BOOK REVIEW: CONVENTION AS INTENTION –

THE INSTITUTION IN ALL OF US

Heikkinen, Vesa Pirjo Hiidenmaa and Ulla Tiililä, Teksti työnä, virka
kielenä (Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2000), 351 pp., ISBN 951-662-806-0

Translated literally, the title of the book reads: “Text as work, occupation
as language”. Lest the awkwardness of this rendering reinforce notions
of Finnish as a forbidding language (the original is elegantly punctuated
with the essives in nä), a first comment is in order that in the present
case it is the medium for most welcome – and welcoming – studies for
researchers and practitioners interested in the language of institutions. If
nothing else, the translation reflects the contrasting levels of abstraction
(physical text – language; physical work – occupation) which capture the
authors’ overarching focus: how people working day in day out in adminis-
tration producing large volumes of text – paper – collectively come to form
an institution with an unmistakable linguistic life of its own. Of particular
interest is how convention prevails at the institutional level despite the fact
that linguistic choices – presumably outlets for intention – abound in the
work of the individuals who make up the institution.
The stated aim of the book (16–18) is to stimulate a linguistic aware-
ness among its readers and to prompt them to look critically at things
they may at present take for granted in their own and others’ use of
administrative language. A broader ambition is to inform the debate on
how official language might be made more comprehensible and thus
more accessible to the average citizen. The readership envisioned is
extensive – researchers, university students of linguistics and communi-
cation studies, administrators, in fact all whose work or study is text- and
language-intensive.
The book elaborates a comprehensive analytical framework that is
inspired in the main by the work of Halliday, Hasan, Fairclough, and
Bhatia but ultimately draws on a very broad range of literature. The
salient conceptual underpinnings brought to bear on the texts discussed
include ideational, textual and interpersonal meanings, opportunities for
and recognition of linguistic choice, the social relevance of texts, and the
power of the institution vis-à-vis the individual.

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique 15: 431–434, 2002.
© 2002 Kluwer Law International. Printed in the Netherlands.
432 BOOK REVIEW

A distinctive strength of the book is the range of materials it analyzes.

Rather than taking for granted the social relevance of genres such as
agendas, plans, and reports, it establishes their significance through
detailed qualitative analyses of the texts in full socio-semiotic scope.
The focus on obviously high-volume but arguably less glamorous genres
demonstrates just how intensively a typical institution – the Helsinki
School Department – works with and through language on a daily basis
in the social context described. Supplementing this account of the text
creation process nicely is a survey conducted among the School Depart-
ment staff.
The book consists of seven chapters. In the introductory chapter,
entitled “Work and Language,” Pirjo Hiidenmaa sketches how interest in
official language has progressed from the do’s and dont’s of style guides to
today’s broad perspectives informed by critical linguistics and its interest
in changing practices by which meanings are constructed. In Chapter 2,
she goes on to provide a linguistic analysis of the relevant register that
furnishes a sound basis for the broader sociosemiotic analyses to follow in
the remainder of the book. Among the author’s findings is the prominence
of nominalization as a way of conveying processes but, crucially, unlike
verbs, without necessarily indicating tense, actor or modality. Another
distinguishing characteristic of administrative texts noted is that they have
no single author, which suggests they might more profitably be viewed as
processes, or elements in a network of different texts and discourses. In
Chapter 3, Vesa Heikkinen takes up the crucial concept of intertextuality,
exemplifying through an analysis of meeting agendas the processes by
which meanings or voices in antecedent texts are appropriated. This is
very much a process of linguistic choice. In one example, text was give
new meanings in being summarized for inclusion on the agenda by replac-
ing terms such as ‘mental and physical violence’ – which might cast the
institution in an unfavorable light – by a reference to the ‘well-being of
the staff’ (113). Chapter 4, also written by Heikkinen, broadens the scope
of the discussion to context and provides a structural-functional analysis
of a variety of documents produced by the Helsinki School Department.
In Chapter 5, Ulla Tiililä provides a case study of day-care decisions
that highlights the interaction between text and citizen. A particularly
illuminating example is the meaning imputed by administrators to their
own work through the use of the term ‘decision’: a decision granting
parents a place in day care for their child is in fact no more than formal
acknowledgement of something to which the parents have a statutory right.
Chapter 6 (Heikkinen) adds insightful perspectives on the relationship of
convention to institutionality and the opportunities for changing conven-
 BOOK REVIEW 433

tions where text is created. Heikkinen’s discussion of the staff survey

mentioned above substantiates how the institution is more than the sum
of its parts, with many workers reporting that they feel the institution
constrains them in creating texts. The final chapter (Heikkinen) sketches
“the ideology of the official,” an abstract connection seen as keeping
work, text, and culture together. The book includes an extensive and very
current bibliography, the mere acquisition of which has required admirable
vigilance on the part of the authors.
Running through the studies is an interest in the sheer quantity of text
required in administrative work, the choices available to those who work
with text, and the constraining influence of convention. In essence, the
authors ask how convention and the genre persist where the texts have
demonstrably been created by a large number of different authors, each of
whom has been presented with numerous linguistic choices. One conclu-
sion is that some practices are so engrained that the authors of the texts
no longer see choices where these are available; they are of course visible
to the researcher. An interesting point brought up in this regard is that
uniformity of text – one hallmark of official language – is encouraged by
the institution as a practice that not only makes the work of the adminis-
trator easier but also in fact serves the purposes of democracy by providing
the end user with a consistent product.
An additional strand of methodological interest in the work is the
consideration given to the position of the researcher in keeping with the
spirit of critical linguistics. This is attended to faithfully throughout vis-
à-vis administrative language and those who create it. If there is one
respect in which this critical guard is down, however, it is in the authors’
assessment of their intended readership. While the average administrator’s
conception of good language has progressed well beyond a preoccupation
with mechanics, the richly textured analytical framework that the authors
apply is rough going even for the converted. As the modern bureaucracy
must produce a variety of texts – directions, guides, and even persuasive
texts – to assist in the interpretation of its own creations, the authors
would do well to bridge the gap between their reality – the world of
the researcher – and that of the practitioner. For example, they could
provide more concrete guides to, and perhaps a sample ‘exegesis’ of,
selected texts showing how the meanings in the texts have been constructed
from the varied elements of the reality and other texts that envelop them.
Here, conventions of research, e.g., a systematic presentation of content, a
detailed account of methods, and meticulous attribution of sources, seem to
somewhat undermine the authors’ intention of reaching the administrators
434 BOOK REVIEW

in the trenches whose texts (re)produce the institution and who have the
greatest potential to change practices.
On balance, however, in embracing theory and practice as well as it
does, the book has much to offer any reader willing to embark on a
dialog with one or more of the (con)texts it analyzes. The English-speaking
community would certainly gain much from a translation of the work or
any of its component studies.

RICHARD FOLEY
Language Center
University of Lapland
Box 122
96101 Rovaniemi
Finland
E-mail: Richard.Foley@urova.fi