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'You need help as usual, do you?': Joking and swearing for collegiality in a Swedish workplace
Mälardalen University, School of Education, Culture and Communication, Educational Sciences and Mathematics.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8852-6717
2014 (Swedish)In: Multilingua - Journal of Cross-cultural and Interlanguage Communication, ISSN 0167-8507, E-ISSN 1613-3684, Vol. 33, no 1-2, p. 173-200Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This paper draws on the KINSA project (The Communicative Situation of Immigrants at Swedish Workplaces), which aimed to identify communicative factors that have a positive impact on the integration of second language speakers in the workplace and in their immediate work team. The focus here is on humour and swearing as strategies for doing collegiality and for building and maintaining good relations between co-workers. The article presents data from five second language speakers, permanently employed industrial or office workers in a major Swedish company. Theoretically and methodologically, the paper has its basis in discourse analysis, interactional sociolinguistics and the ethnography of communication. By means of fieldwork, a large body of empirical data was collected, comprising detailed field notes, audio and video recordings of naturally occurring talk, and texts processed and produced by participants. The analysis of the data shows that metalinguistic and metacultural awareness and performance of relational communicative acts among the participants appear to have helped to facilitate and consolidate integration in the workplace and the immediate work team. To foster good relations at work, the five participants make strategic use of jokes, compliments, narratives, swearing and greetings. In this article the use of jokes and swearing is highlighted. It closes by making a case for future research in the area of integration in the workplace through relational communication, especially among second language speakers.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2014. Vol. 33, no 1-2, p. 173-200
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-24606DOI: 10.1515/multi-2014-0008ISI: 000330874300008Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84899684947OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-24606DiVA, id: diva2:703573
Available from: 2014-03-07 Created: 2014-03-07 Last updated: 2020-06-05Bibliographically approved

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Nelson, Marie

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  • apa
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  • de-DE
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Output format
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