Cover not available

Article In: Pragmatics and Society: Online-First Articles

Speaking of workplaces in the time of Covid-19

Naming and digital placemaking in the Nordics

ORCiD logo with link
 | Halmstad University
 | Södertörn University
 | Roskilde University
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This article studies the development of changes in language use and digital place making in relation to workplaces emerging during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the working population in the Nordic countries were strongly affected by the crisis and many started working from home, which led to a complete reorganization of daily work routines and introduction of new digital tools. In this article, we explore how these changes influenced cultural practices of placemaking and language use. Analyzing the data from an online survey with participants from Denmark, Finland and Sweden, we discuss: (a) to what extent the view of what linguistically can be referred to as a (working) place was extended to digital environments, (b) to what extent materiality of the digital plays a role in the making of a digital workplace, and (c) how individuals use naming as a strategy to creatively form and make stances regarding analogue, digital, and hybrid workplaces. Our conclusions point at commencing re-negotiations of the dichotomies work-home and digital-analogue being expressed through linguistic practices.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Production of space and placemaking
  • 3.Digital workplaces and digital placemaking
  • 4.Language use as ‘taking a stance’
  • 5.Data and method
  • 6.Novel perceptions of workplace?
  • 7.The role of names and labels in digital placemaking
  • 8.Concluding discussion
  • References
References (31)
References
Agnew, John A. 1987. Place and Politics: The Geographical Mediation of State and Society. Boston: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ainiala, Terhi. 2016. “Names in society.” In The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming, ed. by Carole Hough, 371–381. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ainiala, Terhi, Minna Saarelma, and Paula Sjöblom. 2012. Names in Focus: An introduction to Finnish Onomastics. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis. 2024. “The Offline-Online Nexus.” In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes, ed. By Robert Blackwood, Stefania Tufi, and Will Amos, 441–455. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Azaryahu, Maoz. 2020. “Name-making as place-making.” In Naming, identity and tourism, ed. by Luisa Caiazzo, Richard Coates, and Maoz Azaryahu, 11–27. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Basik, Sergei. 2022. “Vernacular Place Name as a Cultural Arena of Urban Place-making and Symbolic Resistance in Minsk, Belarus.” Urban Geography 44(8): 1825–1832. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cresswell, Tim. 2015. Place: An Introduction. Second edition. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dragojevic, Marko, Fabio Fasoli, and Tamara Rakić. 2020. “Toward a Century of Language Attitude Research: Looking Back and Moving Forward.” Journal of language and social psychology 40(1): 60–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 2007. “The Stance Triangle.” In Stance Taking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, ed. by Robert Englebretson, 139–182. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fowler, Floyd J. Jr. 2014. Survey Research Methods. Los Angeles: SAGE publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garrett, Peter. 2010. Attitudes to Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halegoua, Germaine, and Erika Polson. 2021. “Exploring ‘Digital Placemaking’.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 27(3): 573–578. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hardley, Jess, and Ingrid Richardson. 2021. “Digital Placemaking and Networked Corporeality: Embodied Mobile Media Practices in Domestic Space during Covid-19.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 27(3): 625–636. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jordan, Peter. 2012. “Place Names as Ingredients of Space-related Identity.” Oslo Studies in Language 4(2): 117–131. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kostanski, Laura. 2011. “Signs of the Times: Changing Names and Cultural Values in Australia.” Onoma 461: 251–274.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kristiansen, Tore. 2009. Åbne og skjulte holdninger till engelskindflydelsen — hvad kan sprogpolitikken påvirke? [Overt and covert attitudes to English influence — what can language policy affect?]. Språk i Norden 20091: 95–112.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leibring, Katharina. 2016. “Animal names.” In The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming, ed. by Carole Hough, 615–627. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1996. “Language and Space.” Annual Review of Anthropology 251: 353–382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2003. Space in Language and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marsh, Elizabeth, Elvira Perez Vallejos, and Alexa Spence. 2022. “The Digital Workplace and Its Dark Side: An Integrative Review.” Computers in Human Behavior 1281: 107–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Niedzielski, Nancy A., and Dennis R. Preston. 2000. Folk Linguistics. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nyström, Staffan. 2016. “Names and Meaning.” In The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming, ed. by Carole Hough, 39–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parker, Charlie, Sam Scott, and Alistair Geddes. 2019. “Snowball Sampling.” In SAGE Research Methods Foundations ed. by Paul Atkinson, Sara Delamont, Alexandru Cernat, Joseph W. Sakshaug & Richard A. Williams. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rose-Redwood, Reuben. 2021. “Concluding Commentary: The Social and Political Life of Names and Naming.” Nordic Journal of Socio-Onomastics 1(2021): 187–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
SAOB = Svenska Akademiens ordbok. 1937. Published by The Swedish Academy. Lund 1893–. [URL]
Statistics Sweden, 2018. SSYK 2012. Standard för svensk yrkesklassificering [SSYK 2012. Standard for Swedish occupational classificiation]. MIS 20121:1. [URL]
Vyas, Lina. 2022. “’New Normal’ at Work in a Post-COVID World: Work–life Balance and Labor Markets.” Policy and Society 41(1): 155–167. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, Martin. 2012. Digital Workplaces: Vision and Reality. Business Information Review 29(4): 205–214. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue