality, Swedish Language, Finland-Swedish, Sweden, Finland, Service Interactions, and Interactional Linguistics
In the dawn of the twenty-first century, interactional linguistics was recognized as a new, internationally emerging direction in the field of linguistics. While most adherents of this direction are heavily influenced by the methodology... more
In the dawn of the twenty-first century, interactional linguistics was recognized as a new, internationally emerging direction in the field of linguistics. While most adherents of this direction are heavily influenced by the methodology of conversation analysis (CA), interactional linguists have backgrounds in and orientations to a diversity of traditions, including discourse analysis, (interactional) sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, (discourse) functional linguistics, construction grammar, and grammaticalization theory. It is thus fair to say that interactional linguistics is interdisciplinary within linguistics but also connected to other sciences, in the first place sociology (Selting & Couper-Kuhlen 2001). The unifying perspective is to describe linguistic structures and meanings as they serve social goals in naturally occurring spoken, in a broad sense, conversational language, viz. ‘talk-in-interaction’. In this perspective, linguistic structures are seen as resulting from the practical needs of (repeated) interaction(s) as well as giving form to (particular) interaction(s), thus providing a trajectory of an on-going interaction for the speakers. From the point of view of pragmatics, research in interactional linguistics contributes to an empirically based understanding of language use and the dependency of linguistic form on social action, and vice versa.
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Samtal, grammatik och grammatikalitet I och med att språkvetare börjat tillämpa den ursprungligen mikrosociologiska samtalsanalytiska metoden har studiet av grammatik och samtalsspråk upplevt ett uppsving sedan slutet av 1990-talet.... more
Samtal, grammatik och grammatikalitet I och med att språkvetare börjat tillämpa den ursprungligen mikrosociologiska samtalsanalytiska metoden har studiet av grammatik och samtalsspråk upplevt ett uppsving sedan slutet av 1990-talet. Orienteringen, som man numera ofta kallar interaktionell lingvistik, har varit synnerligen stark i traditionella " filologier " i Finland och Tyskland men också bland allmänna lingvister i England och Danmark (se t.ex. Steensig 2001). I USA har funktionella lingvister från Västkusten utmärkt sig på området, vilket också är förståeligt med tanke på att den klassiska samtalsanalytiska skolan f i c k si n b ö r j an d är p å 1 9 6 0-t al e t. V a d g äl l er sv en s k an v a r d e t av s t o r betydelse att Riksbankens jubileumsfond under åren 2000–2005 finansierade projektet Samtalsspråkets grammatik, som inte bara etablerade forskningsinriktningen i Sverige utan också bidrog med en hel del grammatiskt utvecklingsarbete med utgångspunkt i det dialogiskt organiserade språket.
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This article analyzes the halts in sequential progressivity that are caused by claims of no-knowledge in Swedish medical interaction. The focus is on responsive turns and turn-constructional units that are prefaced by the epistemic... more
This article analyzes the halts in sequential progressivity that are caused by claims of no-knowledge in Swedish medical interaction. The focus is on responsive turns and turn-constructional units that are prefaced by the epistemic disclaimer jag vet inte 'I don't know'. We argue that this use of epistemic disclaimers does not primarily display the speaker's lack of knowledge, but that their presence signals interactional problems that are contingent on epistemic asymmetries between the participants. Patient replies that contain an epistemic disclaimer are nonconforming responses and they therefore resist something about the question: the presupposed access to knowledge or the rights to knowledge. The present analysis demonstrates that epistemic tensions, especially in lay-professional interaction, are handled by the lay party using epistemic disclaimers. These can initiate a shift in epistemic posture toward a more independent, more personally accurate formulation of knowledge that somehow contrasts with the professional party's assumptions.
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... För det första kunde man revidera ordklassindelningen något och ge en speciell plats åt småorden, bland annat: mm, ja, nej, aha, jaha, nähä, japp, näpp, hördu, va, okej, eh, vetdu, serdu, förstårdu, du vet, vetja, ja menar, då, va,... more
... För det första kunde man revidera ordklassindelningen något och ge en speciell plats åt småorden, bland annat: mm, ja, nej, aha, jaha, nähä, japp, näpp, hördu, va, okej, eh, vetdu, serdu, förstårdu, du vet, vetja, ja menar, då, va, liksom, typ, sär, ba, ju, väl, nog, nu ...
Sharing language but not communicative patterns: Feedback in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish academic counselling interaction In this article, we present a study of oral feedback (back-channels and responsive turns) given in academic... more
Sharing language but not communicative patterns:
Feedback in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish academic counselling interaction
In this article, we present a study of oral feedback (back-channels and responsive turns) given in academic counselling meetings between an essay supervisor and one or two students. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss and improve an academic text written by the students. Our data consist of naturally occurring Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish institutional interactions at the university level. The overall aim of the study is to compare feedback patterns in the Sweden-Swedish and the Finland-Swedish data and to contribute to the field of variational pragmatics. A detailed analysis of the recorded interactions reveals overt differences in the frequency, intensity and distribution of feedback in the two varieties of Swedish. In the Sweden-Swedish data, there is a preference for relational work, evidenced, for instance, by students praising the advice given by the supervisor. In the Finland-Swedish data, an orientation towards clarity is prominent and corrective advice, for instance, is usually uttered in a straightforward way. Our results support previous findings on commu-nicative patterns in Sweden and Finland. These findings highlight the dialogic nature of institutional communication in Sweden, on the one hand, and the orientation to the task and its result in comparable situations in Finland, on the other. The outcome of this study adds to the understanding of the communicative patterns of Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish with a detailed analysis of the oral feedback occurring in counselling meetings.
Feedback in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish academic counselling interaction
In this article, we present a study of oral feedback (back-channels and responsive turns) given in academic counselling meetings between an essay supervisor and one or two students. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss and improve an academic text written by the students. Our data consist of naturally occurring Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish institutional interactions at the university level. The overall aim of the study is to compare feedback patterns in the Sweden-Swedish and the Finland-Swedish data and to contribute to the field of variational pragmatics. A detailed analysis of the recorded interactions reveals overt differences in the frequency, intensity and distribution of feedback in the two varieties of Swedish. In the Sweden-Swedish data, there is a preference for relational work, evidenced, for instance, by students praising the advice given by the supervisor. In the Finland-Swedish data, an orientation towards clarity is prominent and corrective advice, for instance, is usually uttered in a straightforward way. Our results support previous findings on commu-nicative patterns in Sweden and Finland. These findings highlight the dialogic nature of institutional communication in Sweden, on the one hand, and the orientation to the task and its result in comparable situations in Finland, on the other. The outcome of this study adds to the understanding of the communicative patterns of Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish with a detailed analysis of the oral feedback occurring in counselling meetings.
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Research Interests:
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This paper explores different syntactic variations and functional properties of clausal units that are initiated by the finite verb in Swedish. We focus on V1 constructions that are basically declarative in function, thus excluding... more
This paper explores different syntactic variations and functional properties of clausal units that are initiated by the finite verb in Swedish. We focus on V1 constructions that are basically declarative in function, thus excluding interrogative, conditional and directive uses. Because V1 constructions, and particularly certain variants of them, are typical of spoken Swedish, our examples and analyses focus primarily on the usage in speaking. The V1 constructions studied include whole-utterance constructions in conversational sequences, utterance-internal extensions, and utterance-internal reshapings, such as syntactic blends. We will offer an analysis of (declarative) V1 constructions, which in some respects differs from analyses proposed by generative syntacticians or traditional grammarians. Our analysis of the constructional resource is discourse oriented. In this perspective, V1 constructions are analyzable as sequentially dependent, second, or ‘subsequent’ moves, viz. units that can scarcely initiate a communicative project but which instead continue, extend or comment on an already initiated project. Thus, rather than analyzing V1 constructions as one type of ellipsis they could be seen as full-fledged clausal units whose existence is conditioned by their position in a discourse or utterance context. From a theoretical perspective, this paper is a contribution to an emerging dialogical or interactional model of (Swedish) grammar.
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This chapter gives an overview of Finland Swedish as a non-dominant variety of Swedish. The first part outlines the status and position of Swedish in Finland and documents research on Finland Swedish. We present this body of work with... more
This chapter gives an overview of Finland Swedish as a non-dominant variety of Swedish. The first part outlines the status and position of Swedish in Finland and documents research on Finland Swedish. We present this body of work with reference to work on Finland-Swedish status- and corpus planning. While there is an impressive body of work on the phonological, lexical, morphological and syntactic characteristics of Finland Swedish, much less attention has been paid to the pragmatic and interactional aspects of Finland Swedish vis-à-vis Sweden Swedish. With the exception of a few studies on politeness strategies, address and greeting practices, no systematic investigation of communicative patterns in the two Swedish varieties has been undertaken. The second part presents our methodological framework for such an investigation, and present preliminary results from a pilot study on openings in institutional telephone conversations in the respective national variety. These results suggest that there are systematic differences which warrant further investigation.
Research Interests: Languages and Linguistics, Pragmatics, Linguistic Politeness, Sociolinguistics, Cross-Cultural Studies, and 13 moreLinguistics, Swedish, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Swedish Language, Language Variation, Interpersonal Relationships, Finland-Swedish, Address Terms, Pluricentric Languages, Pluricentricity, Direct Address, Interactional Linguistics, and Variational pragmatics
The purpose of this paper is to study the use of the perfect tense in Swedish in connection with time adverbials that anchor the situation explicitly in the past; e.g. Jag har mött din bror igår ’I have met your brother yesterday’.... more
The purpose of this paper is to study the use of the perfect tense in Swedish in connection with time adverbials that anchor the situation explicitly in the past; e.g. Jag har mött din bror igår ’I have met your brother yesterday’. Although this usage is not generally acceptable it occurs; as our examples also show; in certain contexts. Nevertheless; fairly little is known about the conditions for this usage of the perfect in Swedish.
We discuss general conditions for the use of past (i.e. preterite) and perfect tenses in Swedish and study certain uses of the perfect that are noted in grammars as deviations from the standard. We then proceed to a more detailed analysis of authentic data from speech and writing where the perfect is combined with explicit past time reference.
The analysis shows that the perfect is used with definite past time reference for several discursive reasons. The perfect may be favoured instead of the preterite when the result of an action has a notable constant relevance; when a series of actions is textually reconstructed or recontextualised; when the perfect contributes to thematic continuity in discourse. Furthermore; the use of the perfect has a contrastive potential; which is clearly manifest in contexts where it highlights new; even surprising aspects of a current topic.
We discuss general conditions for the use of past (i.e. preterite) and perfect tenses in Swedish and study certain uses of the perfect that are noted in grammars as deviations from the standard. We then proceed to a more detailed analysis of authentic data from speech and writing where the perfect is combined with explicit past time reference.
The analysis shows that the perfect is used with definite past time reference for several discursive reasons. The perfect may be favoured instead of the preterite when the result of an action has a notable constant relevance; when a series of actions is textually reconstructed or recontextualised; when the perfect contributes to thematic continuity in discourse. Furthermore; the use of the perfect has a contrastive potential; which is clearly manifest in contexts where it highlights new; even surprising aspects of a current topic.
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This is a pdf version of my book "Tur och ordning. Introduktion till svensk samtalsgrammatik" (Turns and order. Introduction to a Swedish interactional grammar). This pdf edition is augmented with a set of questions and exercises, found... more
This is a pdf version of my book "Tur och ordning. Introduktion till svensk samtalsgrammatik" (Turns and order. Introduction to a Swedish interactional grammar). This pdf edition is augmented with a set of questions and exercises, found at the end of the file.