Full Description
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.
Contents
Chapter 1 Speech Culture in Finland Chapter 2 White Lies or Relative Truth? Cultural Considerations of the Finnish Concept of Honesty and Intercultural Learning Chapter 3 Coding Personhood through Cultural Terms and Practices: Silence and Quietude as a Finnish Natural Way of Being Chapter 4 The Asiasta Puhuminen Event Chapter 5 Cultural Dialectics in Finnish Advising Relationships Chapter 6 Finnish Supportive Communication: A Qualitative Study on Middle-Aged Singles' Support Seeking Chapter 7 The Silence of the Finnish Sauna Chapter 8 The Meaning of Intangibles in International Business Relations: Latin American Perceptions of Finns as negotiators Chapter 9 The Finnish Criminal Trial as a Speech Communication Situation Chapter 10 Agreement and Disagreement in Focus: A Cultural Perspective on Televised Election Debates
