You and I in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish supervision meetings

• This paper presents a study of pronouns used in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish supervision meetings. In both countries, supervisors use similar sets of pronouns when commenting on an academic essay written by a student. Often, the supervisor addresses the student directly, e.g. but you could write x, or uses an indefinite pronoun, e.g. perhaps one could simply write x. Sometimes, the supervisor makes suggestions while referring to herself as a writer, e.g. I would write x. The supervisor may also use an inclusive we-authorship, e.g. well we cannot write x. This use of we is predominantly found in the Sweden-Swedish data. In relation to politeness strategies, our analysis indicates that pronouns appear in a more direct and clear-cut way (cf. respect strategies) in Finland-Swedish, and with a stronger focus on creating common ground and fostering group membership (cf. solidarity strategies) in Sweden-Swedish. Throughout, we point to differences and similarities between the dominant and the non-dominant variety of Swedish.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Dialectology

Dialektforskning

Sociolingvistik

Sociolinguistics

Svenska

Swedish

Linguistics

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)