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It's different with you: Contrastive perspectives on address research
Edited by Nicole Baumgarten and Roel Vismans
[Topics in Address Research 5] 2023
► pp. 61–91

Chapter 3
Variations in opening and closing forms in email correspondence in Danish and Swedish

| University of Aarhus
| The Danish Language Council
| The Danish Language Council
| University of Dalarna
| University of Turku

In this study, we investigate how differences and similarities in opening and closing greetings in professional emails in academia manifest themselves in Danish and Swedish. Our data consist of a corpus of 595 emails (primary data) and two surveys with 1836 respondents (supportive data). An important result is that cultural values, e.g., ideals of equality, in both language areas are expressed through similar linguistic means, but that due to different historical developments, the specific encoding is not identical. Another result is that there is a much larger variety in closing greetings than in opening greetings in both languages, which can be derived from the communication situation where openings and closings and the elements within these serve different purposes.

Keywords: openings and closings, greeting forms, Swedish, Danish, email, politeness, address
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Address and politeness
    • 2.2Email communication
      • 2.2.1The elements of an email
      • 2.2.2Factors influencing the choice of openings and closings
  • 3.Method and data
    • 3.1Primary data
    • 3.2Supportive data
  • 4.Openings
    • 4.1Openings in the Swedish dataset
    • 4.2Openings in the Danish dataset
    • 4.3Comparison
  • 5.Closings
    • 5.1Closings in the Swedish dataset
    • 5.2Closings in the Danish dataset
    • 5.3Comparison
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
    • 6.1Schematic patterns in the Swedish and Danish datasets
    • 6.2Openings and closings, fixed sets and room for variation
    • 6.3Dear
    • 6.4Formality/informality
    • 6.5Use of names
    • 6.6Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 September 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tar.5.03hou
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