Swedish is a
pluricentric language and has official status in both Sweden and Finland. Until recently, most
studies on such languages have focused on differences and similarities in
grammar and lexicon, and less on pragmatic variation. We suggest that a
pragmatic perspective is of help in understanding the relationship between
national varieties, and in this study we investigate greetings in Sweden
Swedish and Finland Swedish. Previous comparisons of the two varieties suggest
that Sweden Swedish is less formal than Finland Swedish, and in this article we
problematise the concept of formality and discuss whether formality could
explain any differences in the use of greetings. We use three data sets from
each of the two countries: videorecorded service encounters from box offices
and information desks, recorded focus groups, and experiments. Combined, the
data suggest that the Finland-Swedish greeting repertoire is larger than the
Sweden-Swedish one, and that Swedish speakers in Finland are therefore more sensitive
to social distance than their counterparts in Sweden. At the same time, the
study highlights the complexity in the use of greetings, and shows that
variables such as gender, age, context and degree of acquaintance all play an
important part in the use of greetings in both Sweden Swedish and Finland
Swedish.