What is in a greeting? The social meaning of greetings in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish service encounters

Nilsson, Jenny; Norrby, Catrin; Bohman, Love; Marian, Klara Skogmyr; Wide, Camilla; Lindström, Jan

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2020.06.007

Cited by 25 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…To discuss variation in geographical and social space further we need to investigate a phenomenon that is common and recurrent, and we need to observe it in a large dataset of naturally occurring interaction. Greetings constitute a frequent pragmatic routine, and in this section we present results from our own previous studies of initial greetings in Swedish service encounters (Nilsson et al 2017(Nilsson et al , 2018(Nilsson et al , 2020. These studies investigated similarities and differences in greeting behavior in the two national varieties of Swedish, Finland Swedish and Sweden Swedish, by examining a corpus of 1003 interactions between customers and staff members.…”

Section: An Empirical Illustration: Greetings In Swedish Service Enco...mentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In general, Finland Swedes 2 tend to more often orient towards larger social distance and respect for the interlocutor's integrity than Sweden Swedes do. This is manifested in patterns of address (Wide et al 2019;Norrby et al 2018) and greetings (Nilsson et al 2018(Nilsson et al , 2020, more neutral positive assessments (Lindström et al 2019), and less small talk (resulting in shorter interactions in service encounters: on average 1.84 minutes in Finland and 2.76 in Sweden). Some of this variation is possibly attributable to more formal patterns of communication in the public sphere and to language contact with Finnish among speakers of Finland Swedish.…”

Section: Regional Variation Of Swedishmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They may thus be defined as a "unit of social interaction often observed when people come into another's presence, which includes a distinctive exchange of gestures or utterances in which each person appears to signal to the other, directly and explicitly, that he has been seen" (Kendon 1990: 153). Greetings also have the potential to carry social meaning and reveal information about the speaker as well as how the speaker perceives the interlocutor (Hudson 1996;Duranti 1997;Kendon 1990;Pillet-Shore 2008;Nilsson et al 2018Nilsson et al , 2020. Spatial variation in greeting behavior has been accounted for in some previous studies.…”

Section: A Brief Background On Greetingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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19. Pragmatic variation across geographical and social space

Nilsson¹,

Lindström²,

Bohman³

et al. 2022

Pragmatics of Space

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This chapter examines how pragmatic variation interfaces with several dimensions of space, not only geographical space but also social space. We approach space from a variational pragmatics perspective and conceive it as a layered phenomenon with local, regional, and national levels that are intertwined with one another as well as with social dimensions of space. We present an empirical study of greeting behavior in Swedish service encounters to illustrate how these layers of space interact and are relevant for pragmatic variation. Qualitative observations of greeting sequences combined with statistical analyses of several co-variables are used to unravel connections between the choice of a greeting form and spatial and social factors. We show that the levels of nation and region (i.e., data from a certain country and town) can account for a certain degree of variation in the choice of greeting forms, but the local levels of space (i.e., interactions in specific venues) and social variables like the speaker's age and gender also have an explanatory force. Spaces can also bear recognizable cultural meanings to the people who interact in them, triggering certain kinds of social behavior that is symbolically represented in language use.

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Section: An Empirical Illustration: Greetings In Swedish Service Enco...mentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Regional Variation Of Swedishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Brief Background On Greetingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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19. Pragmatic variation across geographical and social space

Nilsson¹,

Lindström²,

Bohman³

et al. 2022

Pragmatics of Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It has been always believed that greetings reveal myriad socio-political stances. According to Nilsson et al (2020), the form of greeting adopted by a person signifies his attitudes, perception, and beliefs regarding the interlocutor. Additionally, it also signals power, unity, and intimacy between parties (Hudson, 1996).…”

Section: Fist Of Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

The Linguistic Behaviour of Mohammed Bin Salman in Response to Biden’s Statements Against Saudi Politics

Hudhayri¹

2022

IJL

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The political events in the region have been a major cause of the radical reform in the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States (US) in recent years. The ties between both are believed to have become further complicated, since the statements through which the current American president, Joe Biden, accused Saudi politics of transgressing human rights. These statements have attracted the attention of the media and questioned the perspective of Saudi politics and the prospective impact on future bilateral cooperation with the U.S. Saudi politicians have never reacted to Biden’s behaviour over the media due to the criticality of explicit political speeches on social perception (Seidel,1985), but I argue here that the conservative reactions of Saudi diplomats have been implicitly transferred through the eloquence of verbal language and the implied meaning of non-verbal language. The focus will be on the deportment of the crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, upon hosting Joe Biden in the last political summit held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

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“…In the present study, social distance variable is divided into three categories or levels (close/ familiar, neutral/intimates, and distant/strangers). The first category involves those who have close social distance and the second category involving those who have neutral social distance while the third category involves those who have distant social relation (Al Masaeed et al, 2020;Danziger, 2020;Nilsson et al, 2020).…”

Section: Public Interest Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social distance and speech behavior: A case of Pakistani English speakers’ apology responses

Saleem

Unjum

Ahmed

et al. 2021

Cogent Arts & Humanities

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This study investigates the production and perception of apology responses (ARs) of English-using Pakistanis (L2), British English speakers (Native speakers of the target language), and Pakistani Urdu speaker (L1) under the influence of social distance variables. For data collection, two instruments are used; a discourse completion test (DCT in English and Urdu) and a scale response questionnaire (SRQ in English and Urdu). Findings signal that three groups tend to use more Acceptance strategies with the interlocutors of social distance than the close and neutral level respondents, moreover, close and distant level participants tend to favor the use of Acknowledgement ARs than neutral social distance participants, besides, the Evasion category demonstrates that BritE speakers of close social distance prefer the use of Evasion (EV) ARs more often than EuP and PakU. Further,

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What is in a greeting? The social meaning of greetings in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish service encounters

Cited by 25 publications

References 16 publications

19. Pragmatic variation across geographical and social space

19. Pragmatic variation across geographical and social space

The Linguistic Behaviour of Mohammed Bin Salman in Response to Biden’s Statements Against Saudi Politics

Social distance and speech behavior: A case of Pakistani English speakers’ apology responses

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