This empirical study deals with the issues of language choice and code alternation as a common practice in the organization of the complex check in activity with multiple participants in hospitality properties in Sweden. In particular, it discusses several interactional tasks that code alternation may accomplish in that setting and represents a crossroad of general linguistics, bilingualism studies and conversation analysis. In the light of arising interest of specialists of different areas of linguistics in bilingualism in formal settings, it deals with institutional bilingualism in Sweden, an EU country with a comparatively high level of bilingualism among residents. In the era of the new economy with its globalization and human mobility, bilingualism has become an emergent practice in many tourism settings, the hospitality sector of tourism among them. In hospitality as a tourism setting with a potentially high concentration of foreign tourists, it is inevitable that certain groups of hotel guests include members who expose different language abilities and preferences. As a result, in the interaction with one single group of guests two or even more languages can be used at the same time, as oriented to the needs and preferences of each and every guest. This investigation aims at discussing some possible accomplishments of language choice and code alternation in a standardized hotel check in activity where a single group of guests has to be addressed in two languages, Swedish and English, and where the language choices are crucial for participation and the accomplishment of the check in activity in general.

This paper focuses on facework used by the invited guests in a broadcasted debate. The purpose of this analysis is to investigate how the invited guests use facework and how the guest relate to their functional role within the debate. The aim is also to investigate how the phases of the debate regulate the facework used by the guests. The analysis is based on transcrition and videomaterial from one of Sweden’s most viewed debates, Opinion Live. Conversation analysis (CA) is part of the theoretical framework used to analyse support, interruption and conversation turns. To analyze facework this paper relies on Goffman’s theory of face and Muntigl & Turnbull’s four types of disagreement acts in facework and arguing. Brown & Levinson’s politeness theory has also been used to investigate facework and strategies. In addition, Svensson’s definition of the debate’s specific roles within the format has also been used. The results show that facework has two purposes. The first is that it is used to defend the guest’s own face. The other purpose is to attack other guest’s faces which implies that their functional roles in the debate are being challenged. The results also points towards that the structure of the conversation in the debate itself influence the types of facework used by the guests.

Bimodal tvåspråkighet hos personer med hörselnedsättning är ett forskningsområde med begränsad omfattning. Denna studie syftar till att belysa hur bimodal tvåspråkighet kan fungera i en klass för hörselskadade elever, så kallad hörselklass. Genom deltagande observation har videoinspelningar av interaktionen i klassrummen gjorts, vilka sedan transkriberats utifrån en multimodal samtalsanalys då analysen avsett både den talspråkliga och den teckenspråkiga interaktionen. Utifrån frågeställningen hur och på vilket sätt tecken och teckenspråk används i klassrumsinteraktionen visar resultaten att kodblandning, dvs. simultan användning av tal och tecken är vanligt förekommande hos både lärare och elever. Ett annat förekommande fenomen som framkommit i klassrumsobservationerna hos eleverna är kodväxling, som sker när eleverna byter språk för särskilda syften, t.ex. för att viska med varandra medan lektionen pågår. En annan funktion kodväxlingen uppvisade var möjligheten till att genomföra samtalsdelningar under en pågående aktivitet. / Bimodal bilingualism among people with hearing loss is an area of ​​research with limited extent. This study aims to highlight how bimodal bilingualism can work in a class of hard-of hearing students. Through partaking observation, video recordings of interaction in the classrooms have been made, which later have been transcribed with a multimodal conversation analysis approach. The multimodal conversation analysis comprises both the spoken and the signed interaction. Based on the questions of how and in what way signs and the sign language are used in classroom interaction, the results show that code-blending, i.e. simultaneous use of speech and signs, was common among both teachers and students. Another common phenomenon that emerged in the classroom observations is code-switching, which occurs when pupils change their language for specific purposes, e.g. to whisper to each other during the ongoing lesson. Another feature code-switching demonstrated was the ability to conduct schismings during an ongoing activity.

This thesis investigates how high school students collaboratively solve naturally occurring spelling problems in an English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom in Stockholm, Sweden. The study is motivated by the scarcity of research on spelling solving, both in terms of the observable spelling practices adopted by the students and in terms of the collaborative management of spelling issues in the second/foreign language classroom. The theoretical and methodological framework is multimodal ethnomethodological conversation analysis (CA). The data consists of video recordings of ten EFL lessons that took place during five consecutive school days. The thesis focuses specifically on three spelling solving episodes and analyzes at the micro level the process by which the students go from initiating to closing the spelling solving sequence. In providing fine-grained accounts of the students’ verbal and embodied actions as they collaboratively attempt to solve the spelling problems, the thesis respecifies spelling solving strategies as observable spelling solving practices. The analysis demonstrates how the participants orient to spelling solving as an important form-focused activity. Moreover, the analysis shows how the students integrate different verbal and embodied resources as well as cultural artifacts to accomplish the spelling solving. Finally, the analysis demonstrates how the students’ relative orientations to individual versus collaborative achievements and their management of epistemic rights and responsibilities in completing the task influence the sequential organization and the outcome of the solving sequences. The thesis discusses the findings in relation to prior work on spelling solving and also points out potential implications for second/foreign language instruction that may be of use for current and future EFL instructors.

This thesis focuses on Chinese–Swedish code-switching of bilingual children in Sweden. The purpose is to, through a case study, study what Chinese–Swedish code-switching looks like in daily conversations between bilingual children and their parents. Three main questions are formulated from the purpose of the thesis, foucusing on the types and frequencies of code-switching, the grammar of code-switching, and the motivation of code-switching. The linguistic material comes from voice recordings of naturally occurring conversations between three children and their parents, which are transcribed afterwards. In order to answer the questions, two different kinds of analyses are carried out: a quantitative analysis, to study the types and frequencies of code-switching, and a qualitative analysis, to study the grammar and motivation of code-switching. The qualitative analysis includes a grammatical analysis and a conversation analysis. The results of the analyses show that the types and frequencies of code-switching vary between different children, due to the interplay of three factors, namely the children’s language competence, the parents’ language patterns and the status of Swedish as the primary language in the society. In intra-sentential code-switching, when both languages have the same word order, constituents in different languages follow the corresponding grammar; and when code-switching occurs at places where there are different word orders in the two languages, the speaker has to choose and follow one of the grammars. The conversation analysis shows that code-switching is used as an extra and exclusive resource for bilingual speakers at turn distribution, marking preference and initiating repair.

Reaching shared understanding during court hearings is a prerequisite to ensure a fair trial and maintaining legal certainty. Every month between 2,000 and 3,000 court hearings in Sweden make use of interpreters. Interpreter-mediated conversations involve an extra discourse compared to monolingual conversations which increases the risk of misunderstandings. Using methodology of conversation analysis the study explores how bilingualism is expressed during interpreter-mediated court hearings, at which occasions the Spanish-speaking laymen switch to Swedish and what function the codeswitching fulfills. The study identifies patterns in codeswitching and categorizes them into six different types. Furthermore the ideology of monolingualism in court is challenged and the advantages and disadvantages of codeswitching is discussed. The analysis concludes that even though certain types of codeswitching lead to delays in the conversation, the interaction is mostly favored by the Spanish-speaking party understanding some Swedish. Court proceedings would benefit from being more permissive toward bilingualism and the types of codeswitching that favor intersubjectivity.

Detta examensarbete belyser fenomenet kodväxling som kommunikativ strategi hos en grupp gymnasieelever med svenska som modersmål och svenska som andraspråk, vid samtal på engelska. Med en sociokulturell syn på kunskap och lärande och med språkanvändning som förargument, antogs en samtalsanalytisk inriktning med avsikt att studera form och funktioner för kodväxling. För att belysa det som sker i ett samtal mellan dessa elever och konkret ge exempel på olika former och funktioner för kodväxling genomfördes både en ljud-och videoinspelning med eleverna i två omgångar följt av en transkribering av det inspelade materialet. Det centrala materialet i studien har därför sin grund i transkriberingen och bygger ur metodologisk synpunkt på samtalsanalytiska aspekter som på kommunikativa strategier. Studien visar att deltagarna använde kodväxling för en mängd olika funktioner där målet var att få fram sitt budskap. Inga sammanbrott i kommunikationen mellan deltagarna i denna studie inträffade, dels för att samtliga deltagare behärskar kodväxlingsspråket, dels för att deltagarna inte letar efter språkliga misstag hos varandra (Gröning 2004). Studien visar även på ett samband mellan var kodväxling inträffar och vad dess funktion avser uppfylla. / The present study investigates the use and appearance of code-switching as a communicative strategy used by a group of upper secondary students in Sweden. A total of six students participated in this study in which three of them have Swedish as a first language and three students have Swedish as a second language. All students were sound and video recorded while speaking English together (without my presence or interference). The recordings were analyzed using a revised conversational analysis (Norrby 2004) in order to detect the appearance of and function for code-switching. The present study shows that the occurrence of code-switching does not contribute to breakdown in communication. The reason for why the communication did not break down is based on the fact that the code-switched language is Swedish, which all the contestants comprehend to various degrees, and because the participants were not aiming at pointing out each other’s mistakes (Gröning 2004). Code-switching is used for various different functions which all contribute to keeping the conversation going in order to maintain the interactional goal. This study also indicates that there is a connection between where the code-switched element occurs in the utterance and function for code-switching.

Abstract The study examines ‘recovery through repetition’, investigating how speakers repeat their own utterances in order to return to prior talk. The phenomenon comprises instances of everyday, casual conversation in which speakers indicate that their utterance was either not taken up at all or not taken up to an adequate degree. By repeating the utterance more or less word-for-word, speakers suggest to their recipients that a (different type of) response is relevant and offer the utterance for re-consideration. The data consist of American-English and Finnish conversations. The segments come from the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English and from the Corpus of Conversational Finnish that is maintained by the Department of Finnish Language and Literature at the University of Helsinki (Keskusteluntutkimuksen arkisto). The theoretical and methodological framework of the study is based on interactional linguistics and conversation analysis. First, the study details the typical composition and position of recovery through repetition and discusses the interactional implications that the repeated utterances may have. The study focuses on the functions of recovery through repetition and their implications for stance taking. Two overall interactional environments are identified: speakers employ recovery through repetition either to seek the attention of recipients and to take a stance towards an activity in progress, or to redirect the attention of recipients and to take a stance towards a recipient response. The different functions of recovery through repetition in the two environments are further examined. Moreover, the study contrasts repetition with other means of recovery and suggests that the different means have divergent implications for stance taking. Finally, the study concludes that recovery through repetition provides speakers with a means of negotiating the input of their utterances and simultaneously taking a stance towards an aspect of the ongoing interaction. / Tiivistelmä Tutkimus tarkastelee toistoa elvytyskeinona keskustelussa eli sitä, kuinka puhuja toistaa oman lausumansa palatakseen aiempaan puheeseen. Ilmiö muodostuu arkisista, epämuodollisista keskustelutilanteista, joissa puhuja osoittaa, että jotakin hänen lausumaansa ei ole joko otettu lainkaan huomioon tai sitä ei ole käsitelty asianmukaisesti. Toistamalla lausuman lähes sanatarkasti puhuja ilmaisee keskustelukumppaneilleen, että jonkinlainen (tai mahdollisesti tietyntyyppinen) vastaanotto olisi odotuksenmukainen, ja tarjoaa lausumaansa käsiteltäväksi uudelleen. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu amerikanenglannin- ja suomenkielisistä keskusteluista, jotka ovat peräisin Santa Barbaran puhutun amerikanenglannin kokoelmasta (Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English) ja Helsingin yliopiston suomen kielen ja kotimaisen kirjallisuuden laitoksen Keskusteluntutkimuksen arkistosta. Tutkimuksen teoreettisen ja menetelmällisen viitekehyksen muodostavat vuorovaikutuslingvistiikka ja keskustelunanalyysi. Aluksi tutkimuksessa kartoitetaan yksityiskohtaisesti elvyttävän toiston tyypillistä rakennetta ja paikkaa sekä pohditaan toistettujen lausumien mahdollisia vuorovaikutuksellisia seuraamuksia. Tutkimus keskittyy elvyttävän toiston tehtäviin ja niiden merkitykseen asennoitumiselle. Tutkimuksessa tunnistetaan kaksi yleistä esiintymisympäristöä: puhujat käyttävät elvyttävää toistoa joko hakeakseen vastaanottajien huomiota ja ottaakseen kantaa meneillään olevaan toimintaan tai ohjatakseen vastaanottajien huomiota ja ottaakseen kantaa edeltävään vastaanottajan vuoroon. Elvyttävän toiston tehtäviä näissä kahdessa ympäristössä eritellään tutkimuksessa tarkemmin. Lisäksi tutkimuksessa verrataan toistoa muihin elvytyskeinoihin keskustelussa ja esitetään, että eri elvytyskeinoilla rakennetaan asennoitumista eri tavoin. Tutkimus osoittaa, että elvyttävä toisto tarjoaa keskustelijoille keinon neuvotella sanomansa merkityksestä ja samalla rakentaa asennoitumistaan meneillään olevaan vuorovaikutustilanteeseen.

Abstract This dissertation studies emotional displays in talk-in-interaction, especially focusing on conversational argument, storytelling and teasing. The aim is to understand how verbal expressions, prosodic cues, and embodied actions interact with each other in emotional expression. The main analytic approach and methodology is conversation analysis and multimodal interaction analysis, applied to interactional sequences from everyday conversations. The research data comes from three different video recordings and their transcripts. First, the dissertation reveals two broad types of frustration in conversational argument. The findings suggest that combined verbal and nonverbal expression of frustration involves a complex interplay of prosodic cues and embodied actions. Nonverbal expression of frustration is displayed by embodied actions alone. Second, the dissertation shows how shared joy is conveyed between storytellers and recipients in storytelling. They can achieve shared joy because the recipients express willing participation and active recipiency in two main ways: they display verbal appreciation of the story, or they join in the storytelling through laughter, smiles, head nods, and gaze exchanges. The recipients may also offer summaries or interpretations of events in the story by comparing their own experiences to events in the story. Third, the dissertation analyzes playful teasing activity, showing how teasing activity can bring about a shared experience of amusement for both teasers and their “targets.” The study argues that recipients of teasing are active contributors in the social interaction. The transient embarrassment felt by the teased participants does not prevent the exchange from reaching a shared experience of amusement. / Tiivistelmä Väitöskirja tutkii tunteiden osoittamista arkisissa keskustelutilanteissa ja erityisesti väittelyn, tarinankerronnan ja kiusoittelun kuluessa. Tutkimusmetodi on pääasiassa keskustelunanalyysi, jonka avulla tutkitaan, miten kielelliset ilmaukset, prosodiset vihjeet sekä keholliset toiminnot yhdessä tuottavat tunneilmauksia. Tutkimusaineiston muodostaa kolme videoitua keskustelua ja niiden litteraatiot. Tutkimus osoittaa arkikeskusteluissa esiintyvissä väittelyissä ilmenevän kahtalaista turhautumisen tyyppiä. Ensimmäisessä puhujat tuottavat rinnan kielellisiä ja ei-kielellisiä turhautumisen ilmauksia, toisessa turhautumista osoitetaan vain ei-kielellisin keinoin. Tuloksien mukaan edellisessä tyypissä prosodia ja keholliset toiminnot ovat monimutkaisessa vuorovaikutuksessa keskenään. Jälkimmäisessä tyypissä turhautumista ilmaistaan pelkästään keholla. Toiseksi väitöskirja osoittaa, miten jaettu ilon tunne syntyy puhujien ja vastaanottajien välisenä toimintana. Tarinankerronnassa saavutetaan ilon hetkiä, koska vastaanottajat ovat halukkaasti mukana kerronnassa ja osoittavat aktiivista vastaanottoa kahdella tavalla: he osoittavat arvostusta kertomusta kohtaan verbaalisin keinoin, tai he liittyvät kerrontaan mukaan nauramalla, hymyilemällä, nyökkäilemällä, vaihtamalla katseita keskenään, referoimalla ja tulkitsemalla kertojan aiempaa puhetta formulaatioillaan ja vertailemalla omia kokemuksiaan tarinan tilanteeseen. Kolmanneksi tutkimus analysoi leikkisää kiusoittelua, joka saadaan aikaan liioittelevilla kielellisillä ilmauksilla sekä liioittelevilla prosodisilla vihjeillä ja eleillä. Tutkimus näyttää, että kiusoittelun kohteet aktiivisesti myötävaikuttavat kiusoittelutoimintaan. He voivat olla siinä mukana liioittelevilla vastausvuoroilla, nauramalla tai toimimalla mukana pelkästään eleiden avulla. Empiirinen analyysi näyttää, että kiusoittelutoiminta tuottaa yhteisen huvittuneisuuden kokemuksen keskustelun kuluessa. Kiusoittelijan ja kiusoittelun kohteen kokema ohimenevä nolous tai kiusaantuneisuus ei estä tämän yhteisen huvittuneisuuden kokemuksen saavuttamista.

In this thesis, I use a multi-perspectival analytical approach to investigate the paralanguage of naturally occurring work-based Instant Message conversations. My research into the field of computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) has shown that written non-verbal cues have been considered as important means of contextualising text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC), yet their scholarly treatment has been scant. Previous findings about the importance paralanguage in CMD have been further strengthened by the findings of the field of business communication: in the virtual work environment the lack of audio-visual information has been found to contribute to miscommunication and consequently hinder cooperation. The linguistic devices and discursive strategies that are used in order to compensate for the limitations imposed by the text-based communicative channel have therefore been identified as in need of further exploration. In this thesis, I have outlined a CMC cue system based on the previous findings of CMDA to investigate the range of cues used as non-verbal signals in workplace text- based CMC. I have also used a multi-perspectival approach based on the theoretical frameworks of interactional sociolinguistics, communities of practice, relational work and politeness and conversation analysis (CA) in order to investigate the range of interactional roles of paralanguage during computer-mediated business conversations. The interpretive CA-informed analysis I have conducted has provided evidence of the important role of non-verbal signals during the contextualisation of complex transactional and relational communicative goals in the workplace. The analysis in this thesis has provided two significant results: firstly, by incorporating the findings of research into paralanguage of spoken as well as other written genres it resulted in a comprehensive description of the orthographic and typographic non-verbal cues used in text-based CMC and, secondly, by drawing on the multi-perspectival framework, it allowed for a description of the complex interactional functions of these cues during the contextualisation of content and relational intent and the creation of interactional coherence in IM.