Heter Vägverket Tielaitos eller Tievirasto på finska? Benämningar på svenska samhällsfenomen i sverigefinska tidningar

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis is to study how names for phenomena in Swedish society are expressed in Finnish language newspaper texts in Sweden. As part of the thesis the question of whether the newspapers use Finnish or Swedish names is investigated. Additional questions taken up in the thesis include the extent to which the Finnish names concur with the recommendations of The Finnish Language Council in Sweden, and the bases for the Council’s recommendations.The primary material consists of volumes 1983, 1990 and 1997 of the newspaper Viikkoviesti and issues 6-50/2003 of the daily newspaper Ruotsin Sanomat. A total of 591 phenomena and 1277 names are investigated.The results show that 95% of the names used are Finnish although there is some variation among different types of names. Approximately 78% of the Finnish names found in the material follow the recommendations of The Finnish Language Council in Sweden.Most of the Finnish names that are established in Sweden are translation loans, common to Standard Finnish or modified according to a Standard Finnish model. It is sometimes difficult to decide whether a name is part of Standard Finnish or if it is only a translation loan, since both alternatives often seem equally plausible.The results of the study show that the Sweden-Finnish newspapers investigated have accepted and employed the recommendations of The Finnish Language Council to a great extent. The recommendations of the Council can thus be considered normative. This implies that The Finnish Language Council has developed realistic and prudent principles for the composition of their recommendations.