Cultural outsiders’ reported adherence to Finnish and French politeness norms

Given the contested notion of culture, intercultural (im)politeness represents an understudied area of research. Yet, (im)politeness research should examine broader social forces. Drawing upon data from five focus group discussions and their dialogical discourse analysis, my study relies on the discursive approach and relational work (Locher and Watts, 2005). My study shows that cultural outsiders reported adhering differently to cultural politeness norms as resources. As such, a reported low tolerance for pragmatic variation in the Finnish and French cultures appears to carry two consequences. First, Finnish and French participants reported changing their adherence to cultural politeness norms in order to follow behavior that better corresponds to the expectations framed by the target culture, and to avoid negatively marked behavior judged as impolite/inappropriate. Second, participants who reported adhering less to the politeness norms of their culture of origin found a better match between their behavior and the dominant politeness norms in the target culture, which carried positive consequences related to constructing their identity. Finally, the close link between relational work and identity construction demonstrated that although participants reported adhering to the politeness norms of the target culture, they emphasized teaching their children the politeness norms of their culture of origin. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

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

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.Peer reviewe

Addressing, Greeting and Related Gestures in the Opening Sequences of Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos

This paper compares the opening sequences of Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube videos. We concentrate on addressing, greeting and related gestures, important elements when YouTubers interact with their imagined viewers, using data consisting of 138 videos in the three languages. This study falls within the field of the pragmatics of social media and interpersonal pragmatics, and data were analysed using multimodal discourse analysis. Shared practices included the frequent use of greetings, a preference for general nominal address forms as well as for iconic and deictic gestures. Cross-cultural differences revealed that Finnish and Hungarian were closer to each other than to French. Shared practices may be connected to the genre of YouTube videos, whereas differences appear related to cross-cultural practices generally.Peer reviewe

Forms of address choices among Finnish and French university students and French teachers

Peer reviewe

Compte rendu : Kielentutkimuksen menetelmiä I-IV (Méthodes de la recherche en linguistique I-IV) [Book review]

Non peer reviewe

Kääntäjäopiskelijoiden käsityksiä jälkieditoinnista - ”Se sotii niitä periaatteita vastaan, joita käännöskursseilla opetetaan”

This paper presents a study on translator students’ perceptions on post-editing. Students from two different Master’s level courses were asked to post-edit machine translated texts and reflect on the differences between light and full post-editing, on the differences between translating and post-editing, on the role of error analysis and the use of the instructions given, as well as consider their own aptitudes in post-editor. The results show that their attitudes were mainly positive, but they felt that the task was challenging: leaving grammatical errors and “raw translations” in the text were considered difficult. The majority of students also thought that making a full post-editing was easier than making a light post-editing. This was also reflected in their productions, as many students returned a light edit that corresponded to a full one. Keywords: machine translation, post-editing, students’ reflections, translator, training</p

SKY Journal of Linguistics

SKY Journal of Linguistics, vol 30:201

SKY Journal of Linguistics

vol 29:201

Miten tutkia kohteliaisuutta? Käsityksiä suomalaisesta ja ranskalaisesta kohteliaisuudesta

Miten kohteliaisuus muuttuu paikassa ja ajassa? Miten suomalaisten käytös muuttuu Ranskassa? Mitä ranskalaiset ajattelevat meidän kohteliaisuudestamme? Kohteliaisuudella on keskeinen rooli, kun ylläpidetään suhteita ihmisten välillä. Miten tutkia kohteliaisuutta? tarkastelee suomalaisia ja ranskalaisia kohteliaisuuskäsityksiä ja kohteliaisuuden muutosta. Se lisää tietoisuutta erilaisista käytöstavoista ja kuvaa kohteliaisuutta ilmiönä, joka on jatkuvassa liikkeessä: suomalainen ja ranskalainen kohteliaisuus vaikuttavat tällä hetkellä lähenevän toisiaan. Samalla murtuu sitkeä myytti siitä, että yksi kulttuuri olisi toista kohteliaampi tai epäkohteliaampi. Teos on ensimmäinen kattava esittely kohteliaisuudesta ja sen tutkimuksesta suomen kielellä. Se esittelee kohteliaisuustutkimuksen kolme aaltoa 1970-luvulta nykypäivään ja tarjoaa työkaluja kohteliaisuuden paikallisen ja ajallisen ulottuvuuden tarkasteluun.How to study politeness? Perceptions of Finnish and French politeness Politeness is a key means by which we maintain interpersonal relationships. This book is the first comprehensive study of politeness in Finnish. Based on linguistic and pragmatic research, the book spans three parts. The first part is theoretical and historical, summarising three waves of politeness research, describing politeness as a cultural and historical phenomenon. The second part is empirical, providing an example of the study of im/politeness from outsiders’ perspectives—that, is French people living in Finland and Finns living or having lived in France. The focus group discussions ranged from definitions of politeness and differences of behaviour, to learning and teaching as well as to changes to politeness norms within society. The third part summarises the conclusions and offers an epilogue. This reader-friendly book includes exercises and recommended readings, and is welcomed by researchers and students working on politeness and, more broadly, relational work.Peer reviewe