Skip to main content

Address and Interpersonal Relationships in Finland-Swedish and Sweden-Swedish Service Encounters

  • Chapter
Book cover Address Practice As Social Action: European Perspectives

Abstract

The chapter investigates address practices in 318 audio-and video-recorded service encounters at theatre box offices and other booking venues equally distributed across the two national varieties of Swedish, Sweden Swedish and Finland Swedish. The results demonstrate compelling variation in address choices, which can be linked to participant roles (customer-staff), generation (below and above 50 years) and national variety. Overall informal address with T (du) is the most common address form in both varieties and is particularly salient among older customers in Sweden. There are few occurrences of V address in the data, and most are found among younger Finland-Swedish staff.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Ahlgren, P. (1978) Tilltalsordet ni. Dess semantik och användning i historiskt perspektiv, Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, R. and Gilman, A. (1960) ‘The pronouns of power and solidarity’ in T. A. Sebeok (ed.) Style in Language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 253–76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1987) Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charles, M.-L. and Louhiala-Salminen, L. (2007) ‘Vems språk talas, vilken är verksamhetskultur? Intern kommunikation och språkval i finsk-svenska fusionerade företag’ in O. Kangas and H. Kangasharju (eds) Ordens makt och maktens ord, Helsinki: The Society for Swedish Literature in Finland, pp. 416–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clyne, M. (1992) ‘Pluricentric languages–Introduction’ in M. Clyne ed.) Pluricentric Languages Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clyne, M., Norrby, C. and Warren, J. (2009) Language and Human Relations. Styles of Address in Contemporary Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Drew, P. and Heritage, J. (1992), ‘Analyzing talk at work: An introduction’ in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds) Talk at Work, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fremer, M. (1996) Personlig referens i servicesituationer. Svenska och finska samtal från Helsingfors, Stockholm och Uppsala i en jämförande analys, MA thesis Helsinki: University of Helsinki.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laine-Sveiby, K. (1991) Företag i kulturmöten. Tre finländska företag och deras dotterbolag. En etnologisk studie, Stockholm University: Department of Ethnology.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liebkind, K., Moring, T. and Tandefelt, M. (eds) (2007) The Swedish-speaking Finns, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 187/188 (special issue), 1–227.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linell, P. (1990) ‘De institutionaliserade samtalens elementära former: om möten mellan professionella och lekmän’, Forskning om utbildning, 17, 18–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mårtensson, E. (1986) ‘Det nya niandet’, Nordlund 10, Lund: Department of Scandinavian Languages, 35–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, M. (2014) ‘You need help as usual, do you? Joking and swearing for collegiality in a Swedish workplace’, Multilingua — Journal of Cross-cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 33.1–2, 173–200.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norrby, C., Wide, C., Lindström, J. and Nilsson, J. (2015) ‘Interpersonal relationships in medical consultations. Comparing Sweden Swedish and Finland Swedish address practices’, Journal of Pragmatics, 84, 121–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paulston, C. Bratt (1976) ‘Pronouns of address in Swedish: Social class semantics and changing system’, Language in Society, 5.3, 359–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pettersson, T. and Nurmela, S. (2007) Om olika sätt att möta en stor elefant. En jämförande studie av finländsk och svensk kultur, Esbo and Stockholm: The Swedish Finnish Cultural Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reuter, M. (1992) ‘Swedish as a pluricentric language’ in M. Clyne (ed.) Pluricentric Languages. Different Norms in Different Nations, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 111–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saari, M. (1995) ‘ “Jo, nu kunde vi festa nog”. Synpunkter på svenskt språkbruk i Sverige och Finland’, Folkmålsstudier, 36, 75–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saari, M. (2012) ‘The development of Finnish into a national language’ in M. Hüning, U. Vogl and O. Moliner (eds) Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History, Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 179–204.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Statistics Finland (2015) Population, Helsinki: Statistics Finland, http://www.tilastokeskus.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_vaesto_en.html, date accessed 5 March 2015.

  • Statistics Sweden (2015) Population Statistics, Stockholm: Statistics Sweden, http://www.scb.se/en_/Finding-statistics/Statistics-by-subject-area/Population/Population-composition/Population-statistics, date accessed 5 March 2015.

  • Tykesson-Bergman, I. (2006) Samtal i butik. Språklig interaktion mellan biträden och kunder, Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wide, C. and Lyngfelt, B. (2009) ‘Svenskan i Finland, grammatiken och konstruktionernâ’ in C. Wide and B. Lyngfelt (eds) Konstruktioner I finlandssvensk syntax. Skriftspråk, samtal och dialekter, Helsinki: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, pp. 11–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yli-Vakkuri, V. (2005) ‘Politeness in Finland: Evasion at all costs’ in L. Hickey and M. Stewart (eds) Politeness in Europe, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 189–203.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2015 Catrin Norrby, Camilla Wide, Jenny Nilsson and Jan Lindström

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Norrby, C., Wide, C., Nilsson, J., Lindström, J. (2015). Address and Interpersonal Relationships in Finland-Swedish and Sweden-Swedish Service Encounters. In: Norrby, C., Wide, C. (eds) Address Practice As Social Action: European Perspectives. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137529923_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics