| 1. |
- Lindström, Eva, 1965-
(author)
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Topics in the grammar of Kuot, a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea
- 2002
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis describes certain areas in the grammar of the little-known Kuot language, spoken by some 1,500 people in New Ireland Province in Papua New Guinea. Kuot is an isolate, and is the only non-Austronesian (Papuan) language of that province. The analyses presented here are based on original data from 18 months of linguistic fieldwork.The first chapter provides an overview of Kuot grammar, and gives details of earlier mentions of the language, and of data collection and the fieldwork situation. The second chapter presents information about the prehistory and history of the area, the social system, kinship system and culture of Kuot speakers, as well as dialectal variation and prognosis of survival of the language. Chapter three treats Kuot phonology, with particular emphasis on the factors that govern allophonic variation, and on the expression of word stress and the functions of intonation. Word classes and the criteria used to define them are presented in Chapter four, which also contains a discussion of types of morphemes in Kuot. The last chapter describes in some detail the class of nouns in Kuot, their declensions, non-singular formation, and the properties of grammatical gender.Appendices give the full set of person-marking forms in Kuot, a transcription of a recorded text with interlinear glossing and translation, the Swadesh 100-word list for Kuot, and diagrams of kin relations and terminology
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| 2. |
- von der Heiden, Gregor, 1974-
(author)
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Gespräche in einer Krise : Analyse von Telefonaten mit einem RAF-Mitglied während der Okkupation der westdeutschen Botschaft in Stockholm 1975
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- When crises develop, people are confronted with difficulties beyond those experienced in normal everyday activities. Due to the perceived threats inherent to such situations, familiar behaviors may prove ineffective, and such attempts can pose dangerous and unpredictable risks. Crises are extreme situations, occurring at the very edges of human experience. Oral communication in such situations cannot be casual; the seriousness of the situation demands exceptional communicative performance on the part of the participants. Therefore, certainties about everyday communication conventions are called into question. The following work examines conversations during which the participants were involved in an extreme situation. In this particular crisis, a politically motivated kidnapping, the personal involvement of the interlocutors is substantial. A clear and present fear of the situation escalating and the possibility of a failure to anticipate the resulting reactions from the other party(ies) characterize the communicative acts of those involved. Recorded telephone calls during the occupation of the West German Embassy in Stockholm by members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) on April 24, 1975 comprise the basis for this analysis. One of the occupiers speaks with various interlocutors located in an adjacent embassy building. These interlocutors are relatives of the hostages, the Swedish Minister of Justice, and a German official charged with leading the negotiations. In this study, the communicative processes of the crisis are reconstructed. In order to show how the interlocutors attempt to reach their goals in this tense situation with the resources available to them, as well as what they in fact achieve, ethnographic methods of analysis have been employed. This study shows how, despite strong conflicting interests and motives, a shared reality is built through the actions of the interlocutors. The interaction between two key figures in the early stages of the crisis can even be characterized as a form of coalition building. An explanation as to why this collaboration is not retained in the subsequent course of the events, however, leading to an escalation of the situation, is also presented. Furthermore, the following work sets forth qualities needed to interactively build a coalition in a precarious crisis situation, which has arisen between parties characterized by diametrically opposed aims.
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| 3. |
- György-Ullholm, Kamilla, 1972-
(author)
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Same Mother Tongue - Different Origins : Implications for Language Maintenance and Shift among Hungarian Immigrants and their Children in Sweden
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study investigates intergenerational language transmission amongst Hungarian immigrants, using in-depth interviews and participant observation as the main methods. The analysis examines the experiences of parents and their school-aged children in 61 families living in Sweden´s two main cities, Stockholm and Göteborg. The sample families were separated into four groups, based on two pre-contact factors, namely (1) the parents´ linguistic environment and (2) their social identity prior to migration. Three of the four groups turned out to be comparable in size and serve as the focus groups of the study. Group 1 comprises families in which one or both parents are former majority members from monolingual parts of Hungary. Group 2 comprises families in which one or both parents are former majority members from Hungary, but in contrast, these parents grew up in bilingual areas, being exposed to other languages in their childhood settings. Group 3 comprises families in which often both parents grew up as members of a vital ethnic minority in bilingual or multilingual settings in Transylvania (Romania). It was hypothesised that the parents´ childhood experiences would have an effect on their ways of raising children in a migrant situation, which, in turn, will affect children´s bilingualism as well as the group´s maintenance chances. The results of the statistical analysis confirm the hypothesis and show significant differences between the focus groups in a number of factors, e.g. marriage pattern, religious engagement, cultural orientation, children’s opportunities to meet other group members, and language awareness. Most importantly, the investigation revealed broad variation in language use norms among the sample families, especially for family and group internal communication. This, together with the poor demographic conditions of the group, seriously threatens group cohesion. The prospects for Hungarian language maintenance in Sweden are therefore seen as limited.
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| 4. |
- Axelsson, Marcus, 1979-
(author)
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”Kalla mig inte mamsell!” : En jämförelse av tre skandinaviska översättares behandling av kulturspecifika element i fransk- och engelskspråkig skönlitteratur
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The present study deals with the work and practice of three Scandinavian translators, namely Kjell Olaf Jensen (Norwegian), Marianne Öjerskog (Swedish) and Agnete Dorph Stjernfelt (Danish). The main question of the thesis is what strategies the translators use when translating culture-specific elements from French and English. Theoretically the thesis positions itself within the framework of Descriptive Translation Studies and draws upon system theories as well as Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture. The method consists of a source text – target text analysis, using a somewhat modified version of Pedersen’s (2007) method identifying seven translation strategies, namely (1) retention, (2) specification, (3) direct translation, (4) generalization, (5) substitution, (6) omission and (7) official equivalent. In this thesis the three former and the official equivalent are categorized as “adequate”, whereas generalization, substitution and omission are categorized as “acceptable” using Toury’s (2012) terminology. Six different types of culture-specific elements are investigated, namely (1) titles, address and professional titles, (2) currencies, (3) weights and measures, (4) literature and music, (5) education, and (6) names. In addition to this analysis, interviews with the three translators were carried out. Results show that there are both similarities and dissimilarities in the translators’ choices of translation strategies. It also turns out that the strategies used to a great extent depend on the culture-specific element in question and hardly ever on the source language. Results also suggest that the higher the translators’ amount of accumulated total capital, the more likely it is that they adopt a heterodoxic translation strategy. Jensen and Stjernfelt are more often positioned at one of the two extremes of the adequacy–acceptability axis than is the case for Öjerskog. Moreover, results from the interviews and the text analyses show that there are a number of norms that govern the translators’ practices. The translatorial practice is to manoeuver in a field governed by norms in order to produce the best possible target texts – target texts that are true to the original and conform to domestic literary standards.
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| 5. |
- Boström, Per, 1982-
(author)
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”Det här är ju dött tåg liksom…” : en studie av metaforer för ROMANTISK KÄRLEK i talad svenska
- 2018
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to investigate the metaphorization of ROMANTIC LOVE in spoken Swedish. The study is based on 4 semi-structured focus group conversations with participants in two age groups; 24–33 and 50–54. A Swedish short film and questions related to the film were used as stimuli for the conversations. Research questions asked are 1) How is the concept of ROMANTIC LOVE metaphorized in the recorded group conversations? 2) How does the metaphorization vary between the conversations? and 3) What cultural model for ROMANTIC LOVE in the conversations can be reconstructed based on identified metaphorizations? The study is situated within Cognitive Linguistics and the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and a Discourse Dynamics Approach to Metaphor. Consequently, metaphor is seen as a cognitive, linguistic, socio-cultural and discursive phenomenon, where metaphorization is a dynamic process that develops, adapts and flows within the conversations and between the participants. Accordingly, the identified metaphorizations are considered to be influenced by the speakers and their embodied experiences, their embodied cognition, the discourse event, and socio-cultural aspects of metaphorization. The focus of the present study, ROMANTIC LOVE, is considered as a dynamic concept based on philosophical, feminist, psychological and metaphorical research. Metaphors are identified through a discourse dynamic version of MIP and MIPVU.From the analyses, 6 systematic metaphors are proposed, where ROMANTIC LOVE is metaphorized as a PHYSICAL OBJECT (incl. as a POSSESSION and as a LIVING ORGANISM), as a CONTAINER (incl. CONSTRUCTION and BODY as a CONTAINER), as TRAVELLING together (with primary focus on TRAVELLING together rather than SOURCE or TARGET), as a UNITY (with focus on how a UNITY is ESTABLISHED, MAINTAINED and DISSOLVED, ideally by two COMPATIBLE partners), as a PHYSICAL and NATURAL FORCE and as a DISEASE (where LOVE can affect a person’s perception and sanity). In addition, ROMANTIC LOVE is, in a small number of expressions, metaphorized as a CRIME, as a PHYSICAL CONFLICT and as a GAME. The variation in metaphorization is small between the conversations. Some metaphorizations seem to be related to the age of the participants. ROMANTIC LOVE ismoreover something people usually have influence over and in some ways can control. In total, 780 metaphorical expressions and 9 source domains are identified. Departing from the interplay betweenmetaphorization and culture, a cultural model for ROMANTIC LOVE is reconstructed, where a multifaceted, embodied and experiential concept of ROMANTIC LOVE emerges.
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| 6. |
- Ribeck, Judy, 1982-
(author)
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Steg för steg. Naturvetenskapligt ämnesspråk som räknas
- 2015
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this work, I present a linguistic investigation of the language of Swedish textbooks in the natural sciences, i.e., biology, physics and chemistry. The textbooks, which are used in secondary and upper secondary school, are examined with respect to traditional readability measures, e.g., LIX, OVIX and nominal ratio. I also extract typical linguistic features of the texts, typicality being determined using a proposed quantitative method, labelled the index principle. This empirical, corpus-based method relies on automatic linguistic annotations produced by language technology tools to calculate what I call index lists, rank-ordered lists of characteristic linguistic features of specific text corpora as compared to reference texts. I produce index lists for typical vocabulary, noun phrase structures and syntactic structures, extracted from a 5.2 million word textbook corpus, compiled as a part of the work presented. As well as being frequent and well dispersed, the linguistic variables selected for the index lists are also characteristic of the text type in question, as is evident when they are compared to a reference corpus, comprising textbooks in the social sciences and mathematics, as well as narrative and academic (university-level) texts. The results show that textbooks in natural science contain a lot of content-specific, technical vocabulary. This characteristic not only distinguishes natural scientific language from everyday language, but also from social scientific language, which on the lexical level has more in common with narrative texts. On the other hand, the textbook language as a whole is structurally distinguishable from narrative texts, as clearly seen, e.g., in its noun phrase complexity. In the transition between secondary and upper secondary school, the scores of almost every readability measure go up, indicating an increase in linguistic demands on the readers. In the upper secondary textbooks the words are longer, the vocabulary more varied, the noun phrases longer and more elaborate, and the most typical syntactic structures more complex. Notably, the linguistic development between the form levels is more marked in the natural-science textbooks, compared to social sciences and mathematics. Nevertheless, the textbook language overall shows a relatively low complexity in comparison to academic language.
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| 7. |
- Johansson, Christer
(author)
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A View from Language : Growth of language in individuals and populations
- 1997
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The main question that this book tries to find answers to is what it is that makes language learnable. Language is one of the most complex human activities, but nearly 100% of humanity have learned a language in childhood. One answer could be that it is something in our brain that makes us learn language better than most other activities. Another answer could be that it is something in language as such that makes it to be learned. Two different simulation models are presented in relation to language learnability. The first simulates an individual learning past tense formation in Swedish, and the second model simulates individuals in a population converging on a distinction. € The first model is a connectionist network set to learn the task of forming the Swedish past tense. This model is evaluated on a difficult task of learning a split paradigm of past tense forms in Swedish. The model is shown to be able to replicate some general trends in the learning of a morphological system, but there were problems with keeping the variation of forms, since the network averaged conflicting formation patterns. The problems that arose inspired a new approach to language learnability. € The second model is a model of how the language is shaped by changes in the population.This model demonstrates a plausible scenario for how Scandinavian languages lost case marking as a result of the plague's effects on the population of Scandinavia. The model considers the individual's gradual acquisition of a distinction, geographical constraints, and increased variation in the population. The model can also demonstrate how a distinction can form in a small population from initial random variation. The preferred solution to the learnability problem is to view language from its own perspective as it adapts to the current conditions for being learned. Thus learnability emerges from an interaction between the individual's ability to learn, and the language that is represented in the population by reproduction of the distinctness of linguistic dimensions. Throughout the book it is argued that language formation is compatible with Darwinian principles applied to an essentially non-biological domain, resulting in the selection of linguistic dimensions without the need for adaptive success of the individual. Language is not necessarily a biological adaptation, but could better be formulated from the view that language results from a complex ecology of language distinctions continually reproduced in a population of speakers.
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| 8. |
- Kowalik, Richard, 1989-
(author)
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Towards a grammar of spoken South Saami
- 2023
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis is a grammatical description of South Saami, a Uralic language traditionally spoken in central Sweden and Norway. South Saami has today around 500 speakers, many of whom live far from each other. The language has the status of an official language in Norway and is an officially recognized minority language in Sweden. The speakers have been subject to various assimilation policies especially in the previous century. However, in recent times, the language has received substantive support and currently there are a number of revitalization initiatives. The language variety described here is the spoken language of older heritage speakers. Their language may differ from the emerging (written) standard language and contains many features that have not been described previously. This study is the first comprehensive description of South Saami since the 1940s. It is based on fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2020, resulting in a corpus of 35 hours of recordings. The speakers interviewed for this thesis are functional bilinguals with South Saami and either Norwegian or Swedish. Consequently, the language described here is the product of a long-standing contact with these languages.The description is grounded in Basic Linguistic Theory and covers phonology, morphology and syntax. The phonological analysis presented here is the first modern comprehensive description of the sound system of South Saami together with various phonotactic relations as well as basic analyses of prosody. The part devoted to morphology covers the main word classes and their inflectional patterns. Form-function relationships are also discussed extensively in pertinent chapters. Topics typically related to syntax such as grammatical relations, simple and complex clauses are reviewed in detail. Word formation and two cross-linguistically universal domains such as questions and negation are treated in chapters of their own. The thesis concludes with two texts from the corpus, provided with morphological glossing and translation into English.The analyses presented in the thesis are illustrated by examples from the corpus, and whenever possible by examples that represent naturalistic language. The grammar is descriptive in nature and typologically informed. Comparison to other Saamic languages is provided when necessary, either to show similarities or highlight differences between the languages. Features that characterize South Saami are preaspiration and sonorant devoicing, umlaut and a large vowel inventory in the domain of phonology. The language has generally agglutinative morphology. South Saami has a logophoric pronoun and an optional dual category in verb inflection. The pragmatically neutral word order is SOV. The language uses differential object marking. Furthermore, we observe different clause-initial question particles, an optional copula in non-verbal predications and an optional auxiliary in periphrastic tenses. Similarly to other Uralic languages, South Saami has a negative auxiliary that inflects for person and number. Unlike most other Saamic languages, the negative auxiliary also inflects for tense. Another substantive difference between South Saami and other Saamic languages is the encoding of predicative possession by a non-verbal construction where the possessor is indicated by genitive marking. However, predicative possession in South Saami can be also encoded by the transitive verb utnedh ‘have’, which is similar to the encoding of predicative possession in other Saamic languages.
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| 9. |
- Thornell, Christina
(author)
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The Sango Language and Its Lexicon (Sêndâ-yângâ tî Sängö)
- 1997
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This doctoral dissertation is an overview of the recently arisen Sango language spoken in the Central African Republic. The overview contains a sociolinguistic and linguistic dimension with a lexical-semantic focus. The study is set within a multidisciplinary framework including a functional-typological perspective, language change induced by contact, and language planning. The study shows that the diachronic sociolinguistic context of Sango has greatly influenced its structures, while little language-internal development has taken place. It is justified to treat Sango as an Ubangi language both from a sociolinguistic and typological point of view. Sango arose in the Upper Ubangi area, probably before the arrival of the Europeans, as the outcome of intense contact between the Ngbandi people and other ethnic groups speaking different languages. These contacts gave rise to several simplified varieties based on the Ngbandi language which have developed to present day Sango under strong influence from other Ubangi languages in close contact. This is evident from, for instance, the clause-final position of negation and the encoding of 'take' and 'give' in the same verb – features which occur in Ubangi languages but which are rare elsewhere. The language has also been influenced by language-planning activities which have led to the emergence of both general and standardised varieties. The vocabulary is composed of words from primarily Ngbandi and from French. The 20 most frequent verbs are characterised by a number of criteria for unmarked lexical items in general. Lexical patterns of some of the 20 verbs are studied, as are verbs of motion with regard to kind of motion, syntactic frames, and conflation of components. The verbs show general tendencies but also parallels with other Ubangi languages and culture-specific tendencies. The study also showed that lexicalisation processes involving conflation of components are going on. The study is based on a wide range of sources, including a tape-recorded corpus of approximately 52,000 running words (the most important source), and observations made under my eleven-year stay between 1970 and 1991 in the western part of the CAR.
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| 10. |
- Heimann Mühlenbock, Katarina, 1952
(author)
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I see what you mean
- 2013
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis aims to identify linguistic factors that affect readability and text comprehension, viewed as a function of text complexity. Features at various linguistic levels suggested in existing literature are evaluated, including the Swedish readability formula LIX. Natural language processing methods and resources are employed to investigate characteristics that go beyond traditional superficial measures. A comparable corpus of eay-to-read and ordinary texts from three genres is investigated, and it is shown how features present at various levels of representation differ quantitatively across text types and genres. The findings are confirmed in significance tests as well as principal component analysis. Three machine learning algorithms are employed and evaluated in order to build a statistical model for text classification. The results demonstrate that a proposed language model for Swedish (SVIT), utilizing a combination of linguistic features, actually predicts text complexity and genre with a higher accuracy than LIX. It is suggested that the SVIT language model should be adopted to assess surface language properties, vocabulary load, sentence structure, idea density levels as well as the personal interests of different texts. Specific target groups of readers may then be provided with materials tailored to their level of proficiency.
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