Cognitive verbs in Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish supervision meetings

Authors

• Marie Nelson Department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism, Stockholm University
• Sofie Henricson Swedish Language, Åbo Akademi University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23997/pk.69809

Keywords:

cognitive verbs, supervision meetings, Swedish, variational pragmatics

Abstract

The article presents a study of cognitive verbs used by Sweden-Swedish and Finland-Swedish
students and supervisors in academic supervision meetings. The data consist of naturally
occurring interactions. The meetings are conducted in Swedish at universities in Sweden and
Finland. The results show that the amount and proportion of cognitive verbs are higher in the
Sweden-Swedish data. In both data sets, supervisors use more cognitive verbs than students.
However, the Finland-Swedish students use more cognitive verbs than the Sweden-Swedish
students. The results also show smaller differences as regards the emphasis on certain semantic
fields and the usage of specific cognitive verbs.