Varietetsspecifika gester : Att hålla tummarna i Finland och Sverige

• When we wish each other good luck, for example before a job interview or a sports event, we might use a fixed expression such as ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed’, sometimes accompanied by an illustrating gesture. Such a gesture, with a specific and conventionalised meaning, is called an emblem. Emblems can accompany verbal counterparts or convey the same message on their own. In Finland and Sweden, we usually do not cross our fingers; instead, we hold our thumbs. How the gesture illustrating the verbal expression ‘to hold one’s thumbs’ is performed, however, has not been explored in detail, and this study is an attempt to fill this gap. Encyclopedia descriptions suggest that Swedes conceal their thumb in a tight fist, while Finns let their thumb stick straight up from a closed hand. Which gesture the Swedish-speaking inhabitants of bilingual Finland use has not been discussed previously, but in general, Finland-Swedes have been noted to use a language with traces of both Swedish and Finnish patterns. In this paper, we explore whether this general tendency is also reflected in gestures, and specifically in the emblem expressing ‘to hold one’s thumbs’. The data consist of 250 gestures documented in photographs and interviews in one city in Sweden and four cities in Finland. The analysis confirms the general tendency of a concealed Swedish thumb and an upright Finnish thumb, but also reveals some variation in how the gesture is made among Finland-Swedes. The results are discussed in relation to regional variation and language contact.

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

gesture

emblem

to hold one’s thumbs

variational pragmatics

regional variation

pluricentric languages

Finland Swedish

Sweden Swedish

Finnish

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)