Inom forskningsprogrammet Interaktion och variation i pluricentriska språk (IVIP) utforskas kommunikativa mönster i sverigesvenska och finlandssvenska i tre typer av institutionella samtal: servicesamtal, lärandesamtal och vårdsamtal (se t.ex. Norrby m.fl. 2014; Wide 2016). I denna artikel fokuserar vi på servicesamtalen, i vilka deltagarna har bestämda roller (kund–personal) och i regel inte känner varandra från tidigare. Servicesamtalen är starkt rutinartade och inriktade på ärendet, dvs. köp av biljetter, och ärendepresentationen är sålunda en central social praktik i samtalen som är anpassad till situationen och identifierbar för deltagarna. Syftet med artikeln är att redogöra för de vanligaste presentationsformerna i servicesamtalen och jämföra distributionen av dem mellan varieteterna och språken.

The article gives an account of research into the relationships that exist between varities of pluricentric languages, introducing central concepts and theoretical underpinnings of pluricentric research, covering power relationships, expressions of identity and attitudes as well as the debate on pluricentricity vis-à-vis pluriareality. The article surveys foundational work in the field concerning linguistic structural differences between varieties as well as more recent work on pragmatic  and interactional variation in pluricentric languages.

Språkvetenskapen har traditionellt undersökt det verbala språket, dess lexikon och grammatik. Exempel som konstruerats eller hämtats från skrivna texter fick länge stå för språket. Senare har talat språk studerats i sekvenser av initiativ och responser, men ofta med fokus på språkliga handlingar. Multimodal interaktionsanalys har inte bara gjort oss medvetna om att sociala handlingar kan bestå av annat än språk, utan den visar också hur språkliga uttryck konstrueras i ett samspel med andra betydelseskapande element och att deras närvaro påverkar den språkliga formen.

This study investigates the use of greetings in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish service encounters and the social meaning of different greeting forms. Situated within the framework of variational pragmatics, the study explores Swedish as a pluricentric language and investigates with interactional and statistical analyses to what extent the variable nation affect variation in greeting forms. While nation indeed is an important factor, the study also illustrates how social variables such as age, gender and participant roles as well as situational variables such as medium, region and venue impact the greeting choices participants make. Further, by applying an interactional analytical perspective the study contributes to the methodological development of variational pragmatics. This analysis shows how the sequential position of a greeting plays a part in the choice of greetings, and demonstrates that pragmatic variation emerges in interaction. The article suggests that greetings can be a resource for indexing the degree of social distance between interlocutors, and thereby manifest recurring cultural patterns.

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.

While greetings are performed in all cultures and open most conversations, previous studies suggest that there are cross-cultural differences between different languages in greeting behavior. But do speakers of different national varieties of the same language organize and perform their greeting behavior in similar ways? In this study, we investigate the sequential organization of greetings in relation to gaze behavior in the two national varieties of Swedish: Sweden Swedish spoken in Sweden and Finland Swedish spoken in Finland. In recent years, the importance of studying pluricentric languages from a pragmatic perspective has been foregrounded, not least within the framework of variational pragmatics. To date, most studies have focused on structural differences between national varieties of pluricentric languages. With this study, we extend the scope of variational pragmatics through adding an interactional, micro perspective to the broader macro analysis typical of this field. For this study, we have analyzed patterns for greetings in 297 videorecorded service encounters, where staff and customers interact at theatre box offices and event booking venues in Sweden and Finland. The study shows that there are similarities and differences in greeting behavior between varieties. There is a strong preference for exchanging reciprocal verbal greetings, one at a time, in both. There is also a similar organization of the greeting sequence, where customer and staff establish mutual gaze prior to the verbal greetings, thus signaling availability for interaction. The duration of mutual gaze and the timing of the greeting, however, differ between the two varieties. We have also conducted a multi modal analysis of gaze behavior in correlation to the greeting. We found that the customers and staff in the Finland Swedish data share mutual gaze before and during the verbal greeting, and often avert gaze after the verbal greetings. However, in the Sweden Swedish data, the participants often avert gaze before the verbal greetings. Our results thus indicate that both similarities and differences in pragmatic routines and bodily behavior exist between the two national varieties of Swedish. The present study on greeting practices in Finland Swedish and Sweden Swedish should contribute to the field of variational pragmatics and to the development of pluricentric theory.