Cultural outsiders’ evaluations of (im)politeness in Finland and in France

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Intercultural interaction may be complicated by differing verbal and nonverbal displays of (im)politeness. Yet cultural outsiders’ evaluations of (im)politeness have not been widely examined. To fill this gap, this study investigated perceptions of Finnish politeness among French people living in Finland and perceptions of French politeness among Finns currently or previously living in France. Focus groups were used in order to study culturally shared (im)politeness norms and their variations. Based on a dialogical discourse analysis of five focus group discussions, it is argued that personal space emerges as a salient factor for politeness in Finland, while verbal and nonverbal rapport is more important in France. These overarching themes - personal space and rapport - led to discussions about greetings, silence and holding doors open. Greeting and opening doors appeared more categorical in France, while silence was better tolerated in Finland. In addition to dominant norms, regional and individual variations were reported. Overall, (im)politeness norms appeared to be vaguer in Finland than in France. Building upon this study, future research should examine if changes emerge in Finnish (im)politeness norms related to rapport or if space remains more valued.</jats:p>

Estrategias de cortesía verbal en anuncios de parejas publicados en un semanario ecuatoriano

“…La presencia y ausencia del saludo sugiere no ser una norma de cortesía necesaria, al menos no en este tipo de género discursivo. La norma social de aplicación del saludo ya ha sido estudiada en otros ámbitos (Isosävi, 2020). En este corpus, para el contexto ecuatoriano y en el género discursivo de los anuncios de pareja, se revela como no indispensable.…”

Evaluations Related to Finger Pointing in a Request: a Multi-method Pragmatic Analysis of an Intercultural Encounter

“…As conventionalisation relates to pragmatic competence, second language speakers may not know what type of behaviour is conventionalised in a specific context (House and Kádár, 2021: 35). My studies showed that when arriving in the target culture and not necessarily speaking the target language, cultural outsiders observed differences related to non-verbal politeness, such as holding doors open for others or not (Isosävi, 2020a;2023b). After spending time in the target culture, cultural outsiders reported adapting to politeness norms, such as greeting less (French participants) or more (Finnish participants), in order to avoid a marked behaviour judged as impolite (Isosävi, 2020b;2023b).…”

“…My previous studies on the perceptions of Finnish and French politeness have identified cross-cultural differences in the moral order (space versus rapport) and conventionalised patterns of behaviour in both verbal and non-verbal behaviours (Isosävi, 2020a;2020b;2023a;2023b). These previous studies focused on the etic perspective in focus groups, during which French people living in Finland discussed Finnish politeness, while Finns living or having lived in France discussed French politeness, illustrating how im/politeness is constructed in discourse.…”

Miten tutkia kohteliaisuutta? Käsityksiä suomalaisesta ja ranskalaisesta kohteliaisuudesta

“…Graingerin ja O'Driscollin (2022,(2)(3) mukaan Journal of Politeness Research -lehdessä julkaistut artikkelit osoittavat kuitenkin, että jaetut normit eri kulttuureissa ovat kiinnostaneet tutkijoita. Heidän mainitsemiensa tutkimusten joukossa on myös lehdessä julkaistu artikkelini, jossa tarkastelen kulttuurien välistä kohteliaisuutta fokusryhmäkeskusteluiden avulla (Isosävi 2020a). Grainger ja O'Driscoll näkevät muutoksen tapahtuneen siinä, että multimodaalisuuden ja ei-kielellisen kommunikaation tarkastelu on lisääntynyt julkaistuissa artikkeleissa.…”