Speech Culture in Finland

This collection of essays offers empirical studies about Finnish speech culture and also studies the relationships between speech and culture at the general level. One of the first books of its kind, it features essays from scholars on both sides of the Atlantic drawn together by a common theme: as persons speak, they speak culturally. Using qualitative methodology in general and ethnography in particular, the essayists examine: terms for talk, the regulation of talk, relational dialectics, face-work, intangibles, strategic communication, and argumentation. Finnish understandings of interpersonal, organizational, and institutional life are shown to be operating in such settings including social gatherings, courtroom deliberation, the sauna, advising in doctoral education, classroom interaction, political debates, and intercultural encounters. Read as a larger whole, these essays provide the reader with a glimpse of a life that is a Finnish life, valued as such and practiced as such.