| 1. |
- Bijvoet, Ellen
(författare)
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Sverigefinnar tycker och talar : Om språkattityder och stilistisk känslighet hos två generationer sverigefinnar : on language attitudes and stylistic perception among two generations of Sweden Finns
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present thesis aims to characterize two subtle aspects of bilingualism among the Sweden Finns, the largest ethnic minority in Sweden. It includes two main parts: 1. the study of language attitudes among Sweden Finns and two control groups-one Swedish and one Finnish-towards different varieties of Swedish and Finnish, using a modified matched-guise test; 2. the characterization of the Sweden Finns' and the control groups' perception of stylistic nuances of lexical items in both Swedish and Finnish (with emphasis on Swedish). In part 2, the subjects were asked to describe the connotative and stylistic meaning of 14 pairs of synonymous words in Swedish (e.g. mamma-morsa 'mother-the old lady') and in Finnish, using Osgood's semantic differential.The main issue is to what extent the Sweden Finns show similarity to the Swedes and/or the Finns regarding the items 1 and 2 described above. Although these aspects may seem unrelated, there is a connection between them: both language attitudes and stylistic perceptions provide relevant information on the extent to which the Sweden Finns are integrated into the Swedish speech community. Thus, similar attitudes between the Sweden Finnish minority and the Swedish majority reflect a higher degree of integration, which presumably results in a more similar language use.The results of the analysis indicate that the various Sweden Finnish test groups (divided according to sex and generation) have a different degree of integration in the Swedish speech community. Adult men prove to be the group with the lowest degree of integration (which is in line with previous studies in the field), while adolescents show a high degree of integration in the Swedish speech community, as evidenced by their high degree of similarity with the Swedish majority in both attitudes and stylistic perception. Interestingly, this group also shows clear integration in the Finnish community. These observations suggest that integration into a new society does not necessarily imply the loss of contact with the original speech community. A positive double identity is a possible and natural option for these young Sweden Finns.
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| 2. |
- Carlsson, Ylva, 1943-
(författare)
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Kulturmöten, textmönster och förhållningssätt : Första- och andraspråksskrivande i några svenska brevgenrer
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- To form well written texts in a culture where the norms for writing are changing is difficult for both native and non-native writers. Moreover, deviations from the norm among non-native writers can be explained by inadequate command of formal and pragmatic knowledge of the new language or a disinclination in non-native writers to accept socio-cultural rules, different from their own. The present study deals with three genres of letters: application, request and apology. The main aim of the thesis is to describe and explain similarities and differences in communicative competence as this is evidenced in three Swedish letters written by 120 adult informants, 20 women and 20 men from three different cultures: Latin-American, Persian, and Swedish. The material consists of 360 letters. The influence of gender is also taken into account. The length of letters and the number of moves are described and discussed. However, the main analysis has been carried out on two different structural levels: examining the rhetorical pattern of the texts and describing the linguistic realization of the moves. The rhetorical pattern and length of text vary with both culture, gender and genre. The most conventional rhetorical pattern is used in the letter of application by the Swedish and Latin-American groups. The other letters vary more. The analysis of the opening and ending moves of the three letters singles out the Persians as more informal and personal.The speech acts of applying, requesting, and apologizing differ in directness and formality between cultures and gender. Often men are more direct and formal than women. Emotional instead of rational arguments are found in some non-native letters, especially in the letters of request and apology. Expressions of gratitude are abundant in native women’s letters. The study reveals some salient features related to both culture and gender. This indicates the necessity to heighten awareness of diverging communicative patterns in a multicultural society.
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| 3. |
- Jansson, Gunilla
(författare)
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Tvärkulturella skrivstrategier : Kohesion, koherens och argumentationsmönster i iranska skribenters texter på svenska : a study of cohesion, coherence and argumentative patterns in essays written in Swedish by Iranian students
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- For an adult immigrant student, writing in a second language often means adapting to a new writing culture. The main research question dealt with in this dissertation is whether L1 rhetorical influence occurs in writing in Swedish as a second language (SSL).The material consists of 35 argumentative texts written by immigrant Iranians and two control groups consisting of 66 texts written by Swedes and 32 texts written by immigrant student writers of varying language background.The study tries to combine methods and concepts from both text linguistics and classical rhetoric. The text analyses include cohesion and coherence patterns, linear structure and argumentative strategies in the rhetorical parts of the text.The results show that the most salient differences between the Iranian group and the control groups concern the argumentative patterns, whereas the results from the analysis of the coherence patterns rather point to similarities between both groups of SSL writers. While the argumentation in the Iranians' texts most often follows the pattern "situation-problem" and begins with a general introduction to the problem, the texts in the control groups are dominated by the "problem-solution" pattern, and in many cases an introduction to the problem is lacking.It is argued that the argumentative patterns that distinguish the Iranians from the control groups might be explained by different writing traditions and values in the writers' cultural background. This assumption is supported in interviews with the writers and with a group of Iranian reference persons.
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| 4. |
- Jarl Kerzar, Helena
(författare)
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Gammalt och nytt i predikospråket : Språklig-stilistisk analys av predikan i Svenska kyrkans radio- och TV-sända högmässor 1938-1984 : linguistic- stylistic analysis of the Church of Sweden's Sunday service sermons on radio and television from 1938 to 1984
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The principal aim of this dissertation is to give a broad description of the linguistic and stylistic changes in the language of the Church of Sweden's Sunday service sermons on radio and television between 1938 and 1984.The material consists of 67 sermons beginning with the period 1938-40, ending with the period 1979-84, and including the periods 1950-52 and 1967-68. The material from 1979-84 consists of 13 sermons held by female ministers and 13 held by male ministers. Of the 67 sermons, 57 are recorded on tape and 10 are in manuscript form. The survey thus mostly includes spoken sermons.The main hypothesis is that the language of sermons has changed in a rather sweeping way over the 47 years covered in the survey, but that there are also persistent features given that the sermons are part of a nearly 2,000-year-old tradition.It was found that major changes took place in what was largely an obsolete language influenced by the Bible, as shown in the sermons from 1938-40, giving way over time to a language affected by connections to the living conditions of contemporary people and characterized by words associated with social and psychological domains. This suggests that the ministers to some extent tried to adapt their sermons to the recipients. The target group of the sermons from 1938-40 was people who already believed in God. In the post-war period, society became secularized, which led Radio Sweden to prescribe that ministers also address secular listeners and people looking for religious inspiration in their sermons.Changes that took place in the Swedish language in the post-war period are also found in the language of the sermons. One can note, however, a delayed effect. It seems that sacred language is more conservative than profane language.Rhetorical devices for motivating the listener, reinforcing the message and making it concrete, and structuring the sermon are still found to about the same extent in the most recent material as in the oldest material.Female ministers have adapted their language to the prevailing norms to a great extent but sometimes deviate in a way that is usually seen as being typical for the language of women.
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| 5. |
- Landqvist, Håkan
(författare)
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Råd och ruelse : Moral och samtalsstrategier i Giftinformationscentralens telefonrådgivning
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In many different kinds of institutional discourse, the agenda concerns issues that have strong moral implications for the layperson. The present study deals with one such type of discourse, citizens’ calls to the Swedish Poison Information Centre (PIC). The PIC runs a hotline where citizens and medical professionals can get advice about how to treat a possible poisoning. The main aim of the thesis is to identify the types of face threats in these calls and to examine the consequences these have for the interaction. In connection with this, two other subjects are studied: 1) the formulation and giving of advice, and 2) the interactional consequences of the professional party’s distrust regarding the caller’s intentions behind contacting the institution.The material consists of a corpus of 377 authentic citizen calls to the PIC. The calls, transcribed in extenso, amount to more than 17 hours of audiotaped data.The analysis has been made using methods from Conversation Analysis (CA), combined with the theory of face and face-saving. However, the analysis mostly builds on findings in conversation analytic work regarding sensitive subjects, rather than on Brown & Levinson’s politeness theory.The study shows that the PIC calls mostly contain measures taken by both the pharmacist and the caller in order to save the face of the caller. Further, it is found that not all face threats are created by the other party in the conversation. There are two important types of face-threat that originate outside of the conversation and have not been made relevant in the conversation until the caller takes measures against them. Those threats concern the caller’s decision to contact the PIC and the caller’s responsibility regarding the incident. The pharmacist usually ignores the caller’s face-work regarding these conversation-external threats, but can instead become moralizing with regard to the caller’s future actions.It is also found that the distribution of directive types in calls depends on the presumed seriousness of the problematic substance.
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| 6. |
- Moberg, Ulla
(författare)
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Språkbruk och interaktion i en svensk pingstförsamling : En kommunikationsetnografisk studie : a study in the ethnography of communication
- 1998
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is based on the assumption that text and context form an integrated, indissoluble whole when meanings are created, renegotiated and interpreted in human interaction in different speech events. With the aid of a combination of ethnographic and conversation-analytical methods an investigation is made of the ways in which a number of members of a Pentecostal church in a medium-sized Swedish town interact with one another and with persons who have not made a personal avowal as Christians. Participant observations were carried out during the period 1989-94, and the taped material comprises 13 conversationlike interviews, three coffee-break conversations and a dinner conversation. All the recordings are of "natural" conversations, which is to say that it was not a question of experiments with controlled variables.The dissertation contains a description of how words, phrases and modes of expression are taken from the Bible, from the services and from other sources common to the Movement, to be used again and adapted to different situations. Persons who have long been members of a community characterised by an endeavour to attain one particular goal have acquired similar experience. In the interaction between them, there is much that can be taken for granted or simply hinted at. The communication is thereby economical-a single seemingly disconnected word can convey something which it would require a lengthy exposition to convey to an outsider.It also emerges that elderly Pentecostals who have devoted much of their lives to the church have acquired a pious, Biblically coloured mode of expression, that the middle-aged and young who are frequently in contact with non-Christians avoid such a mode of expression or set it within a jocular framework, and that the newly saved overuse it in order to exhibit their new group membership.
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| 7. |
- Nyström, Catharina
(författare)
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Gymnasisters skrivande : En studie av genre, textstruktur och sammanhang
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Students in upper secondary school write in a number of different genres, and do this in school contexts as well as in their spare time. The study presented here is an overview of this activity and the genres concerned. The theoretical framework of the study is that of genre theory whereby genre is understood as a socially situated concept.The study is based on 2 000 texts gathered from students on different study programmes all over Sweden in the school year of 1996-97. The texts were written in different situations. The most important distinction made here is between test texts (i.e. texts from national tests) and self-chosen texts, which may come from schoolwriting or spare-time writing.The texts are categorized according to genre. This text inventory shows a repertoire of 33 different genres in the text material. A small number of genres, such as story, book-review and expository essay dominate the school writing. The test genres differ from this pattern in that they clearly imitate texts with a genuine communicative intent.The most frequent genres are studied further and each of them is demonstrated by an interpretative reading. This reading shows that the genres differ considerably with respect to genre character and stability of text structure. A quantitative study of text length and variation in vocabulary further shows that texts written by two categories of students, those on vocationally oriented programmes and those on programmes preparing for higher education, differ significantly.Reference cohesion is studied in a smaller sample of the texts. This lexico-semantic mechanism of cohesion proves to exhibit an interrelation with variation in vocabulary as well as with text type. One particular cohesive tie, inference, shows different patterns in texts written by the two categories of students mentioned above.
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| 8. |
- Oestreicher, Amelie
(författare)
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Bearbetning av nyhetstext. En studie av texthantering vid sex svenska dagstidningar.
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Prior to the printing of news texts in newspapers, an internal review is performed by various journalistic editors. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the editing of texts at different editorial offices. How is the work organised? What kinds of emendations are made? Is there a common "textual culture" that is reflected in common principles of editing - within or across different newspapers? And what is the interplay between the editorial work and the conditions of the writing environment at the various editorial offices: the number of editors, the volume of text written, the kind of editorial office (general or specialised), printed house rules for writing, opportunities for communication (meetings etc.)?The perspective of the investigation is text linguistic and pragmatic. The material (3608 emendations) has been analysed and classified in a data base on five different levels: information, text structure, word style, lexicogrammar, and typing, in comparison with emendations made by a group of teachers. A total of 157 co-workers connected with editorial offices participated: 36 reporters and 121 editors at the news and sports offices from 6 newspapers (1990-1991) with 510 news texts in 1347 versions. The results show that 72 % of all emendations serve to adapt the texts to a news text norm (information structure, text structure and word stylistic changes). Both in the organisation of information and the planning of texts, the editors' changes result in a strengthening of the journalistic text norm that can be discerned in the printed newspaper. In contrast to results stemming from editing performed by reviewers with more general linguistic ambitions (the teachers in the comparative material), what clearly dominate here are functional requirements placed on the texts. However, this also involves a local text norm, where different textual levels are prioritised differently at different editorial offices, even within the same newspaper. These differences can be tied to various social and institutional conditions controlling production (the kind of editorial office, the number of editors, etc.), as well as to communicative patterns within and between different editorial offices.
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| 9. |
- Park, Hyeon-Sook
(författare)
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Korean-Swedish code-switching : Theoretical models and linguistic reality : teoretiska modeller och den språkliga verkligheten
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study deals with Korean-Swedish code-switching, i.e. the alternate use of Korean and Swedish in one and the same utterance. Its purpose is to give a linguistic description of the way in which Koreans combine Swedish with Korean, and to test the universal validitv of the two most influential grammatical models in the literature of code-switching, that is, Poplack's two-constraint model and Myers-Scotton's matrix language-frame model (MLF model), on Korean-Swedish code-switching. The data consist of tape recordings of spontaneous adult, child and family conversations among Koreans in Sweden.Linguistic analysis reveals that multi-word sequences (i.e. prototypical code-switches) andsingle words (i.e. prototypical borrowings) from the other language show the same morphosyntactic characteristics: multi-word sequences are morphologically and/or syntactically integrated intothe language of the sentence as if they were single words, and single words contain the functionwords `or morphemes and the morpheme orders from the original language as if they weremulti-word sequences. Several important points are derived from this fact. Firstly, the cross-linguistic validity of the two models is called into question. Secondly, the view that there is a distinction between multi-word sequences and single words appears unconvincing. Thirdly, the distinction between code-switching and borrowing cannot be made on the basis of morphosyntactic integration. Finally, the distance between prototypical switches and prototypical borrowings is not as great as many researchers have assumed.Examination of a possible correlation between extralinguistic factors and the switching types inthe Korean-Swedish community investigated shows that the choice of the type of code-switching is also determined by factors such as the speaker's bilingual proficiency and age as well as conversation type. It is argued that by taking not only linguistic but extralinguistic factors into consideration, we might get a more comprehensive and accurate picture of the code-switching phenomenon.
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| 10. |
- Sundgren, Eva, 1950-
(författare)
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Återbesök i Eskilstuna : En undersökning av morfologisk variation och förändring i nutida talspråk
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Real-time replications of empirical studies of language use are scarce. This study of language change in real time replicates an investigation of the social variation of spoken Swedish in the medium-sized town of Eskilstuna, using data collected 29 years after the original study. It combines the merits of a panel and a trend study exploiting data from 13 re-recorded informants from the 1960’s and 72 new informants sampled in the same way as the original 83 ones. By this method individual, generational and community change have been traced.The empirical material consists of informal conversation-like interviews. Seven morphological and morphophonological variables have been analyzed with quantitative methods. These variables are sociolinguistically marked and, according to the prevailing linguistic opinion in Sweden, in the process of more or less rapid change from regional dialect towards spoken standard. The rate of change at the level of the community, however, has been low. The social class- and age-conditioned differences have decreased, even if they are still statistically significant in most variables, whereas the gender-conditioned differences have increased. It is also demonstrated that social mobility and integration in the local community have an impact on the linguistic behavior, but only in specific combinations with other social variables.By implicational scaling it is shown that the variation is ordered and regular and that it is possible to discern different varieties in Eskilstuna speech.Where there is any change at all in these variables between 1967 and 1996, this manifests itself both as individual and generational change. Idiolectal change is strongest before age 50, but there are also informants older than 50 who have changed, either in the direction of more standard or more local speech.The comparison between the methods demonstrates that a trend study is the most reliable way of investigating real-time change.
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