I denna undersökning studeras förändringar i dödsannonsen under 50 år. Vi utgår från att dödsannonsen, i likhet med många offentliga texter, fått ett alltmer intimiserat uttryck, vilket visar sig i en större individualisering av den dödes identitet. Den starkt ökade tillgången på symboler möjliggör ett förändrat uttryck där den dödes identitet kan beskrivas på ett mer personligt sätt samtidigt som de strikta genrekonventionerna i verbaltexten upprätthålls. Förändringarna studeras mot bakgrund av teorier om social positionering (Davies & Harré, 1990; Aldrin, 2011) kopplat till begreppet doxa (Rosengren 2008).  Materialet utgörs av 200 annonser från Dagens Nyheter 1973 och 400 annonser jämnt fördelade mellan Dagens Nyheter och Svenska Dagbladet 2023. Några exempel har också hämtats från vårt större material insamlat 2018–2019. Materialet undersöks både kvantitativt och kvalitativt. Resultaten visar att dödsannonsens genrekonventioner är starka men att doxans gränser gradvis förskjuts mot ett alltmer intimt tonläge, framförallt genom symbolvalet och den multimodala tolkning som dessa erbjuder. 

The aim of this study is to examine how the death notice as a genre has changed over the past 50 years. It focuses on how text and symbol interact to express the identity of the deceased in life and in relation to the bereaved. The primary data consist of 200 death notices published in Dagens Nyheter in 1973, and 400 from 2023, evenly distributed between Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet. The study is based on a social constructivist perspective on identity, where an individual’s social identity is seen as complex and dynamic, and which is (re)created in a social context, i.e. in the individual death notices. To interpret how the linguistic and multimodal expressions in the death notices make certain parts of the deceased person’s identity relevant, e.g., in the form of family relations, professional orientation or hobbies, we use the concept of social positioning. In order to examine changes in preconceived notions and norms concerning the death notice in a given period, we use the concept of doxa. The results demonstrate that the central function of the death notice, i.e. to inform about a death, has not changed significantly over time. However, other elements have moved towards greater variation and more individual­ised expression, in particular the use of symbols.

Det är ett välkänt faktum att det svenska multinationella möbelvaruhuset IKEA utnyttjar sina svenska rötter i sitt varumärkes- och marknadsföringsmaterial genom frekventa referenser till svensk kultur och livsstil. Detta görs visuellt, men också pragmatiskt, t.ex. genom bruk av den svenska hälsningsfrasen Hej.

Denna artikel dokumenterar i vilka kontexter och för vilka syften som Hej förekommer i IKEA:s kommunikation riktad till potentiella kunder och undersöker hälsningsfrasens användning i olika nationella kontexter, med särskilt fokus på den nordiska kontexten.

Materialet består av IKEA:s webbplatser, sociala mediekanaler och fotodokumentation av artefakter på utvalda IKEA varuhus. Den kvantitativa och kvalitativa analysen av materialet visar att även om Hej ibland används i sin primära kommunikativa funktion för att initiera en interaktion, så fungerar Hej framförallt som en ikonisk markör för svenskhet, särskilt utanför de nordiska länderna.

It is a well-known fact that the Swedish multinational furniture retailer IKEA capitalizes on its Swedish roots in its branding and marketing materials through frequent references to Swedish culture and lifestyle. This is done visually but also linguistically and pragmatically, e.g. through the use of the Swedish greeting Hej.

This article documents in which contexts and for which purposes Hej appears in IKEA’s communication aimed at potential customers, and to examine its use in different national contexts, with a particular focus on the Nordic context.

The data consist of IKEA websites, social media channels and photo documentation of artefacts at selected IKEA stores. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data shows that although Hej is sometimes used in its primary communicative function to initiate an interaction, it functions above all as iconic markers of Swedishness, in particular outside the Nordic countries.

On jo pitkään tiedetty, että ruotsalainen monikansallinen huonekalujen vähittäismyyjä IKEA hyödyntää

ruotsalaisia juuriaan brändi- ja markkinointimateriaaleissaan viittaamalla usein ruotsalaiseen kulttuuriin

ja elämäntapaan. Tämä tapahtuu paitsi visuaalisesti myös kielellisesti ja käytännöllisesti, esimerkiksi käyttämällä ruotsalaista tervehdystä Hej.

Tässä artikkelissa dokumentoidaan, missä yhteyksissä ja tarkoituksissa Hej esiintyy IKEA:n potentiaalisille asiakkaille suunnatussa viestinnässä, ja tarkastellaan sen käyttöä eri kansallisissa yhteyksissä keskittyen erityisesti pohjoismaiseen kontekstiin.

Aineisto koostuu IKEAn verkkosivuista, sosiaalisen median kanavista ja valokuvausdokumentaatiosta, joka on otettu valituissa IKEA-tavarataloissa olevista kylttien ja esineiden kuvauksista. Aineiston kvantitatiivinen ja kvalitatiivinen analyysi osoittaa, että vaikka Hej:tä käytetään joskus ensisijaisessa kommunikatiivisessa tehtävässään vuorovaikutuksen aloittamiseen, se toimii ennen kaikkea ”ruotsalaisuuden” ikonisena merkkinä, erityisesti Pohjoismaiden ulkopuolella.

This chapter compares actual address in service situations with reported use and perceptions of address. We focus on Finland-Swedish and compare it with Sweden-Swedish to highlight typical features of Finland-Swedish address practices. Our data come from two sources: observations of address practices in service encounters and responses to a questionnaire administered to Finland-Swedish speakers, which explored address use in service situations. Findings show that Finland-Swedish address practices go beyond a conventional T/V dichotomy. T address dominates, but V address still occurs to some extent in service contexts.Nevertheless, some speakers find V address highly inappropriate. Furthermore, plural V and absence of direct address are common in service contexts. Our results confirm the non-binary character of the Finland-Swedish address system.

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.