Joulu Kotona (Christmas at home): translocal multilingual practices in a Facebook music livestream during COVID-19

3.1 Methods and data

This is an ‘ethnographically informed study’ (Barton and Lee 2017: 146) in which my position is that of an insider. To conduct my research from an insider perspective, I synthesized premises from analytic autoethnography and discourse-centred online ethnography.

According to Anderson (2006), the key features of analytic autoethnography are that the researcher is (1) a full member in the research setting; (2) visible as such a member in the sense that their feelings and experiences are incorporated into the study and considered as crucial data for comprehending the social world being observed; and (3) committed to contributing to the elaboration and extension of theoretical understanding. I come from Greece and my native language is Greek. I have a C2 level of English, a B1 level of Spanish and an A2 level of Finnish.^[5] As a discourse analyst-sociolinguist, I focus on the intersection of discourse, social media and society, specializing in the construction of identities. It should be stressed from the outset that I actively participated in Joulu Kotona without initially intending to study it. I have been an ardent fan of the Finnish metal scene and of Leppäluoto’s work since mid-2000s.^[6] At some point in 2010, I listened to Leppäluoto singing in Finnish the song Sydäntalvella (‘In the heart of the winter’). Such was my fondness of the specific song that I instantly started learning Finnish in my home country. Throughout the years, I have developed deep respect for the Finnish culture by and large. In 2013–2014, I lived in Jyväskylä, Finland, as a visiting researcher. There I attended a live performance of Raskasta Joulua,^[7] a Finnish Christmas concert featuring Leppäluoto as a key singer. Regarding Joulu Kotona, I watched the entire livestreamed event and actively engaged in the chat by offering comments and reactions (e.g. Like and Love) to the artists and fellow viewers. The idea to explore the multilingual discourse of Joulu Kotona sparked my interest within the first half-hour of the livestream. I got fascinated by Joulu Kotona’s cellist, Elias Kahila, as he was wishing to the audience in various languages, igniting a dynamic interaction between artists and viewers and between members of the audience. In sum, I position myself in this study as an ‘aca-fan’ (Jenkins 1992) – an academic who openly identifies as a fan of Leppäluoto’s music and Finnish carols.

I also elicited an insider perspective by drawing on the discourse-centred online ethnographic paradigm (Androutsopoulos 2008) which combines online ethnography with discourse analysis. This approach encompasses screen-based observations of online discourse and direct interactions with the producers of this discourse through interviews, whether in person or mediated via email, instant messaging, or VoIP services.

I started my preliminary observation of Joulu Kotona’s discourse in real time, right after the streaming had started. Although my initial aim was to enjoy the Finnish carols while in lockdown, I was alert to spot certain aspects (in the artists’ interaction and chat comments) that merited analysis. My systematic observation occurred after the streaming had concluded, and for the period it was available online (see below), with repeated viewings of the concert and multiple readings of the viewers’ comments. For information concerning the viewers whose comments were analyzed, such as their nationality, gender, place of residence and linguistic repertoires, I anchored in my systematic ethnographic observation and knowledge as a member of Leppäluoto’s fans online community on Facebook and Instagram. As part of the screen-based dimension of the study, my data included transcripts of selected extracts of spoken discourse produced by the musicians between songs along with comments posted by the audience in Facebook Live’s chat. The chat communication yielded 2,687 comments in total, with 19 of them posted after the end of the streaming. The comments were exported using the service ExportComments (https://exportcomments.com/). As far as the participant-based dimension of the study is concerned, I conducted (in English) via email an interview with Elias Kahila. I sent him an initial message on September 12, 2021, explaining the purposes of my project and posing him a series of questions that revolved around what inspired him to wish “Merry Christmas” in different languages; the criteria upon which he chose to wish in specific languages; and the idea to read aloud fans’ comments. He provided his responses in writing via a lengthy email message (approximately 1,800 words) on September 13, 2021. His written responses have been rendered intact in the present paper. The interview dataset was complemented by field notes from my self-observation and the viewers’ observation of activities and practices surrounding Joulu Kotona’s multilingual discourse. For presenting and discussing the data, the following conventions have been used throughout the analysis: data from the interview are enumerated as Interview with Kahila (1), Interview with Kahila (2) etc.; data from the artists’ interaction as Artists’ spoken discourse (1), Artists’ spoken discourse (2) etc.; and data from the chat as Facebook Live Chat (1), Facebook Live chat (2) etc.

3.2 Data processing

The analysis started with an inductive process of coding and re-coding of the data until conceptual groupings and explanatory categories in relation to the aims of the study emerged from the data themselves. The main discourse practices I discerned in the Joulu Kotona dataset were (see also next section, on the discursive, linguistic and cultural context of the event): introductory greetings, expression of wishes, replies to Kahila’s multilingual wishes and talk about cultural practices (Christmas in Finland, Christmas in other places, Finnish carols, carols in other places, wearing woolen socks in Finland during winter, the Joulu Kotona livestream).

My next step was to identify in these discourse practices which languages were used, who used them (musicians, members of the audience) and who they wished to address. I initially spotted the co-existence of different languages in the same message (e.g. Spanish and Finnish) and then I looked into different structural patterns of code-switching (e.g. whole parts of the musicians’ interaction switched to English; an international viewer’s comment in English and Finnish where Finnish was reserved for referring to Finnish cultural practices) and different discourse functions of code-switching (e.g. viewers using English to exchange greetings with each other and Finnish to thank the musicians). For the use of Finnish, specifically, by non-Finnish viewers, I paid attention to references to Finnish names, ethnonyms and toponyms, Finnish songs, and Finnish cultural practices and events, in line with Adaskou et al.’s (1990) aesthetic dimension of culture. I also examined cases of multilingual activities which were carried out without involving multiple languages (e.g. a Ukrainian viewer writing in English about a Finnish carol based on a Ukrainian one).

Throughout the stream and the interview with Kahila, viewers and artists expressed a range of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and values associated with cultural practices and languages, including Kahila’s multilingual wishing. The means I chose to analyze these instances was stance (see also Section 2). I particularly focused on the use of evaluative adjectives (e.g. ‘good’), evaluative adverbs (e.g. ‘amazingly’), emotive verbs (e.g. ‘enjoy’), cognitive verbs (e.g. ‘understand’), tropes (e.g. metonymy, simile), interjections (‘Dios mío!!!’ - my god, Bravo!), typographical emphasis (e.g. capitalization, exclamation marks), visualization of stances (e.g. emojis, smiling faces), and discourse markers that indicate stance-alignment (e.g. ‘yeah’).

For the instances involving attitudes to language(s), I additionally drew on Lee’s (2013: 77–79, 2017: 76–87) and Barton and Lee’s (2013: 115–119) types of metalinguistic discourses on the internet, which they identified based on data from YouTube, Flickr, and online news. These types include asserting native speaker authority; linguistic prescriptivism and purity; multilingualism as added value; engaging in multilingual activity in one language; perceived knowledge of English; apologetic and forgiveness seeking; native speaker norm as a model of “good” English; use of external resources (e.g. Google Translate); self-improvement in the foreign language; self-deprecating humor on one’s language skills; and the resource of photography as the lingua franca. The above types primarily concern discourses about English by non-English users. In the Joulu Kotona dataset, the metalinguistic discourses refer to various languages, including one’s own native language (e.g. Leppäluoto’s self-evaluative comment of Finnish).

3.3 Research ethics

After its streaming, Joulu Kotona was publicly available for rewatching on Leppäluoto’s Facebook page for one week. The ephemeral status of Joulu Kotona’s digital content posed an ethical challenge in terms of reproducing components from it (see Artieri et al. 2021, on ephemeral online data). My first step was to seek permission for using this content from Leppäluoto, since it appeared on (and then disappeared from) his page. I contacted him via email, explaining my research aims. I clarified the data I would utilize and how I would protect the viewers’ privacy. Moreover, I sent him a preliminary draft analysis to give him a clearer picture. Leppäluoto instantly granted permission, stating he was ‘honoured’. The same draft was sent to Kahila upon inviting him for an interview. Regarding Joulu Kotona’s viewers, all chat comments discussed in the analysis were pseudonymized, avoiding references to any personal/sensitive information.

3.4 Joulu Kotona

This section tackles the socio-historical, technical, discursive, linguistic and cultural context of Joulu Kotona. Starting with the socio-historical context, COVID-19 was initially discovered in late-2019 in China, subsequently sparking a global pandemic. To prevent the virus from spreading, many countries implemented strict lockdowns in mid-March 2020. These lockdowns had major repercussions for the economy, culture, education, health, the environment, politics and people’s lifestyle. Specifically, the arts and culture sectors were severely affected as museums, performance venues, and other cultural institutions worldwide cancelled or postponed exhibitions, performances and events. For several services and artists, the digital realm offered a viable alternative. The idea of live streaming Joulu Kotona was not new for Leppäluoto and his bandmates, as they had already successfully streamed a concert on March 27, 2020.

Moving to the technical aspects, Joulu Kotona was livestreamed through Facebook Live, a free feature that allows users to broadcast directly on the platform. Viewers can engage in real-time interactions and watch a recording later. Facebook Live, like most livestreaming services, combines the physical and digital experiences, featuring a unique media convergence: it marries the live video stream with a text-based chat application, enabling synchronous video interaction with real-time commenting on the broadcasted video (Yus 2021: 195).

The streaming of Joulu Kotona took place on 20 December 2020, at 7 pm Eastern European Time, with approximately 2,000–2,100 viewers. The event lasted 1 h and 40 min. Its recorded version was made available on Leppäluoto’s Facebook page for a week. The streaming was free to watch, but viewers could purchase tickets to support the artists. The physical concert occurred at JaBa Studio in Hankasalmi, Finland, and a team from Tuupa Records Oy production handled the video recording.

Figure 1 is a screenshot of Joulu Kotona at the time of its occurrence. As shown, most space is taken up by the artists-streamers: Samuli Erkkilä on the left, JP Leppäluoto in the middle and Elias Kahila on the right. Next to the video display is a text-based chat, to which viewers actively contributed by sending messages to both the artists and other attendees. Next to Kahila (not visible in the image), there was a laptop from which he was reading out the viewers’ messages in-between songs, a practice he had effectively adopted in their March 2020 stream.

Figure 1:

Screenshot of the Joulu Kotona concert on Facebook Live.

From a discourse perspective, Joulu Kotona viewers on Facebook Live’s chat engaged in various interactions. They greeted each other and the artists, shared Christmas wishes, discussed their pre-Christmas evening activities, evaluated the songs and the artists’ performance, expressed their feelings for celebrating Christmas on a lockdown, commented on the artists’ appearance (e.g. Leppäluoto’s woollen socks, Kahila’s hat), requested specific carols, and asked Kahila for greetings in different languages. Much of the artists’ spoken discourse relied on audience comments read aloud by Kahila. However, it was not entirely spontaneous. In the interview, Kahila revealed that he had been learning how to say ‘Merry Christmas’ in various languages before the stream. Additionally, Leppäluoto and Erkkilä challenged Kahila to wish in specific languages like Russian, French, and Mandarin Chinese, which he had rehearsed in advance.

Linguistically speaking, the trio are native Finnish speakers with a very good command of English. While Leppäluoto initially sang in English at the start of his career, he transitioned to predominantly Finnish singing in 2009. This shift led many fans, including myself, to start learning Finnish to understand the lyrics. During the Joulu Kotona event, the trio primarily spoke in Finnish, occasionally switching to English. Their spoken discourse was further imbued with Kahila’s multilingual Christmas wishes. In the following interview extract, Kahila sees multiple languages as the glue of communality online, especially during challenging times like the pandemic:

Interview with Kahila (1)

Wishing “Merry Christmas” in different Leppäluoto fans native languages was my slightly odd, humoristic way of recognizing the fans, respectfully spreading positivity and trying to put a smile on their face on these difficult times. Trying to bring people together using music and language.

From a cultural perspective, as already mentioned, Joulu Kotona aimed to celebrate Christmas, a culturally significant time for Finnish people, inextricably linked to carol singing (Hebert et al. 2012). The streaming comments included references, particularly from Finnish viewers, to local Christmas customs such as enjoying ‘glögi’ (mulled wine), ‘piparit’ (gingerbread cookies), chocolate, wearing woolen socks, and lighting candles, all happening simultaneously with the stream. A similar atmosphere was created within the physical studio the trio was performing (see Figure 1). Another cultural issue brought up by Kahila and Leppäluoto during Joulu Kotona relates to the melancholy that characterises Finnish carols (see Section 4.1.1).

4.1 Choosing languages during Joulu Kotona

The main findings in this subsection are clustered into (1) the language choices made by the artists, and (2) the language choices made by the audience, including international and Finnish viewers. The focus is on the motivations behind and the functions of the participants’ language choices. In the case of Kahila, I relied on the interview I conducted with him. As for the audience, I drew on the chat data to infer possible motivations.

4.2 Talking about languages during Joulu Kotona

In what follows, I present different types of metalinguistic discourses identified in Joulu Kotona, including validating speaker’s authenticity; differentiating languages; juxtaposing with native Finnish norms; apologizing and seeking forgiveness for errors; utilizing external resources for multilingual practices; and identifying music as the lingua franca.

4.3 The multilingual promotion of Joulu Kotona

As indicated previously, after its streaming, the video of the event and the comments were available for one week on Leppäluoto’s Facebook page. The artist promoted anew the event in subsequent Facebook posts during that week for the fans who had not been able to watch it live and/or wished to buy an optional ticket to support the trio as well as the fans who wanted to rewatch it. The multilingual character that the event acquired, both in-between the songs performance and in the chat comments, shaped the way in which Joulu Kotona was promoted in these after-event Facebook posts. Figure 2 depicts the advertisement of the event before its occurrence: the language of the post is Finnish and Kahila is presented as a cellist solely. In this fashion, the local relevance of Joulu Kotona becomes prominent. Figure 3 shows Joulu Kotona’s later recontextualization: the post prioritizes English, to address international fans as well as to provide them with much more information about the event, in comparison with the original Finnish advertisement, while Kahila appears skillful in cello as well as in languages. This recontextualization contributes to the artists’ transnational and translocal connection with their local and global audience.

Figure 2:

Promotion of Joulu Kotona before its streaming on Leppäluoto’s Facebook page.

Figure 3:

Promotion of Joulu Kotona after its streaming on Leppäluoto’s Facebook page.