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Article published In:
Politeness in and across Historical Europe
Edited by Annick Paternoster, Gudrun Held and Dániel Z. Kádár
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:1] 2023
► pp. 198–216

Historical changes in politeness norms

Are Finnish and French conceptions of politeness moving closer to each other?

ORCID logo | University of Helsinki

Although French courtly models spread to Europe, little research has compared the development of politeness in France with more remote European linguacultures. To fill this gap, I examine folk understandings of historical politeness in Finnish and French linguacultures. Concentrating on cultural outsiders’ own understandings – that is, French people living in Finland and Finns who live or have lived in France – my study lies within the framework of a discursive approach, and draws upon data from five focus-group discussions and their dialogical discourse analysis. My study shows that the different forms of government, levels of urbanisation and branches of Christianity reportedly influenced differences in Finnish and French politeness. Yet, during participants’ stays in these respective countries, an affinity towards politeness was described as stemming from globalisation. Future research should examine if the frames of expectations of politeness in Europe are generally moving closer towards one another.

Keywords: Finland, focus groups, France, historicity, (im)politeness, intercultural
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Societal changes and their influence on historical politeness practices in Finland and France
  • 3.Theoretical framework, data and methods
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Reports of historical causes resulting in differences between Finnish and French politeness
    • 4.2Perceived recent changes in Finnish and French politeness
      • 4.2.1Perceived recent changes in Finnish politeness
      • 4.2.2Perceived recent changes in French politeness
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 March 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00062.iso
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