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Part of
Positioning the Self and Others: Linguistic perspectives
Edited by Kate Beeching, Chiara Ghezzi and Piera Molinelli
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 292] 2018
► pp. 19–49

Chapter 2
Positioning through address practice in Finland-Swedish and Sweden-Swedish service encounters

This chapter investigates social positioning through the use (or non-use) of address pronouns in Finland-Swedish and Sweden-Swedish service encounters recorded at theatre and event booking venues in Finland and Sweden. The results demonstrate some compelling variation in address practices which can be attributed to participant roles (customer or staff), national variety (Finland-Swedish or Sweden-Swedish), age (younger or older speaker and addressee) and situational circumstances, such as type of venue and type of transaction, as well as micro-situational aspects which occur during the course of the interaction (complications, problems or topics treated as sensitive). The study highlights that different forms of address cannot be associated a priori with a certain level of formality, but should be interpreted in their micro and macro contexts in order to understand existing cultural norms for appropriate address.
Keywords: address, pluricentric languages, Swedish, service encounters, interactional linguistics, variational pragmatics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Address in Sweden Swedish and Finland Swedish
  • 3.Data and methods
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Participant roles: Customer and staff
      • Customer
      • Staff
    • 4.2Sweden and Finland
    • 4.3Younger and older participants
    • 4.4Situational differences
    • 4.5Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Transcription conventions and glossing symbols
Published online: 17 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.292.02nor
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Schüpbach, Doris, John Hajek, Heinz L. Kretzenbacher & Catrin Norrby
2021. Approaches to the study of address in pluricentric languages: methodological reflections . Sociolinguistica 35:1 ► pp. 165 ff. DOI logo
Lindström, Jan, Catrin Norrby, Camilla Wide & Jenny Nilsson
2019. Task-Completing Assessments in Service Encounters. Research on Language and Social Interaction 52:2 ► pp. 85 ff. DOI logo

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