Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 brill.com/jocp Addressing, Greeting and Related Gestures in the Opening Sequences of Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos Johanna Isosävi | ORCID: 0000-0003-2327-9799 University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40), FI-00014, Helsinki, Finland Corresponding author johanna.isosavi@helsinki.fi Ildikó Vecsernyés | ORCID: 0000-0002-0713-5771 University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40), FI-00014, Helsinki, Finland ildiko.vecsernyes@helsinki.fi Abstract This paper compares the opening sequences of Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube videos. We concentrate on addressing, greeting and related gestures, important elements when YouTubers interact with their imagined viewers, using data consisting of 138 videos in the three languages. This study falls within the field of the pragmatics of social media and interpersonal pragmatics, and data were analysed using multimodal discourse analysis. Shared practices included the frequent use of greetings, a preference for general nominal address forms as well as for iconic and deictic gestures. Cross-cultural differences revealed that Finnish and Hungarian were closer to each other than to French. Shared practices may be connected to the genre of YouTube videos, whereas differences appear related to cross-cultural practices generally. Keywords social media – multimodality – interpersonal pragmatics – deictic – iconic © Johanna Isosävi and Ildikó Vecsernyés, 2022 | doi:10.1163/26660393-bja10042 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. 2 1 Isosävi and Vecsernyés Introduction Although YouTube is the second most popular social media platform with more than 2.3 billion monthly users,1 it remains an unexplored field in linguistic studies, despite its suitability “from the perspective of visual and verbal expression” (Johansson 2017: 191). Eight of ten 18–49-year-olds watch YouTube, which can be navigated in 80 different languages.2 Thus, surprisingly, analyses of social media practices have focused primarily on other Internet platforms and English, whereas contrastive studies remain rare (cf. Ren and Fukushima, 2021). For instance, Ren and Fukushima (2021) studied requests in Chinese and Japanese on social media, Vecsernyés (2021) examined Finnish and Hungarian address practices in Facebook comments and Argüelles Alvarez and Muñoz Muñoz (2012) compared the use of Spanish and English on Twitter. Our study concentrates on the opening sequences of YouTube videos comparing three languages: Finnish, French and Hungarian. The opening sequences in YouTube videos have received little attention (English: Frobenius, 2011; French: Combe Celik, 2014), despite presenting an interesting dataset to study, namely, YouTubers’ interactions with imagined viewers. Here, we limit our research questions to addressing and greeting, which are important elements in the monologic performance of vloggers when interacting with their imagined audiences (Frobenius, 2011). Our research questions focusing on Finnish, French and Hungarian opening sequences are as follows: 1) How do YouTubers address and greet their imagined audiences?; 2) What kinds of gestures are related to addressing and greeting?; and 3) What cross-cultural similarities and differences appear in addressing, greeting and related gestures? We hypothesise that, although Finnish and Hungarian belong to the same language group (Finno-Ugric languages) and French does not, Hungarian lies closer to the French than the Finnish lingua culture (cf. address practices: Isosävi and Lappalainen, 2015). Our data contain 138 videos from 69 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTubers. Our study falls within the field of the pragmatics of social media and interpersonal pragmatics, and we employ multimodal discourse analysis. In section 2, we summarise previous studies on YouTube videos, while section 3 reviews the research on address forms, greetings and gestures. In section 4, we describe our data and the theoretical framework. Section 5 presents the analysis and results, and, in section 6, we discuss the implications of our findings. 1 https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/youtube-users-statistics/ (accessed 4 January 2022). 2 https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/youtube-stats/ (accessed 24 February 2020). 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 2 3 Social Media and YouTube Social media is part of computer-mediated communication (CMC), defined as “digitally mediated and Internet-based platforms” utilised to “exchange, share and edit self- and other-generated textual and audio-visual messages” (Hoffman, 2017: 4). Social media encompasses different Internet platforms ranging from blogs and discussion fora to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and instant messaging services (Hoffmann, 2017: 6). The key notion of second-generation (Web 2.0) Internet platforms is participation (Hoffmann, 2017: 5). Mandiberg (2012: 1) talks about “amateur media” whose sites “are pointless without audience participation”. Thus, social media encourages people to “post, comment, evaluate, link and contribute selfselected […] content” (Hoffmann, 2017: 5). The participatory structure to social media differs from traditional platforms, since interaction is asynchronous between speakers and countless unknown hearers; social media has features of both face-to-face and mass media communications (see Chovanec and Dynel, 2015: 6–7). The focus in CMC studies in general has shifted. The first wave of CMC research was “language focused” – that is, the effects of communications technologies on language were considered more important than contextual factors – whereas second-wave studies have highlighted situated language use (Androutsopoulos, 2008). Although studies seem to be more balanced in terms of technology and situated language use, little attention has been paid to variation across different lingua cultures. Turning to the object of our study, YouTube is an extremely flexible online video-sharing platform launched in 2005, where ordinary users can upload multimodal content on various topics; the majority of users simply consume content (Johansson, 2017: 175–176). Consumers can subscribe to uploaders’ channels and rate or comment on videos. Previous linguistic studies of YouTube videos primarily concentrated on English. For example, Frobenius (2011) studied the common features from vlog (defined in section 4) opening sequences and the strategies vloggers frequently employed to compensate for the absent audience. Frobenius (2014; 2013) also examined vloggers’ shared tools to involve viewers and the role of pointing gestures (see section 3.4). Finnish YouTube videos have primarily appeared in Master’s theses studies. In French, multiple studies focused on vlogs. Vlogs were examined as a genre (Combe Celic, 2014), primarily from the perspective of activism and participation on YouTube. For instance, Combe (2020) studied a French vlog educating viewers on politics, Balleys (2019) examined French YouTubers using media visibility for sexual liberation and Caron’s (2017) study focused on teenagers’ vlogs in Canadian French. In Hungarian, Porkoláb (2015) studied Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 4 Isosävi and Vecsernyés comments on vlogs from the perspective of written-language norms. Consequently, a gap exists in examining YouTube videos in general and, specifically, cross culturally in languages other than English. 3 Addressing, Greeting and Related Gestures in Finnish, French and Hungarian Here, we summarise the research on address pronouns (3.1.), nominal address forms (3.2), greetings (including welcomings) (3.3) as well as gestures (3.4.). 3.1 Address Pronouns The three languages distinguish between informal T forms and formal V forms. Finnish and French possess two address pronouns, whereas Hungarian has four. Finnish and French distinguish between the informal T form (2sg: sinä,3 tu) and the formal V form (2pl: te, vous). Hungarian also has the informal T form (2sg: te, 2pl: ti), but distinguishes between two V forms in the 3rd person: ön (3pl: önök) and maga (3pl: maguk) (Domonkosi, 2010: 34–35). Ön is considered a distance-keeping, polite pronoun, whereas maga is used with acquaintances and thus considered impolite when used amongst unknown individuals (Kovács and Tánczos, 2015: 248–252). The uses of T and V forms differ across the three languages. In Finnish, a T reform occurred during the late 1960s (Lappalainen, 2015), whereas, in French, the imposition of T following the events of May 1968 were short-lived, with V reappearing (Coffen, 2002: 235). In Hungarian, increasing use of T forms began in the 1970s continuing to present given economic and political changes, with their use continuing to expand (for an overview, see Kovács and Tánczos, 2015). In Finnish, T forms are preferred, although age and familiarity influence their choice (Lappalainen, 2015). In French, adults restrict the use of T forms to close relationships or when speakers share a common position (Clyne, Norrby and Warren, 2009; Isosävi, 2013: 113). Hungarian lies between Finnish and French: T forms are used between family members, friends and unknown people approximately under 35 on the street or during service encounters, whereas V forms are used in status-oriented situations (doctor–patient, citizen–policeman) (Domonkosi, 2002: 111–121; 2010: 36–40). Social media further challenges choices between address pronouns, since people do not necessarily possess information regarding each other’s age and 3 In Finnish, the address pronoun can be left out (e.g., [sinä] tulet, ‘[you, T] come), and the informal sä(ä) and dialectal sie forms also exist. 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 5 status. Yet, no “one” social media exists. In some French discussion forums, T forms were preferred (Isosävi, 2015: 115, 118; Williams and van Compernolle, 2009), whereas, in others, V forms dominated (Havu, 2019). In Hungarian, T forms are common in public chats and forums where users do not know each other’s background, whilst addressing in private online communication contexts follows similar rules as those beyond the Internet, whereby V forms can be used (Domonkosi, 2002: 166–167). On Facebook, informal T as well as formal V were found in both Finnish and Hungarian in comments to posts from prime ministers (Vecsernyés, 2021), and V was found in Hungarian also by Domonkosi (2018; 2019). 3.2 Nominal Address Forms Nominal address forms appear more frequently in Hungarian and French than in Finnish. In Finnish, by contrast, politeness rules do not require mentioning the name of the person addressed, even in greetings or thanking (Seppänen, 1989: 198, 204). Yet, they are used in Finnish in imperatives and questions requiring a reaction (VISK, 2004: §1077) or in two opposing situations: ceremonial and intimate (Yli-Vakkuri, 2005: 220). French nominal address forms enjoy more frequent use and remain more formal than those in Finnish (Havu, et al., 2014: 330). In Hungarian, a wide range of nominal address forms are used in intimate relationships, whereas names and titles are favoured in asymmetrical situations (see, e.g., Domonkosi, 2002: 116–136; 2010: 43–45). Gendered titles appear frequently in Hungarian and French. In Finnish, herra (‘Mr.’) and rouva (‘Mrs.’), loans from Swedish, have never enjoyed frequent use (Yli-Vakkuri, 2005: 194). In Hungarian, the most common gendered titles uram (‘Mr.’) and asszonyom or hölgyem (‘Mrs.’) are frequently used during service encounters (Domonkosi, 2002: 111–117). In French, Monsieur and Madame are used during service encounters and when addressing unknown individuals (Isosävi, 2013: 122–123). In all three languages, V pronouns accompany gendered titles. Terms of endearment appear in different contexts in the three languages. In Finnish, their use is restricted to intimate situations (family or close relationships), whereas, in French, their use is extended to unofficial formal situations (e.g., work) (Isosävi, 2010: 223–224). In Hungarian, terms of endearment are favoured within friendly and intimate relationships (Domonkosi, 2010: 43–47), as well as in TV shows (Lappalainen and Vecsernyés, forthcoming). The uses of nominal address forms in social media remain less studied. In French, nominal address forms are used on discussion forums (often with T) to express a conflictual relationship; in comments to press-related blog posts, nominal address forms are used (often with V) in greetings, excuses and Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 6 Isosävi and Vecsernyés thanking (Havu, 2019). In Hungarian, a rich variety of nominal address forms are used on Facebook with different functions (Domonkosi, 2019), and titles commonly appeared in the comments to posts from the Hungarian prime minister (Vecsernyés, 2021). In her study on English vlogs, Frobenius (2014: 61–62) categorised nominal address forms as generalised (e.g., ‘you guys’), mediumspecific (e.g., ‘Youtubers’ and ‘vlog fans’) and specific (e.g., ‘keyboard cowboys’), which we use in our study. 3.3 Greetings and Welcomings The number of greetings vary in different languages (over 200 in Hungarian, Kiss, 2004), and, in each language, different greetings vary in their pragmatic efficacy (Agha, 2007: 260). Furthermore, differences exist between languages in the frequency of greetings (e.g., in Isosävi’s 2020 study, French people appeared to greet more than Finns). Time-related greetings frequently occur in French (bonjour, ‘good morning/afternoon’) and Hungarian ( jó napot kívánok, ‘good afternoon’) (Kiss, 2010). The French bonjour, internalised early by francophones, represents a respected politeness act (Mejri, 2017: 53–54; de Oliveira, 2020: 10). In Finnish, the popularity of time-related greetings (huomenta, ‘good morning’; (hyvää) päivää, ‘(good) afternoon’) has diminished, currently considered formal, old-fashioned and associated with an older age (Lappalainen, 2009: 64; 70). In French, the neutral bonjour can be used with the T or V forms. In Finnish service encounters, V forms were used with päivää or address pronouns were avoided (Lappalainen, 2009: 77–78). In Hungarian, some time-related greetings, such as jó napot (kívánok) (‘good afternoon’), always appear with V forms (Balázs, 1993: 39), although some greetings, such as jó reggelt (kívánok) (‘good morning’), can also occur with T forms. Non-time-related greetings are considered more informal than time-related greetings. In French, salut (‘hello’/‘hi’) is paired with the T form. In Hungarian, frequently used informal greetings, the latin-origin szervusz(tok) and its less standard forms szevasz(tok) and szia(sztok)4 (‘hello’/‘hi’), appear with T forms (Kiss, 2010; Balázs, 1993: 39). In Finnish, hei (‘hello’) remains frequent and neutral, whereas moi/moikka (‘hi’) is more informal, associated with the youth and capital region speakers. Furthermore, terve (‘hello’/‘hi’), etymologically referring to the interlocutor’s health, is quite frequent; during service encounters, it serves as a gender-specific greeting mostly used to greet men (Lappalainen, 2009: 63–73). Finally, complementary greetings follow an exchange of greetings in the form of a question (e.g., ‘how are you’). In French, the value of complementary 4 Forms in parentheses are plural forms. 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 7 greetings ((Comment) ça va?) has weakened, benefitting bonjour, and is used amongst interlocutors who have met, but is generally not used with a superior unless the individual is unwell (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2001: 112–114). To our knowledge, complementary greetings remain unanalysed in Finnish (Mitä kuuluu?) or in Hungarian (formal Hogy van?; informal Hogy vagy?). Finally, to our knowledge, welcomings (tervetuloa, bienvenue, üdvözlöm Vsg) have received very little attention. Isosävi (in preparation) found that welcomings were more frequent in Finnish than in French Covid-19 signs; in Hungarian, we found no such studies. 3.4 Gestures Addressing and greetings can be accompanied by gestures. McNeill (2005: 38–43) distinguished four dimensions of gestures – iconicity, metaphoricity, deixis and beat – but emphasised that they are not categorical; that is, a gesture can encompass elements from various dimensions. Iconic gestures represent images of a concrete entity or action. Metaphoric gestures present abstract meanings as a form. Deictic gestures include pointing with a hand (or other body part), and are either abstract or concrete. Beat gestures involve temporal highlighting, with the hands moving up and down or back and forth, in relation to the speech rhythm. Frobenius (2013) distinguished different pointing (deictic) gestures in vlogs: pointing toward a referent in the environment/at the camera (referencing viewers) or on the Web site (e.g., comment section), holding a referent or presenting emblematic gestures and shifting the camera toward a referent. She concluded that pointing gestures are important resources in videos where the audience is absent and imagined, and by adopting the point of view of viewers vloggers aim to interact with their viewers. Frobenius (2014) analysed amongst others the manner of speaking (e.g., whispering or speaking in a low volume) and gaze behaviour as a part of the audience design in vlogs. To our knowledge, gestures in YouTube videos have not been cross-culturally analysed. 4 Data, Theoretical Framework and Method Next, we present our data (4.1.) as well as our theoretical framework and method (4.2). 4.1 Data The data consist of Finnish, French (France) and Hungarian videos (primarily from 2019–2020) (see Appendix). The YouTubers’ ages ranged from 9 to 85, and their videos span a range of topics such as beauty and fashion, lifestyle, Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 8 Isosävi and Vecsernyés challenges, gaming, hobbies and science popularisation. Table 1 provides an overview of our data. We examined 23 YouTubers from each language (69 YouTubers in total). We analysed the opening sequences of two videos from each YouTuber, or 46 videos per language (in total, 138 videos in the three languages).5 Analysing two videos from each YouTuber allowed us to observe recurrences. The range of followers varied, reflecting the differences in the populations of the three countries. We refer to the videos as simply “YouTube” videos. We examined a range of different YouTube videos, choosing not to concentrate on vlogs specifically like many previous studies (cf. section 2), because the definition of a vlog may differ across time and in specific vlogger communities. For instance, one definition from Frobenius (2011)6 ten years ago regards almost any personal YouTube video as a “vlog”, although meta-linguistic comments in our data found that some YouTubers considered only some videos from their channel vlogs, typically those related to their day activities.7 Furthermore, we selected videos filmed by famous and lesser-known YouTubers who at least partly Table 1 Data Overview of dataset Finnish Number of YouTubers 23 Assumed gender 12 female 12 male Age (in years) 10–85 Followers (June/ 2 940– August 2020) 622 000 Number of videos 46 French Hungarian Total 23 11 female 15 male 9–68 54 700– 14 100 000 46 23 12 female 11 male ~17–85 1 090–649 000 69 35 female 38 male 9–85 1 090– 14 100 000 138 46 5 See the appendix for a full list. 6 Frobenius (2011: 816) suggested the following definition for vlogs: “a video sequence similar to a blog that a user (vlogger) shoots of him- or herself talking into a camera and, after optional editing, uploads to the internet, where viewers can rate it and/or leave comments in written or video form.” 7 Ella and Helmi: tänään me kuvataan vlogi (‘today we film a vlog’); Nelli Orell: vois aloittaa kuvaamaan my weekii se on jotenki kiva kuvata vlogia (‘one could start filming my week it’s somehow nice to film a vlog’). 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 9 created video content themselves. In most videos, the YouTubers speak, at least to some extent, about their own lives. We concentrate on the opening sequences of the YouTube videos, which we define as follows. An opening sequence can be preceded by a short teaser containing, for instance, images, video clips, music or text. The actual opening sequence often establishes a connection with viewers and outlines the video content. Video openings differ from openings in face-to-face interactions; they can include some conversational elements, but negotiation between participants (e.g., on social status or availability for interaction) is impossible with an absent audience (Frobenius, 2011: 814–815). In our data, opening sequences varied in length, from less than ten seconds to over two minutes. An opening sequence ends with an implicit or explicit (e.g., words, cut, music or text) transition to the primary video content. 4.2 Theoretical Framework and Method Our study forms a part of research on the pragmatics of social media (Hoffmann, 2017), and is situated within interpersonal pragmatics, referring to studies of the “relational aspect of interactions”, which “affect and are affected by their understandings of culture, society, and their own and others’ interpretations” (Locher and Graham, 2010: 2). Interpersonal pragmatics is ideal for analysing different types of CMC (Locher and Bolander, 2017: 411). In the context of YouTube videos, interpersonal pragmatics can refer to interactions with other potential YouTubers (if the chain has at least two participants) and the audience, but we limit our analysis to concentrate specifically on the audience. Interpersonal pragmatics is not a single methodology nor does it represent one particular theoretical framework; it is rather a perspective where the use of mixed methodologies is encouraged (Locher and Graham, 2021: 569–570, 587–588). In our qualitative analysis, we apply multimodal discourse analysis (MMDA) referring to the study of “materially diverse textual ‘threads’”, such as speech, images and gestures; the whole meaning of a speech or written text can be understood only by also analysing gestures and images (Kress, 2012: 36–37). YouTube videos are, par excellence, a genre in which speech is only one means of representation and meaning-making; thus, MMDA is a suitable method for the analysis of data. In examining verbal addressing and greetings, we concentrate on social deixis (or attitudinal deixis, Verschueren, 1999: 20–21), distinguishing informal and formal address forms (see sections 3.1 and 3.2); the same distinction between formality and informality applies to greetings (see section 3.3). Finally, in the analysis of gestures, we apply the dimensions of McNeill (2005: 38–43) (see section 3.4). Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 10 5 Isosävi and Vecsernyés Analysis and Results We begin with a cross-cultural comparison of addressing, greeting and related gestures in the three languages (5.1) and, then, concentrate on individual languages: Finnish (5.2), French (5.3) and Hungarian (5.4). 5.1 Cross-Cultural Comparison of Finnish, French and Hungarian Opening Sequences First, we present a cross-cultural comparison of verbal addressing and greeting, and, second, of related gestures. Table 2 summarises addressing and greeting/welcomings in Finnish, French and Hungarian (Table 2). Comparing Finnish, French and Hungarian opening sequences of YouTube videos revealed both similarities related to the genre (CMC, YouTube) and cross-cultural differences. First, if more than one YouTuber appeared in a video, they interacted more with each other and less with the audience, whilst the opening sequence functioned as a performance during which the audience was regarded as viewers of a show. When the YouTuber was alone on screen, they engaged more with viewers and viewers were considered participants activated from the beginning of the video. Second, whilst the greetings were frequent, they were not categorical in any language (in 31–36 videos), representing another similarity across languages. In other words, a video can begin without a greeting, possibly due to the interactional nature of greetings. A greeting initiation requires a reply from the interlocutor (Agha, 2007: 260) and marks the co-presence of the other person (Pillet-Shore, 2018: 217), but the paired structure of greetings cannot be accomplished verbally with an audience behind a screen. Greetings were more Table 2 Cross-cultural comparison of addressing and greeting Addressing: nominal forms Addressing: T/V Greeting Complimentary greeting/ reference to viewers’ wellbeing Welcome Finnish / 46 videos French / 46 videos Hungarian / 46 videos 15 25 31 0 25 36 36 16 15 31 35 2 18 5 12 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 11 frequent in all three languages than welcome messages, although some differences appeared: welcomes were fairly frequent in Finnish (18 videos) and Hungarian (12 videos), but rare in French (5 videos). English appeared in greetings in each language, although infrequently. All three languages relied on the English greeting hello, pronounced locally by YouTubers or their guests: helou in Finnish (Mandimai), élo in French (EnjoyPhoenix, Studio Danielle) and heló in Hungarian8 (Isti Szalai, Zoltán Nagy). Furthermore, hey appeared in French (Sananas, Missou Makeup), and the complementary greeting what’s up was found in Finnish (Deria Dincer) and in French (MademoiselleGloria). Moving to cross-cultural differences, in French, viewers were most explicitly addressed using pronominal and nominal forms, whereas, in Finnish, such forms were least common. Pronominal address forms appeared most in French (36 videos), followed by Hungarian (31 videos) and Finnish (25 videos). Because Hungarian distinguishes between the singular and plural T forms (expressed by 2nd person forms), and the 3rd person is reserved for V forms, it is clear that the 2nd person plural forms are T forms. In Finnish, the 2nd plural form can be either the T or V form. Although based on previous research and the rarity of V forms (see section 3.1), we can say that in these videos most employ the plural T forms (for singular T, see section 5.2). In French, the plural of T is the same as the V form, but since the use of T forms is typically restricted to close relationships in French (see section 3.1), we assume that the pronominal forms mostly employ V forms. Furthermore, French was the only language where references to the health of viewers were frequent (e.g., J’espère que vous allez bien, ‘I hope you’re doing well’).9 Like pronominal address forms (see above), nominal address forms also appeared most frequently in French (25 videos) and less often in Finnish (15 videos) and Hungarian (15 videos). The latter finding was surprising considering that nominal address forms are more common in Hungarian than in Finnish (see section 3.2), whereas traditionally Finnish has avoided reference to others (Hakulinen, 1987; Yli-Vakkuri, 2005). Thus, we expected to find more nominal address forms in Hungarian than in Finnish. The nominal address forms remained primarily quite general (for example, ‘everyone’, ‘viewers’) in the three languages examined, similar to Frobenius’s study of English (2011), likely because YouTubers cannot be certain of their viewers, although they 8 Heló has spread rapidly in Hungary from the 1980s (Kontra, 2007), and is used primarily amongst the youth (Kiss, 2010: 388; Terestyéni, 1995: 49). 9 This appeared unrelated to the Covid-19 pandemic, since the videos were all posted during the same period in the three languages, with some predating and some following the beginning of the pandemic (see Appendix). Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 12 Isosävi and Vecsernyés hope to address large audiences. Yet, a few other nominal address forms were found in the three languages (see sections 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4). Next, we examine gestures related to addressing and greeting. Frequent in all three languages, they appeared in 90 of 138 videos (65%),10 and seemed to make “direct” contact with “imagined” viewers. As to cross-cultural differences, these gestures were more frequent in Finnish (34 videos) and in French (30 videos) than in Hungarian (26 videos). This result is surprising, since Finnish has a reputation as a lingua culture in which the gestures are used less often than in many other cultures.11 We noticed that Hungarian YouTubers over approximately 55 years old and some middle-aged Finnish YouTubers employed fewer gestures than younger YouTubers. Therefore, the age range of YouTubers may affect the results. Table 3 summarises the number of gestures and the relationship of gestures to addressing and greeting. Table 3 Gestures related to addressing and greeting Gestures related to addressing/greeting Finnish French Hungarian Total Gestures related to addressing Gestures related to greeting Total number 9 36 45 18 17 35 7 25 32 34 78 112 Table 3 shows that gestures appeared more frequently with greeting (78) than with addressing (34), but cross-cultural differences emerged. In Finnish and Hungarian, gestures accompanied greetings most often, whereas, in French, they were almost equally related to addressing and greeting. The analysis based on McNeill’s four dimensions – iconic, deictic, metaphoric and beat (see 3.4) – showed that the majority (64 of 78) of iconic gestures were related to greeting, whereas the majority (24 of 34) of deictic gestures were related to addressing. Beat gestures did not appear in our data, but we identified two additional dimensions: clapping and performative gestures. With the latter, we refer to gestures which create a performance for viewers, unlikely to occur in face-to-face interactions. 10 11 In four French videos, one Finnish and one Hungarian video, respectively, the YouTuber did not appear in the opening sequence. See, e.g., https://businessculture.org/northern-europe/finland-businessetiquette/business -communication/ (accessed 10 January 2022). 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 13 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos Table 4 shows that iconic gestures were most frequent (67), followed by deictic gestures (26); these two account for 93 (83 %) of 112 gestures. Table 4 Cross-cultural comparison of gestures Gestures related to addressing or greeting Finnish French Hungarian Total Iconic Deictic Metaphoric Clapping Performative Total number 32 9 3 1 0 45 13 11 1 4 6 35 22 6 0 2 2 32 67 26 4 7 8 112 Iconic gestures generally consisted of waving or other hand movements imitating greetings, typically appearing at the beginning of the opening sequence (see 5.2, Extracts 1 and 2). Deictic gestures involved pointing with the fingers or hands usually when addressing. Such gestures appeared at different points of the opening sequence, often at the end of it (e.g., see 5.4, Extract 9), such as when YouTubers pointed to viewers with their finger, asking ‘are you ready’: oottekste valmiita (Lakko) or vous êtes prêts (Tibo InShape). Infrequent metaphoric gestures (e.g., forming a heart or V sign with their fingers) related to addressing or greeting. Although infrequent, clapping gestures using their hands, which may help get viewers’ attention, appeared in all three languages, accompanying addressing or greeting (see 5.3, Extract 4 and 5.4, Extract 7). Performative gestures occurred infrequently, but were most common in French (see 5.3, Extract 5). 5.2 Finnish Opening Sequences A typical Finnish opening sequence contained a greeting accompanied by an iconic gesture, with addressing remaining minimal (Extract 1). Extract 1 [0:25] Beginning of opening sequence 01 PIN *moikka::* *opening her hands wide* ((Figure 1)) ‘hi’ 02 *mä täytän tänä vuonna kahdeksantoista* *puts her hands together and moves them* ‘I will be eighteen this year’ Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 14 Isosävi and Vecsernyés Figure 1 Pinkku Pinsku, 15 February 2020 03 *↑minä?* *points at herself* ‘me’ The opening sequence of Pinkku Pinsku’s video (Extract 1) begins with a greeting moikka:: (‘hi’) (line 01). The informal moi greetings – either moi (12 videos) or moikka (5 videos) – appeared most frequently in Finnish videos, whereas the neutral hei (‘hello’) appeared in only three videos. As Pinkku Pinsku utters moikka:: (line 1), she lengthens the vowel (emphatic vowel lengthening), which, to our knowledge, remains unstudied in Finnish. Emphatic vowel lengthening was also used by other young female YouTubers in our dataset (Nelli kniivila, Deria Dincer, Ella and Helmi12 and Nelli Orell13). Thus, we argue that the use of emphatic vowel lengthening may be connected to a younger age and perhaps the female gender. In terms of the function of vowel lengthening, it may give more weight to a short greeting, which passes quickly and creates a personal style. Yet, further studies are needed to analyse its sociolinguistic value. The opening sequence of Extract 1 did not include a nominal address form, similar to most other Finnish videos, although when greeting, Pinkku Pinsku uses an iconic gesture, opening her hands wide (Figure 1), as if she was hugging and including all viewers in her greeting. Thus, we argue that her wide hand movement serves a function similar to the nominal address form “everybody” 12 13 Ella and Helmi lengthened the middle vowel (mo::i). Nell Orell lengthened the vowel of the address form: heippa kaikki:: (‘hi everybody’). 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 15 (see below). Then, Pinkku Pinsku refers to herself using the first-person singular informal form mä (‘I’) (line 02), followed by the formal form minä (‘I’) (line 03), wondering if she will really turn 18 this year. We also observed some individual choices in Finnish opening sequences. One of the most popular Finnish YouTubers, Roni Back, used explicit addressing (Extract 2). Figure 2 Roni Back, 15 February 2020 Extract 2 [0:25] Beginning of opening sequence 01 RON *oikein hyvää päivää katsojat mun nimi on Roni* *raises his right hand* ((Figure 2)) ‘very good afternoon viewers my name is Roni’ 02 ja tervetuloa katsomaan uutta videota ‘and welcome to watch the new video’ In Extract 2, Roni Back uses a formal time-related greeting, rare in our dataset,14 accompanied by a frequent iconic gesture with a raised hand and collective medium-specific nominal address form katsojat (‘viewers’) (Figure 2) (line 01). The adverb oikein (‘very’) exaggerates the formality of the greeting hyvää päivää (‘good afternoon’). A minority of the Finnish data (15 videos) employed nominal address forms, typically in the form of kaikki (‘everybody’) or kaikille 14 Hyvää huomenta (‘good morning’) was uttered by Lakko, and accompanied by a metalinguistic comment: mä oon kuullu jotain et näin kuuluu toivottaa ku on aamu (‘I’ve heard something that this is how you need to greet when it is morning’). Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 16 Isosävi and Vecsernyés (‘to everybody’) (e.g., Nedde: moikka vaan kaikille (‘hi then to everybody’) (cf. section 5.1), which are generalised nominal forms (cf. Frobenius, 2014: 61–62) . Returning to Roni Back’s video, he welcomes the viewers: tervetuloa katsomaan uutta videota (‘welcome to watch the new video’) (line 2). A welcome appeared in 18 Finnish videos; in 12 videos, a welcome was combined with a greeting and in six videos a welcome appeared alone. The typical welcome phrase was tervetuloa uuden videon pariin (‘welcome to [watch] the new video’). In addition to generalised nominal address forms, Finnish YouTubers employed several other types of nominal address forms as well. The gamer Alffa pelaaja addressed his viewers with contextual and personal address forms. The first was a medium-specific form referring explicitly to players (no niin kaikki innokkaimmat Clash Royalen pelaajat, ‘okay all the most eager players of Clash Royal’), whereas the second was a more surprising specific nominal form (tervetuloa kaikki karvanaamat, ‘welcome all hair faces’). Based on these two videos, it is difficult to determine if karvanaamat (‘hair faces’) is an address form he uses regularly and if it represents a term of endearment. Nevertheless, terms of endearment remained rare in Finnish, found, for instance, in a video from Deria Dincer, referring to her cold, uttered: se ei silti estä mua tekemästä teille rakkaille mussuille videota (‘it still doesn’t prevent me from doing a video for you all dear sweethearts’). If an explicit verbal ending appeared in the opening sequence, it often included a directive, expressed, for instance, using a second person imperative (Extract 3). Extract 3 [0:50] End of opening sequence 01 PIN tässä videossa mä pohdin mitä aikuistuminen merkkaa mulle,? ‘in this video I reflect what growing up means to me’ 02 mä kirjotin puheen tähän videoon,? >joten tota< ‘I wrote a talk to this video so erm’ 03 ottakaa popparit messiin (.) ja (.) kuunnelkaa ((laughter)) ‘take (Tpl) popcorn with you and listen (Tpl)’ 04 toivottavasti nautitte* ‘I hope you enjoy (Tpl)’ *winks her eye, kisses her hand and sends the kiss to viewers At the end of the opening sequence (Extract 3), Pinkku Pinsku announces the theme of the video, her reflections on becoming an adult (line 01), and describes a speech she has written (line 02). She addresses her audience using plural T forms (two imperatives and a wish): ottakaa popparit (‘take the popcorn’) 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 17 (line 03), kuunnelkaa (‘listen’ (line 04) and toivottavasti nautitte (‘I hope you enjoy’)). Address pronouns were used in more than half of the Finnish videos, primarily through plural T forms, similar to Extract 3. After the imperatives, Pinkku Pinsku uses multimodal resources to refer to her viewers, sending them kisses, an iconic gesture adding intimacy to addressing. Although the plural T form was the most common address form in Finnish, singular T forms appeared in four videos, whilst both singular and plural T forms appeared in six videos. Singular T forms were used when YouTubers promoted their channels or products (cf. French: section 5.3): mulla on teille kampanjakoodi eli kampanjakoodilla Joona Hellman sä saat kuunnella bookbeatia yhden kuukauden ajan ilmaiseksi (‘I have a campaign code for you (T, plural) that is with the campaign code Joona Hellman you (T, singular) are allowed to listen to bookbeat for one month for free’). Unlike French (see section 5.3), no popular utterances marked the end of an opening sequence, but some YouTubers seemed to use repetitive endings. For instance, the hiker Ali Leiniö showed his viewers that the “journey” was beginning, and involved them using a deictic gesture, by pointing to the imagined audience with a finger, which compensated for the lack of address pronouns in his videos: tervetuloa mukaan reissuun (‘welcome along to the journey’). 5.3 French Opening Sequences A typical French opening sequence contained a greeting, occasionally accompanied by a gesture, a nominal address form and an address pronoun (Extract 4). Extract 4 [0:00] Beginning of an opening sequence 01 ENJ *bonjour* tout le monde/ *claps her hands together* ((Figure 3)) ‘good morning/afternoon everyone’ 02 j’espère que vous allez bien/ on se retrouve aujourd’hui ‘I hope you’re doing well we meet again today’ 03 pour une nouvelle vidéo/ *donc avec ma SŒUR/* *opens her hands* ‘for a new video thus with my sister’ In Extract 4, the YouTuber utters a time-related greeting bonjour, the most frequent greeting in our dataset (16 videos), followed by the informal salut (13 videos15), and the greeting is accompanied by a clapping gesture (Figure 3). She claps her hands in both of the videos analysed, demonstrating that clapping 15 In two videos salut appeared with bonjour and in one video with the English hello. Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 18 Isosävi and Vecsernyés Figure 3 EnjoyPhoenix, 15 February 2020 hands represents her personal style. The greeting is accompanied by an inclusive, generalised nominal address form tout le monde (‘everybody’) (line 01), the most frequent in French (10 videos), followed by the masculine form à tous (‘to everybody’). Perhaps surprisingly, in our data featuring many young YouTubers, this masculine form referred to viewers, with only one YouTuber, the 68-year-old female Nicole Tonnelle, using inclusive pronouns: bonjour à vous toutes bonjour à vous tous (‘good afternoon to you all [fem.] good afternoon to you all [masc.]’). Then, the YouTuber refers to the health of viewers using V: j’espère que vous allez bien (‘I hope you [V] are doing well’) (line 02). References to the health of viewers appeared frequently in French (16 videos), with the utterance in line 02 occurring most often.16 Using the indefinite pronoun on (‘one’), the YouTuber begins to introduce her new video. This pronoun appeared frequently in French videos, particularly in the sense of inclusive nous (‘we’), when the YouTuber included viewers in their action: on se retrouve aujourd’hui (‘one meets [functional translation: we meet] today’) (line 02). Some French YouTubers had their own personal opening utterances and styles. Two child YouTubers, Swan and Néo, had a dialogue with their mother (not shown on screen), which included an exchange of greetings and complementary greetings, after which the mother referred to the health of viewers. The YouTuber from L’atelier de Roxane had a personal style in the opening 16 Ça va (‘how are you’) appeared only in a video from Studio Danielle. 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 19 sequences in her videos during which she made extensive use of multimodal resources (Extract 5). Figure 4 L’atelier de Roxane, 18 February 2020 Extract 5 [00:00] Beginning of the opening sequence 01 ROX BON:::*JOUR mais comment dire j’espère que* ((singing voice)) *extends the fingers of her raised right hand* ((Figure 4)) ‘good afternoon but how to say I hope that’ 02 *VOUS allez bien* ((singing voice)) *closes the fingers of her right hand* ‘you’re doing well’ 03 *moi ça va super méga giga bien* ((singing voice)) *the right hand raised up again* ‘me I’m doing super mega giga well’ 04 *je suis au (.) TAquet:::* ((smiling and singing voice)) *lowers her hand and moves her fingers* ‘I’m on fire’ The beginning of Roxane’s opening sequence represents a performance (Extract 5). She utters the opening sequence with a marked prosody, smiling and singing, and uses performative gestures related to greeting and addressing, which differ from gestures in face-to-face communication. In the greeting, the performative gesture consists of extending the fingers of her right hand (line 01). She lengthens the nasal vowel BON:::jour, emphasising the greeting Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 20 Isosävi and Vecsernyés (cf. section 5.2, Extract 1). When Roxane refers to the health of viewers, she emphasises the address pronoun V, and uses another performative gesture, closing the fingers of her right hand (line 02). Then, she refers to her own feelings using extremely positive expressions, combined with more gestures (lines 03–04). With performative gestures and extreme expressions, Roxane aims to establish a good feeling amongst viewers, showing her own excitement to motivate viewers. Furthermore, some distinctive French nominal address forms emerged. A gendered address form appeared in only one video from Tibo InShape: mesdames ou messieurs cette vidéo est pour vous (‘ladies or gentlemen this video is for you’), accompanied by a deictic gesture. Instead of the traditional mesdames et messieurs (‘ladies and gentlemen’), this YouTuber used the conjunction ou (‘or’), perhaps indicating uncertainty regarding who watches his videos. Most of the other distinctive address forms referenced a wide audience. McFly et Carlito extended their address form to the French-speaking world: bonsoir la francophonie (‘good evening French-speaking communities’). The YouTuber Explique-moi encore used a medium-specific address form: salut les gens à l’écran (‘hi people on the screen’). Only Nota Bene used a term of endearment: mes chers camarades bien le bonjour (‘my dear friends good afternoon’). Thus, showing camaraderie was likely considered too intimate by most French YouTubers. Despite the dominance of the V form, in seven videos, variation in T and V forms emerged when YouTubers promoted something (cf. Finnish: section 5.2). YouTuber L’atelier de Roxane changed to T when she encouraged her viewers to subscribe to her channel: abonne-toi à ma chaîne YouTube active la petite cloche (‘subscribe [T] to my YouTube channel by activating the small bell’). Some YouTubers used T only in writing (e.g., text in a video from Explique-moi encore: suis-moi sur Instagram (‘follow [T] me on Instagram’). If an opening sequence explicitly ended, YouTubers often addressed their viewers using directives in the form of imperatives. YouTuber Enjoy Phoenix prepared her viewers for a long video: on espère que ça va vous plaire préparezvous un thé un café tout ce que vous voulez ça va être long (‘one hopes that you’re going to like it prepare [V] a tea or a coffee anything you [V] want it’s going to be long) (cf. section 5.2, Extract 3). Furthermore, the utterance c’est parti (‘let’s go’) occurred frequently (Extract 6). Extract 6 [1:43] End of an opening sequence 01 ROX je vais arrêter d` parler (.) ‘I’m going to stop talking’ 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 02 03 04 05 21 vous allez me suivre ‘you (V) are going to follow me’ et je vais vous faire VISIter tout ça ‘and I’m going to show (V) you all that’ en détail *c’est parti* *claps her fingers and puts her hand on the camera* ‘in detail let’s go’ In Extract 6, the ending of the opening sequence is explicit: je vais arrêter de parler et vous allez me suivre (‘I’m going to stop talking and you [V] are going to follow me’). Roxane closes her opening sequence with c’est parti (‘let’s go’) (line 04), which appeared in 14 French videos. In some videos, it was accompanied by allez (‘go’) or on y va (‘let’s go’), for instance: allez c’est parti (‘go let’s go’) (Squeezie). The English let’s go appeared in two videos (e.g., trop de bavardages vous êtes intersexes par ce tuto let’s go, ‘too much chatter you’re interested in this tutorial let’s go; Sananas). 5.4 Hungarian Opening Sequences A typical opening sequence in Hungarian contained an informal greeting and/or a welcoming often with iconic hand gestures and addresses with T (Extract 7). Extract 7 [00:00] Beginning of the opening sequence 01 HER *sziasztok (.) üdvözöllek benneteket* *waves and claps her hands* ((Figure 5)) ‘hi I welcome you (T-2pl)’ 02 *újra itt a csatornán.* *lowers her hands to her lap* ‘again here on my channel’ 03 *a mai videó egy olyan videónak tűnhet* *raises and closes her hands* ‘today’s video maybe seems to be a video’ 04 amit már évtizedek óta öö *sokan kértetek tőlem,?* *opens her hands* ‘that er many of you have asked (T-2pl) from me for decades’ In Extract 7, Herczeg Hajni begins the opening sequence with the informal greeting sziasztok (pl) (‘hi’) (line 01), the most typical greeting in Hungarian Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 22 Isosävi and Vecsernyés Figure 5 Herczeg Hajni, 30 January 2020 (28 videos). Other greetings appearing less frequently were the informal szevasztok, szervusztok, heló, halihó (‘hi’); only one daytime-specific greeting jó reggelt (‘good morning’) appeared in two videos shot in the morning17 (cf. Finnish, section 5.2). When greeting (line 01), Herczeg Hajni uses an iconic gesture, that is, waving a hand and a clapping gesture (Figure 5). Then, she utters a short welcoming – üdvözöllek benneteket (‘I welcome you’ [T-2pl]) (line 01) – and begins presenting the topic of her video (line 03). Welcomings were mostly combined with greetings (8 of 12 videos). Similar to the majority of Hungarian videos, she addresses her audience using T forms (2pl): sokan kértetek tőlem (‘many [of you] have asked [T-2pl] from me’); she does not address her audience using the nominal forms. Some individual choices emerged in the Hungarian opening sequences both in address forms and in gestures. For example, Cresser greeted his audience in both videos using the rarer form halihó18 (‘hi’) accompanied by a performative gesture (turning around) in his first video, and both deictic and iconic gestures in his second video. These gestures appear aimed at getting the attention of viewers and were accompanied by a nominal address form (lányok és srácok ‘boys and girls’). 17 18 Both YouTubers uttered a meta-linguistic comment. The YouTuber from Emcy beauty said: jó reggelt kívánok nektek, hamarosan 11 óra lesz és még nem reggeliztem (‘good morning it’s almost 11 o’clock and I haven’t eaten my breakfast yet’). Miklós Schnitzer uttered: sziasztok jó reggelt hajnali olyan fél öt körül van (‘hi good morning it’s about half past four’). Kiss (2004: 132) suggests that halihó is a humourous greeting used amongst students. 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 23 In a few Hungarian videos, the opening sequence began with in medias res (Extract 8) (cf. section 5.1) (cf. Frobenius, 2011: 815 on unnecessary opening sequences in vlogs). Figure 6 Zoltán Nagy, 26 May 2020 Extract 8 [00:00] Beginning of the opening sequence 01 NAG *soha (.) de soha ne fotózz naplementét* *moves his open hands up and down* ‘never ever photograph (T-2sg) a sunset’ 02 *engedd meg,?* *raises one finger up* ((Figure 6)) ‘allow (T-2sg) me’ 03 *hogy gyorsan elmagyarázzam.* *his open palm facing the viewers* ‘to explain it quickly’ In Extract 8, Zoltán Nagy addresses his audience with a 2sg negation accompanied by two strong negative adverbs (line 01): soha de soha ne fotózz naplementét (‘never ever photograph [T-2sg] a sunset’); he moves his open hands vigorously up and down simultaneously to emphasise his message. He then continues with an imperative form (lines 02–03) – engedd meg hogy gyorsan elmagyarázzam (‘allow [T-2sg] me to explain it quickly’) – to attract the attention of the audience and strengthens it with a deictic gesture (raising one finger up) (Figure 6). Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 24 Isosävi and Vecsernyés In terms of pronouns of address, V forms did not appear in Hungarian opening sequences. Videos from four YouTubers over roughly 55 years old have some specific features, since they seemed to avoid using pronominal address forms. To determine if these YouTubers avoid choosing between T or V only in the opening sequences (8 videos), we examined their entire videos. These YouTubers did not use T or V forms before the very end of their videos, but used constructions allowing them to avoid direct addresses. However, three of the YouTubers used a pronominal address at the very end of both of their videos, when they encouraged viewers to like their channel, post comments or when thanking them for watching.19 All of these speech acts would be difficult without direct addresses. Interestingly, two of these eight videos included T forms in their titles. Because older adults typically use V forms in many contexts in Hungarian (cf. section 3.1), an avoidance strategy can indicate an uncertainty in choosing between T or V on YouTube, where T forms represent the norm, at least based on our study. Nominal address forms were surprisingly rare in Hungarian (cf. section 3.2), appearing in only 15 videos. The most frequent nominal address was the generalised form mindenki(nek) (‘(to) everybody’), similar to Finnish and French (cf. sections 5.2 and 5.3), followed by the gendered (lányok és) srácok ‘((girls and) boys’), which did not appear in Finnish or French. Two YouTubers used specific address forms. Ilonka néni, an 85-year-old YouTuber, used an informal greeting and a nominal address form, YouTyukák20 in both of her videos, a personalised playful version of the word YouTuberek (‘YouTubers’). In her beauty and fashion videos, Alexy Vivien used a term of endearment, more specifically, a traditional, gender-based form, sziasztok szépségeim! (‘hello my beauties’). Whilst some appeared to use more specific and individual nominal address forms in all three languages (cf. Finnish: section 5.2, and French: section 5.3), the generalised and medium-specific nominal address forms were preferred (cf. the categories of Frobenius, 2014: 61–62). The ends of Hungarian opening sequences were mostly explicit (Extract 9). Extract 9 [02:18] End of opening sequence 01 HER úgyhogy ha kiváncsiak21 vagytok erre, ‘so if you are (T-2pl) curious about that’ 19 20 21 Zoltán Elek from VideóInfó-1 (although he used informal greetings) and the YouTuber from Biokiskertem chose the V form, whereas Ilonka néni selected the T form. The second part of YouTyukák resembles the Hungarian word tyúkok (‘hens’), adding a funny connotation. The normative written form of the word is kíváncsiak. 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos Figure 7 02 03 25 Herczeg Hajni, 30 January 2020 akkor *mindenképpen maradjatok velem,* *closes her hands and points to the viewers* ((Figure 7)) ‘then definitely stay (T-2pl) with me’ *öt fő ilyen dolog lesz amin végigmegyünk,* *shows five fingers of her right hand and waves her hand* ‘there will be five main things we will go through’ In Extract 9, Herczeg Hajni motivates the audience (lines 01–02) and, then, she states that she will address five main topics (line 03). The use of an imperative (maradjatok, ‘stay-2pl’) (line 02) at the end of the opening sequence is a characteristic feature in Hungarian: 17 videos contain directives, expressed by 1pl or 2pl imperative forms, such as vágjunk bele (‘let’s [1pl] get started’) tartsatok velem (‘come [T-2pl] with me’) and írjátok meg (‘write [T-2pl] it’). The imperative forms function as a request or an order, and maintain the audience’s interest. Addressing by an imperative is strengthened by a deictic gesture (Figure 7) (pointing to the viewers of the video). 6 Conclusions This study contributes to research on the pragmatics of social media. First, we examined YouTube, a second-generation Internet platform, which remains unexplored in linguistic studies. Second, our study falls within comparative Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 26 Isosävi and Vecsernyés studies of computer-assisted communication (CMC) which remain rare, despite the multilingual nature of the Internet. Our study sheds light, on the one hand, on interactional practices shaped by features of the genre (YouTube videos) and, on the other hand, on cross-cultural differences influenced by different lingua cultures. We examined how Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTubers interact with their imagined audiences using addressing, greeting and related gestures. Our data consisted of 138 videos from 69 YouTubers in the three languages (46 videos per language), in which we applied interpersonal pragmatics, and we analysed the data using multimodal discourse analysis. Shared verbal practices included the frequent use of greetings and a preference for generalised nominal address forms (“everybody”). In contrast to our original hypothesis, cross-cultural analysis revealed that Finnish and Hungarian were closer to each other than to French, which used the most explicit and formal means of addressing and represented the only language with frequent inquiries about viewers’ health. Although previous research on addressing identified diverging address practices in Finnish and Hungarian, our YouTube data showed that both languages used informal T forms and fewer nominal address forms. This finding may indicate a change in Hungarian address practices, although it remains unclear if this extends beyond the YouTube genre. Turning to shared practices on gestures related to addressing and greeting, we found that iconic and deictic gestures occurred most frequently in the three languages; iconic gestures generally related to greeting and deictic gestures to addressing. We suggest two interpretations. First, the iconic gesture – that is, the waving of hand(s) – has similarities with face-to-face communication, where it is often used when participants are far from each other (like the YouTuber is “far away” from the audience). Second, the deictic gesture – that is, pointing with the finger – plays a different role in YouTube-specific communication from face-to-face conversation, where it can be considered impolite in many cultures.22 Yet, cross-cultural differences emerged in the frequency of gestures. Surprisingly, gestures appeared most frequently in Finnish, typically regarded a lingua culture with a restricted use of gestures, a finding possibly stemming from the influence of English videos. In terms of the types of gestures, iconic gestures occurred more often than deictic gestures in Finnish and in Hungarian, whereas iconic and deictic gestures were almost equally frequent in French. Whilst this qualitative study relied on a fairly small dataset, a larger corpus would enable a quantitative analysis. In addition, we limited this study to the opening sequences, although research on closing sequences would 22 Cf. https://mielenihmeet.fi/mita-kehonkieli-kertoo/ (accessed 10 January 2022). 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 27 complement our understanding of addressing, greeting and related gestures in YouTube videos. If future studies address different languages and lingua cultures, a more complete picture would emerge. Generally, more information is needed on different genres of social media, and the interplay between shared practices influenced by the technological platforms and the cross-cultural differences. Finally, future research should examine the relationship of language on social media and in face-to-face communication in different lingua cultures to determine how they influence each other. References Agha, Asif. 2007. Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Androutsopoulos, Jannis. 2008. Potentials and Limitations of Discourse-Centred Online Ethnography 5. language@internet. https://www.languageatinternet.org/ articles/2008/1610. Argüelles Alvarez, Irina and Alfonso Muñoz Muñoz. 2012. An insight into Twitter: A corpus-based contrastive study in English and Spanish. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas 7: 37–50. Balázs, Géza. 1993. Kapcsolatra utaló ( fatikus) elemek a magyar nyelvben. [Phatic elements in the Hungarian language] Nyelvtudományi Értekezések 137. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. Balleys, Claire. 2019. L’intimité militante sur Youtube: la visibilité médiatique au service de la libération sexuelle. Questions de communication 1(35), 125–136. Caron, Caroline. 2017. Speaking up about Bullying on YouTube: Teenagers’ Vlogs as Civic Engagement. Canadian Journal of Communication. Vol 42: 645–668. Chovanec, Jan, Marta Dynel. 2015. Researching interactional forms and participant structures in public and social media. In: Jan Chovanec, Marta Dynel (eds.), Participation in public and social media interactions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1–23. Clyne, Michael, Catrin Norrby and Jane Warren. 2009. Language and Human Relations. Styles of Address in Contemporary Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coffen, Béatrice. 2002. Histoire culturelle des pronoms d’adresse. Vers une typologie des systèmes allocutoires dans les langues romanes. Paris: Honoré Champion. Combe Celik, Christelle. 2014. Vlogues sur YouTube: un nouveau genre d’interactions multimodales. Premier Colloque IMPEC: Interactions Multimodales Par ECran, 266– 280. https://impec.sciencesconf.org/conference/impec/pages/Impec2014_Combe _Celik.pdf. Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 28 Isosävi and Vecsernyés Combe, Christelle. 2020. When Vlogging Educates in Politics: The French Case of “Osons Causer”. Eric George. Digitalization of Society and Socio-political Issues 2, Wiley. 61–78. Domonkosi, Ágnes. 2002. Megszólítások és beszédpartnerre utaló elemek nyelvhasználatunkban [Address forms and elements referring to the interlocutor used in Hungarian]. A Debreceni Egyetem Magyar Nyelvtudományi Intézetének Kiadványai 79. Debrecen: A Debreceni Egyetem Magyar Nyelvtudományi Intézete. Domonkosi, Ágnes. 2010. Variability in Hungarian address forms. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 57. 29–52. Domonkosi, Ágnes. 2018. Nyilvánosság és attitűddeixis a közösségi oldalak diskurzusaiban [Publicity and attitudinal deixis in the discourse types of social media]. Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Közlemények 13(2). 63–75. Domonkosi, Ágnes. 2019. Address forms in conversations on social media. Eruditio – Educatio 14(3): 77–87. Frobenius, Maximiliane. 2011. Beginning a monologue: The opening sequence of video blogs. Journal of Pragmatics 43(3): 814–827. Frobenius, Maximiliane. 2013. Pointing gestures in video blogs. Text&Talk 33(1): 1–23. Frobenius, Maximiliane. 2014. Audience design in monologues: How vloggers involve their viewers. Journal of Pragmatics 72: 59–72. Hakulinen, Auli. 1987. Avoiding personal reference in Finnish. In: Jef Verschueren and Marcella Bertuccelli Papi (eds.), The Pragmatic Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 141–153. Havu, Eva. 2019. Discours médiés par ordinateur et stratégies d’adresse. Bergen language and linguistics studies, 10(1). https://helda.helsinki.fi//bitstream/handle/ 10138/308097/Havu.Discours.pdf?sequence=1. Havu, Eva, Johanna Isosävi and Hanna Lappalainen. 2014. Les stratégies d’adresse en finnois: comparaison entre deux types de corpus oraux institutionnels. In: Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni (ed.): S’adresser à autrui: les formes nominales d’adresse dans une perspective comparative interculturelle. Chambéry: Publication Chambéry, 303–336. Hoffmann, Christian R. 2017. Log in: Introducing the pragmatics of social media. In: Christian Hoffmann, and Wolfram Bublitz (eds.) Pragmatics of social media. De Gruyter Mouton, 1–28. Isosävi, Johanna. 2010. La traduction des termes affectifs français dans des sous-titres finnois. Les Études finno-ougriennes. Tome 42, 217–234. Isosävi, Johanna. 2013. Les valeurs sémantiques et pragmatiques des formes d’adresse françaises dans un corpus cinématographique. In: Elina Suomela-Härmä, Juhani Härmä and Eva Havu (eds.): Représentations des formes d’adresse dans les langues romanes. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki. Tome LXXXIX. Helsinki: Modern Language Society, 109–142. Isosävi, Johanna. 2015. Le dissensus, la polémicité et la violence verbale – quelles sont leurs manifestations dans la communication Facebook ? Exemple du profil “Contre 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 29 Nicolas Sarkozy”. In: Ulla Tuomarla, Juhani Härmä, Liisa Tiittula, Anni Sairio, Maria Paloheimo and Johanna Isosävi (eds.). Dialogic Language Use 3: Miscommunication and Verbal Violence. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki XCIII: 111–124. Isosävi, Johanna. 2020. Cultural outsiders’ evaluations of (im)politeness in Finland and in France. Journal of Politeness Research 16:2, 249–280. Isosävi, Johanna. (in preparation). Finnish and French public signs from commercial premises during the Covid-19 pandemic. Isosävi, Johanna, Hanna Lappalainen (eds.). 2015. Saako sinutella vai täytyykö teititellä? Tutkimuksia eurooppalaisten kielten puhuttelukäytännöistä [Addressing people with T or V? Studies on Address Practices in European Languages]. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. Johansson, Marjut. 2017. YouTube. In: Christian Hoffmann, and Wolfram Bublitz (eds.) Pragmatics of social media. De Gruyter Mouton, 173–200. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine. 2001. Les actes de langage dans le discours. Théorie et fonctionnement. Paris: Nathan. Kiss, Jenő. 2010. Előzetes az Új magyar nyelvjárási atlasz szociolingvisztikai tanulságaiból. [A preview of sociolinguistic lessons drawn from the New Atlas of Hungarian Dialects] Magyar Nyelvőr 134(4): 385–389. Kiss, Róbert Richard. 2004. Köszönésformák a magyar nyelvben (különös tekintettel az új informatikai és távközlési technológiák hatásaira és a diáknyelvre). [Greeting forms in Hungarian (especially from the perspective of information and communication technologies and student language)] Budapest: ELTE. Kontra, Miklós. 2007. A heló térhódítása Budapesten [The spread of heló in Budapest]. In: Magay Tamás (ed.): Félmúlt és közeljövő. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 101–108. Kovács, Magdolna, Outi Tánczos. 2015. Hapuilua pimeässä? Unkarin muuttuvat puhuttelukäytännöt [Groping in the dark? Changing address practices in Hungarian]. In: Johanna Isosävi, Hanna Lappalainen (eds.), Saako sinutella vai täytyykö teititellä? Tutkimuksia eurooppalaisten kielten puhuttelukäytännöistä, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 241–261. Kress, Gunther. 2012. Multimodal discourse analysis. In: Jamesa Paul Gee, Michael Handford (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Taylor and Francis Group. Lappalainen, Hanna. 2009. Hei, moi ja huomenta. Tervehdykset kioskilla. [‘Hey, hi and good morning. Greetings at the kiosk.] In: Hanna Lappalainen, Liisa Raevaara (eds.) Kieli kioskilla. Tutkimuksia kioskiasioinnin rutiineista. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. Lappalainen, Hanna. 2015. Sinä vai te vai sekä että? Puhuttelukäytännöt suomen kielessä. [T or V or both? Address practices in Finnish language]. In: Johanna Isosävi, Hanna Lappalainen, Saako sinutella vai täytyykö teititellä? Tutkimuksia eurooppalaisten kielten puhuttelukäytännöistä [Addressing people with T or V? Studies on Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 30 Isosävi and Vecsernyés Address Practices in European Languages]. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 72–104. Lappalainen, Hanna, Ildikó Vecsernyés. (forthcoming). Comparing address practices in the Finnish and Hungarian ‘Got Talent’ TV programmes. In: Nicole Baumgarten, Roel Vismans (eds.), Forms of address in contrastive contexts. Topics in address research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Locher, Miriam A., and Graham, Sage L. 2010. Introduction to Interpersonal Pragmatics. In: Miriam A. Locher and Sage L. Graham (eds.), Interpersonal Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton, 1–13. Locher, Miriam A., and Graham, Sage L. 2021. Interpersonal Pragmatics. In: Michael Haugh, Daniel Kádár, Marina Terkourafi (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 569–591. Locher, Miriam A., Brook Bolander. 2017. Facework and identity. In: Christian Hoffman, Wolfram Bublitz (eds.), Pragmatics of Social Media. Berlin: De Gruyter, 407–434. Mandiberg, Michale. 2012. Introduction. In: Michael Mandiberg (ed.), The social media reader. New York University Press, 1–10. McNeill, David. 2005. Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mejri, Salah. 2017. Les formules de politesse et de présentation (Petits Guide langue française). Garnierparis. de Oliveira, Ruth. 2020. Une approche socio-pragmatique du dys/fonctionnement du rituel des salutations en français. Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française – CMLF 2020. SHS Web of Conferences 78, 01011. https://www.shs-conferences.org/ articles/shsconf/pdf/2020/06/shsconf_cmlf2020_01011.pdf. Pillet-Shore, Danielle. 2018. How to Begin. Research on Language and Social Interaction 51:3. 213–231. Porkoláb, Ádám. 2015. Az iskolában elsajátított írott nyelvi forma presztízse az internetes kommunikációban. [The prestige of written language norms acquired in primary and secondary education in Internet communication.] Iskolakultúra 25(11): 75–89. Ren, Wei, Saeko Fukushima. 2021. Comparison between Chinese and Japanese social media requests. Contrastive Pragmatics 2: 200–226. Seppänen, Eeva-Leena. 1989. Henkilöön viittaaminen puhetilanteessa [Referring to a person in an interactional situation]. In: Auli Hakulinen (ed.) Kieli 4, Suomalaisen keskustelun keinoja 1 [Language 4, Devices of a Finnish conversation]. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopiston suomen kielen laitos, 195–222. Terestyéni, Tamás. 1995. Styles of knowledge and greeting habits in Hungarian. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 111: 47–55. Vecsernyés, Ildikó. 2021. Kuinka pääministeriä puhutellaan? Puhuttelu Suomen ja Unkarin pääministereiden Facebook-päivitysten kommenteissa [How to address a Prime Minister? Forms of address in comments to posts from the Prime Ministers of Finland and Hungary]. Virittäjä 125: 92–122. 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos 31 Verschueren, Jef. 1999. Understanding Pragmatics. London: Arnold. VISK = Hakulinen, Auli, Maria Vilkuna, Riitta Korhonen, Vesa Koivisto, Tarja Riitta Heinonen and Irja Alho. 2004. Iso suomen kielioppi, verkkoversio. [An Extensive Grammar of Finnish, online version]. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. http:// scripta.kotus.fi/visk. Yli-Vakkuri, Valma. 2005. Politeness in Finland: Evasion at all costs. In: Leo Hickey, Miranda Stewart (eds.), Politeness in Europe. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 189–202. Williams, Lawrence, van Compernolle Rémy A. 2009. Second-person pronoun use in French language discussion fora. French Language Studies 19. 363–380. Transcription Conventions Finnish and Hungarian Finnish and Hungarian speech was transcribed according to conventions commonly used in conversation analysis. . , ,? ? moikka:: ↑ >joten tota< ((laughter)) (.) strongly falling pitch at the end of a prosodic unit flat pitch at the end of a prosodic unit slightly rising pitch at the end of a prosodic unit strongly rising pitch at the end of a prosodic unit lengthened vowel segment produced on a higher pitch level than the surrounding speech accelerated speech rate transcriber’s comments micropause (duration of less than 0.2 sec) French French speech was transcribed according to the orthographic conventions developed for French language by the ICOR group (ICAR lab, Lyon): http://icar .univ-lyon2.fr/projets/corinte/documents/2013_Conv_ICOR_250313.pdf. / rising intonation of the preceding segment . short pause (less than 0.2 s) VOUS emphasis : stretching of prior syllable ((singing voice)) transcriber’s comments ` non-standard elision Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 32 Isosävi and Vecsernyés Conventions for Multimodal Transcription The uses of multimodal resources are marked with an asterix (cf. Lorenza Mondada’s conventions): https://344cc026-c96f-49aa-b4bc-071b454d3061.file susr.com/ugd/ba0dbb_986ddd4993a04a57acf20ea06e2b9a34.pdf Appendix Tables 5, 6 and 7 summarise the YouTubers and the videos examined in Finnish, French and Hungarian. Table 5 Finnish YouTubers Finnish YouTuber(s) Videos Alffa Pelaaja Ali Leiniö Deria Dincer Elina & Sofia Ella & Helmi Joona Hellman Lakko Lotta & pappa (‘Lotta & grandpa’) Mandimai Mehtamikko Mmiisas Nedde Nelli kniivila Nelli Orell Niko & Santtu Pinkku Pinsku Roni Back Samun tiedekanava (‘Science channel of Samu’) Sita Salminen Snipuxplays Tinke Veetu Ville Mäkipelto 27 January 2020 & 13 June 2020 24 December 2019 & 14 February 2020 31 January 2020 & 6 February 2020 12 November 2019 & 30 May 2020 13 November 2019 & 11 June 2020 14 December 2019 & 28 March 2020 22 January 2020 & 30 January 2020 17 May 2020 & 14 June 2020 9 November 2019 & 2 January 2020 23 November 2019 & 13 February 2020 7 February 2020 & 14 February 2020 21 November 2019 & 10 June 2020 7 September 2019 & 9 June 2020 3 November 2019 & 3 May 2020 12 November 2019 & 5 February 2020 8 February 2020 & 15 February 2020 22 January 2020 & 15 February 2020 22 September 2019 & 30 April 2020 20 January 2020 & 14 February 2020 9 December 2019 & 14 June 2020 26 May 2020 & 29 July 2020 31 March 2020 & 15 June 2020 11 July 2019 & 23 May 2020 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 Finnish, French and Hungarian YouTube Videos Table 6 33 French YouTubers French YouTuber(s) Videos Atelier de Roxane C’est une autre histoire Cyprien e-penser Emma CakeCup Enjoy Phoenix Explique-moi encore Lama Faché Linguisticae MademoiselleGloria Mafiastunting Mary – Frozencrystal McFly et Carlito Missou Makeup Natoo Nicole Tonnelle Norman fait des vidéos Nota Bene Sananas Squeezie Studio Danielle Swan & Néo Tibo inShape 11 February 2020 & 18 February 2020 26 May 2020 & 17 June 2020 27 December 2019 & 10 January 2020 23 January 2020 & 6 August 2020 26 January 2020 & 28 April 2020 8 February 2020 & 15 February 2020 26 July 2020 & 28 July 2020 15 August 2020 & 16 August 2020 20 May 2020 & 20 June 2020 19 July 2020 & 29 July 2020 4 August 2020 & 9 August 2020 29 July 2020 & 16 August 2020 12 July 2020 & 19 July 2020 22 July 2020 & 9 August 2020 24 November 2019 & 11 January 2020 8 August 2020 & 12 August 2020 24 January 2020 & 14 February 2020 26 July 2020 & 10 August 2020 20 February 2020 & 22 February 2020 31 January 2020 & 10 February 2020 4 August 2020 & 23 June 2020 21 February 2020 & 23 February 2020 18 February 2020 & 21 February 2020 Table 7 Hungarian YouTubers Hungarian YouTuber(s) Videos Alexy Vivien Anzsy konyhája (‘Anzsy’s Kitchen’) Barni. Biokiskertem (My organic garden) B. Nagy Réka Cresser Csecse Attila 18 January 2020 & 1 February 2020 4 April 2020 & 18 October 2019 5 October 2019 & 23 November 2019 23 April 2019 & 17 February 2020 28 May 2020 & 26 March 2020 16 February 2020 & 9 February 2020 28 March 2020 & 11 April 2020 Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34 | 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 34 Table 7 Isosävi and Vecsernyés Hungarian YouTubers (cont.) Hungarian YouTuber(s) Videos Egy ló története (‘Story of a horse’) Emcy beauty Hajnóczy Soma Henry Kettner Herczeg Hajni Ilonka néni (‘Aunt Ilonka’) Isti Szalai Istvánné Gál luckeY Magyarósi Csaba Manó Kuckó (‘Elf nook’) Miklós Schnitzer Polly Channel VideóInfó-1 (‘Videoinfo-1’) Viszkok Fruzsi Zoltán Nagy (later: Zolixplorer) 14 February 2020 & 9 February 2020 11 January 2020 & 15 May 2020 16 April 2020 & 9 May 2019 18 February 2020 & 25 January 2020 30 January 2020 & 21 January 2020 15 January 2017 & 6 April 2017 7 February 2020 & 7 January 2020 13 August 2018 & 24 May 2015 29 May 2020 & 30 May 2020 21 February 2020 & 20 February 2020 17 December 2019 & 24 October 2019 18 October 2018 & 4 February 2019 20 May 2020 & 5 April 2020 25 April 2020 & 23 April 2020 1 February 2020 & 22 February 2020 26 May 2020 & 15 March 2020 Acknowledgements We thank Vanessa Fuller for English-language revision. Biographical Notes Johanna Isosävi currently works as a University Lecturer of French at the University of Helsinki (Finland). Her research focuses on politeness, relational work and address forms, specifically, cross-cultural pragmatics (French/ Finnish). Her articles have been published, in, amongst others, the Journal of Pragmatics and the Journal of Politeness Research. Ildikó Vecsernyés, a PhD student, works at the University of Helsinki (Finland) as a Lecturer of Hungarian, and has written language learning materials and dictionaries. Her research focuses on comparative studies of Finnish and Hungarian address systems, which has been published in the Finnish journal Virittäjä, with a chapter submitted to John Benjamin’s TAR Series. 10.1163/26660393-bja10042 | Contrastive PragmaticS (2022) 1–34