Öresundsregionen erbjuder många miljöer och situationer där grannspråkskommunikation och strategier för ömsesidig förståelse är viktiga för danskar och svenskar. I artikeln diskuterar Lundin Åkesson och Zola Christensen hur de ackommodations strategier som deras informanter använder kan delas in i tre olika nivåer och hur dessa på ett avgörande sätt påverkar samtalsdeltagarnas olika roller, samarbetet mellan samtalsdeltagarna och inte minst för ståelsen av innehållet i det som sägs.In this article (“Communicative strategies in Swedish-Danish conversation areas – some pre liminary tendencies”), we aim at investigating the different strategies used by Swedes and Danes when discussing different topics with each other. The choice of studying com mu ni ca tion by Swedes and Danes is based on the relatively similar intercomprehension of the neighbour language in the two countries, and
on the fact that the Øresund region, more than any other area in Scandinavia, proposes environments where intercomprehension and useful communicative strategies are necessary.
The results presented in this article are based on two different investigations, each in turn consisting of classroom observations and interviews. We wish to stress that the studies are to be considered pre-investigations for a major, planned investigation, for which the tentative results reached so far constitute the ground. In the first investigation we refer to, Swedish and Danish students, around the age of 25, discuss a book they have read in advance. The second in vestigation was carried out as a follow-up of the tentative results of the fi rst one; hence we aimed at varying the level of comprehension of the neighbour language of the group members.
In the second investigation, the participants, between 25 and 35 years of age and with at least 4 years of university studies, were given different topics as the starting point for an argumenta tion. The strategies of accommodation appearing in our material can be divided tentatively into three different levels, N1, N2, and N3 (‘N’ for Sw. ‘nivå’, Eng. ‘level’). What we here refer to as N2-accommodation is characterized by the participants’choice of words and partly also syntactic patterns, in order to make it easier for the rest of the group to understand. Further more, they also adjust their speech in another and more conscious way than N1-accommodators. N2-accommodation requires relatively fl uent skills in the neighbour language. The accommodation strategies categorised as N3 display a different pattern. In order for N3-accommodation
to appear, some participants must, to some extent, know both languages involved, and the result of N3-accommodation points in two different directions. On the one hand, the degree of accommodation of those knowing both languages is so high that the others stop accommodating. As a result, the majority
of the group members understand less than the participants involved in N2- or even N1-accommodation. On the other hand, we can also detect the opposite pattern: accommodation becomes superfl uous, and all participants stop accommodating
