Performatiivinen valta ja tekstilajin synty: Rakenne saan ilmoittaa tekstilajipiirteenä suomenkielisissä teksteissä 1850–1939

The article examines how a linguistic feature from administrative language came to be used in commercial announcements printed in Finnish newspapers at the end of the 19th century. The theoretical basis of this research is in historical sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, and the analysis leans on the concept of entextualisation. The material used in this study is taken from the Kaarina parish archive and the digital newspaper archive of the Finnish National Library.

The structure analysed in this study is a performative formula of the type saan minä [kunnioitettavalle yleisölle] ilmoittaa ‘[I] let [the respected audience] know’. In the first part of the article, the selected texts are divided into two separate genres according to their form and function. Announcements are texts that contain a performative formula, that oblige the recipient, and appear as part of a longer administrative genre chain. The function of announcements is thus to direct and to order subordinates of the ruler. Notices, however, consist of local, regional, or national texts with an informative function. As opposed to announcements, in notices, the relationship between the producer and the recipient of the text is a voluntary one. Announcements and notices were both read aloud in church, and both also appeared in newspapers. The research material also contains hybrid texts that combine features of both genres.

The second part of the analysis illustrates one such entextualisation process, namely the transition of the performative formula from administrative language to commercial notices in newspapers. The analysis shows how this linguistic change was linked to certain societal changes. The earliest commercial newspaper notices employ rhetorical devices used by administrative authorities. Gradually, however, a new kind of participation framework was built into these notices. In the earliest advertisements, the announcer no longer positioned himself as part of an administrative chain, but rather, new interactive roles of merchant and customer were established. Explicit signs of these roles were ‘positioning expressions’ (e.g. respected audience) that began to appear in the notices. In the new context, the performative formula still carries the meaning of performative power and enables the announcer to build the identity of a reliable businessman and merchant for himself.

A large amount of socio-semiotic information about the practices and values of 19th-century Finnish society is crystallised in this performative formula. Its transition to a new context also sheds light on the early stages of commercial announcements in the Finnish-language press.