The chapters in this volume, grouped into three thematic parts, present a broadpicture of the diversity of multilingual cities across the world in the 21st century.They explore cities of vastly different size, ranging from megacities such as Ja-karta down to small cities such as Fribourg/Freiburg, and cities situated in theGlobal North as well as in the Global South. The dynamics of and interaction be-tween different languages in those cities also demonstrate great variation, fromthe presence of two or more languages in multilingual countries or regions to thestatus of immigrant languages in cities traditionally dominated by one majoritylanguage, and to post-colonial contexts where colonial languages often co-exist asofficial languages alongside indigenous languages. While national varieties of En-glish, as well as English as a lingua franca, play an important role in the languagemake-up of many of the cities analysed in this volume, in others the focus is onother (originally) European and non-European languages. As a result, the specificcircumstances of each of the cities sometimes demand different methodologicalapproaches to do them justice, while other chapters share a common methodolog-ical approach to document multilingualism in the cityscape. This is the case withfive chapters (identified in turn further below) across all three sections which uselinguistic landscaping as their approach, carefully fine-tuning the methodology soas to fit the particular conditions of each site.

This volume explores linguistic diversity and complexity in a range of urban con-texts, a number of which have been subject to relatively little or no sociolinguisticinquiry, especially in English. It seeks to diversify the sites under investigation inurban multilingualism studies, and advocates an exploration of multilingual practi-ces that is not restricted to the large-scale contemporary Western metropolis. Anovel mixture of cities from around the world is therefore studied, from megacitiesand lesser-known communities within well-researched cities to smaller cities onthe national periphery, representing diverse types, sizes, contexts and languages.

I det här kapitlet presenteras ett kontrastivt arbetssätt där kommunikation och språkbruk jämförs mellan olika kulturer. Ett vanligt arbetssätt är att jämföra hur olika sociala handlingar, som t.ex. att hälsa, tilltala, tacka eller be om något uttrycks i olika kulturella sammanhang. I kapitlet undersöks tilltalspraktiker i de två nationella varieteterna av svenska, sverigesvenska och finlandssvenska med fokus på servicesamtal mellan kunder och personal.

Den sociolingvistiska doktorsavhandling som här anmäls i Litteraturkrönika 2022 i Arkiv för nordisk filologi handlar om språklig stil ochgörandet av stil – stajling – hos elva finlandssvenskar från Västra Nyland, som numera är bosatta i Stockholm, och hur de på olika sätt anpassar sitt språk i en stockholmsk samtalskontext. Syftet med avhandlingen är dels att dokumentera deltagarnas språkliga stil, dels att finna förklaringar till den stilvariation som finns.

This study deals with turn-taking in human-robot interactions (HRI). Based on 15 sessions ofvideo-recorded interactions between pairs of human participants and a social robot called Furhat, we explore how human participants orient to violations of the normative order of turn-taking in social interaction and how they handle those violations. As a case in point, we present sequences of HRI to show particular features of turn-taking with the robot and also how the robot may fail to respond to the human participants’ bid to take a turn. In these sequences, the participants either complete the turn in progress and ignore the overlap caused by the robot’s continuation of its turn, or they cut short their own turn and restart in the next possible turn-transition place. In all cases in our data, the overlaps and failed smooth turn-transitions are oriented to as accountable and in some sense interactionally problematic. The results of the study point not only to improvables in robot engineering, but also to routine practices of projection and the ways in which human subjects orient toward normative expectations of ordinary social interactions, even whenconversing with a robot.

This volume explores linguistic diversity and complexity in different urban contexts, many of which have never been subject to significant sociolinguistic inquiry. A novel mixture of cities of varying size from around the world is studied, from megacities to smaller cities on the national periphery. All chapters discuss either the multilingualism or the pluricentric aspect of the linguistic diversity in urban areas, most focussing on one urban centre.

The book showcases multiple approaches ranging from a quantitative investigation based partly on census data, to qualitative studies flowing, for example, from extensive ethnographic work or discourse analysis. The diverse theoretical backgrounds and methodological approaches in the individual chapters are complemented by two chapters outlining the current trends and debates in the sociolinguistic research on urban multilingualism and pluricentricity and suggesting some possible directions for future investigations in this field.The book thus provides a broad overview of sociolinguistic research of multilingual places and pluricentric languages.

Using a large-scale survey, we explore reported nominal address and introduction routines in first encounters at international academic conferences. Our focus is on variation in such routines among respondents originating in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in their first language (L1) German and in English (L2 English, their second or further language). In L1 German, introduction by first name and last name tends to be the unmarked choice, with some national variation present. Similar national variation exists in L2 English, albeit to a lesser extent, showing some pragmatic transfer from the respondents’ L1 German variety to L2 English. In comparison to the results for L1 speakers of three national varieties of English, the German L1 speakers’ emulated behaviour diverges from their L1 behaviour without necessarily reflecting English L1 behaviour in most cases.

In this conversation analytic study, we investigate how customers and staff members manage complaints in Swedish-speaking service interactions in Sweden and Finland. Prior research on complaining has typically distinguished between so-called direct and indirect complaints and studied one of these types. We re-examine this distinction in the context of our data and identify sequences that might better be referred to as hybridcomplaints, which share features with both direct and indirect complaints. The hybrid complaints start off as indirect complaints but are oriented to as possibly assigning blame and responsibility for the complainable situation to the recipient. We illustrate the interactional work participants undertake to suppress the ‘directness’ of such complaints and how they transform them into indirect ones. We also document features that are either common or distinct of the different types of complaints, pertaining to the placement and emergence of complaints, interactional resources used in complaining, and responses to complaints. The findings contribute to a better understanding of different types of complaints and of the management of complaining in institutional interactions.

Studien behandlar poetiska uttryck - dvs verser av olika slag – i ett urval dödsannonser publicerade i dagstidningar i Sverige (Dagens Nyheter) och i Svenskfinland (Hufvudstadsbladet). Perspektivet är jämförande och resultaten visar att annonserna i det sverigesvenska materialet generellt har förre poetiska uttryck än de finlandssvenska, nåpgot som eventuellt kan kopplas till en långt större variation i symbolbruket i de svenska dödsannonserna som ger uttryck för den dödes individuella attribut.