Trade slang as a manifestation of language‐group relations at work places

Abstract

The alternating and mixed use of Swedish and Finnish in three relatively small firms in the bilingual city of Vasa, Finland, is described and analysed. Altogether the firms have 678 employees, 40% Swedish‐speaking and 56% Finnish‐speaking, while 4% identify themselves as bilinguals. One firm has a Finnish majority, one Swedish and one has about an equal number Finnish‐speaking and Swedish‐speaking employees.

In each firm a small section was investigated in more detail with special concentration on their possible trade slang and how this trade slang is influenced by either Swedish or Finnish.

Each section has developed its own special trade slang and also words that are common to both language groups, i.e. either Swedish or Finnish terms are used irrespective of which language is being spoken. These shared terms are either slang terms in L1 and L2 or trade terms in L1 and slang terms in L2.

It is characteristic of the slang terms that they are used almost entirely in the spoken language and almost exclusively within the section but here they are always used. The age of the slang terms is given in periods of 5 years.