The study focuses on comparative analyses of institutional texts on pensions published in Swedish and Finnish in Finland and Swedish and Finnish in Sweden. The data consists of texts that have been published online by pension authorities, the Finnish social security institution Kansaneläkelaitos (Swedish: Folkpensionsanstalten) and the Swedish pensions agency Pensionsmyndigheten (Finnish: Eläkevirasto). The data consists of four groups of texts: Finnish, Finland-Swedish, Swedish and Sweden-Finnish texts from 2012. The aim of the study is to examine the similarities and differences between the texts and to discuss different factors that can explain the differences and similarities.

The main research method is text analysis based on systemic-functional linguistics. Lexicogrammatical features in the texts and differences between them are studied both quantitatively and qualitatively. In addition, the study focuses on some non-linguistic features, such as the extent and graphic design of the texts. The different contexts of the texts are also examined. The production of the analyzed data is studied with a survey.

The results of the study show that the texts published in Finland and Sweden represent two similar registers that belong to two different cultural contexts. The official statuses of the languages in question affect the non-linguistic features of the texts. The Finnish and Finland-Swedish texts are similar in extent and content. The Swedish texts are extensive, but the Sweden-Finnish texts are significantly shorter. Both the Finland-Swedish and the Sweden-Finnish texts are translations. Furthermore, there are several linguistic differences between the texts. In the Finnish and Finland-Swedish texts, the authority of the institution paying out pensions is explicitly expressed with several lexicogrammatical features, whereas in the Swedish and Sweden-Finnish texts it is played down. The Finnish and Finland-Swedish texts also construe the reader of the text as a passive receiver more often than the texts published in Sweden. The results support the notion that the language used by the public authorities has become substantially more informal in Sweden than in Finland. However, there seems to be a shift towards a more informal language even in the texts published in Finland. For example, the direct address of the reader with a second person singular is consistently used even in the Finnish and Finland-Swedish texts.