Marie Nelson & Sofie Henricson
University of Stockholm, Sweden

Guidelines for academic counseling in dominant and non-dominant varieties of Swedish

Key words: Swedish in Finland and Sweden, academic counseling, communicative patterns, policy documents

Swedish is a pluricentric language, with official status in both Sweden (dominant) and Finland (non-dominant) (Reuter 1992). In both countries higher education is available in Swedish. Within the research programme Interaction and Variation in Pluricentric Languages – Communicative Patterns in Sweden Swedish and Finland Swedish, we have collected and studied naturally occurring interaction in academic counseling meetings in Sweden and Finland. When comparing the Sweden-Swedish and the Finland-Swedish data sets, we have found communicative differences e.g. in pronoun use, backchanneling behaviour, silences and overlaps (Henricson et al. in press, Nelson et al. submitted). The overall picture is that Sweden-Swedish supervisors are more oriented towards relational work, whereas the Finland-Swedish supervisors are more focused on clarity and precision in the advice given. Interaction on a micro level does not occur in isolation, but instead, mirrors a more overarching approach within the society. Hence, it is relevant to study the societal context of the dominant and the non-dominant variety of Swedish, in order to reach a better understanding of the communicative behaviour noticed in the Sweden-Swedish and the Finland-Swedish academic counselling meetings. In this talk, we will connect micro and macro levels by discussing the patterns found in the studied interactions in light of supervisory guidelines (Norberg Brorsson & Ekberg 2012, Vehviläinen 2014) and different kinds of policy documents concerning academic counceling in higher education in Sweden and Finland.

References:

Henricson, Sofie, Nelson, Marie, Wide, Camilla, Norrby, Catrin, Nilsson, Jenny & Lindström, Jan. (in press). You and I in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish supervision meetings. In: Muhr, Rudolf & Marley, Dawn (eds.), Pluricentric languages worldwide and pluricentric theory. Frankfurt/Wien: Peter Lang.

Nelson, Marie, Henricson, Sofie, Norrby, Catrin, Wide, Camilla, Lindström, Jan & Nilsson, Jenny (submitted). Att dela språk men inte samtalsmönster. Återkoppling i sverigesvenska och finlandssvenska handledningssamtal.

Norberg Brorsson, Birgitta & Ekberg, Karin 2012. Uppsatshandledning och skrivutveckling i högre utbildning. Stockholm: Liber.

Reuter, Mikael 1992. Swedish as a pluricentric language. In: M. Clyne (ed.), Pluricentric languages. Differing norms in different nations. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 101–116.

Vehviläinen, Sanna 2014. Ohjaustyön opas. Yhteistyössä kohti toimijuutta. Helsinki: Gaudeamus.