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- Deutschmann, Mats, 1964-
(författare)
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Apologising in British English
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis explores the form, function and sociolinguistic distribution of explicit apologies in the spoken part of the British National Corpus. The sub-corpus used for the study comprises a spoken text mass of about five million words and represents dialogue produced by more than 1700 speakers, acting in a number of different conversational settings. More than 3000 examples of apologising are included in the analysis.Primarily, the form and function of the apologies are examined in relation to the type of offence leading up to the speech act. Aspects such as the sincerity of the apologies and the use of additional remedial strategies other than explicit apologising are also considered. Variations in the distributions of the different types of apologies found are subsequently investigated for the two independent variables speaker social identity (gender, social class and age) and conversational setting (genre, formality and group size). The effect of the speaker-addressee relationship on the apology rate and the types of apologies produced is also examined.In this study, the prototypical apology, a speech act used to remedy a real or perceived offence, is only one of a number of uses of the apology form in the corpus. Other common functions of the form include discourse-managing devices such as request cues for repetition and markers of hesitation, as well as disarming devices uttered before expressing disagreement and controversial opinions.Among the speaker social variables investigated, age and social class are particularly important in affecting apologetic behaviour. Young and middle-class speakers favour the use of the apology form. No substantial gender differences in apologising are apparent in the corpus. I have also been able to show that large conversational groups result in frequent use of the form. Finally, analysis of the effects of the speaker-addressee relationship on the use of the speech act shows that, contrary to expectations based on Brown & Levinson’s theory of politeness, it is the powerful who tend to apologise to the powerless rather than vice versa.The study implies that formulaic politeness is an important linguistic marker of social class and that its use often involves control of the addressee.
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| 2. |
- Esquivel Sánchez, María Denis, 1961-
(författare)
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‘Yo puedo bien español’ : Influencia sueca y variedades hispanas en la actitud lingüística e identificación de los hispanoamericanos en Suecia
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this research has been to describe and analyse Swedish linguistic and cultural influence, on identification, and idiomatic awareness as well as on the Spanish used by Hispanic Americans who have lived more than 12 years in Sweden.The analysis has been carried out within the field of sociolinguistics, specifically in the area of language contact, drawing on methodological aspects of ethno linguistics, sociology of language and cognitive linguistics. The research was divided into two phases. In the first phase, we describe and analyse Corpus 1, consisting of 20 interviews of first generation Hispanic Americans political refugees. In the second phase, we describe, compare and analyse Corpus 2, which consists of 105 questionnaires distributed to first and second generation Hispanic Americans in Sweden.The results have shown that in Sweden Hispanic Americans have gradually generated a variety of Spanish which clearly shows features of Swedish culture and language and with an aspect of standardisation due to the fact that in the intercommunication between language speakers of varieties of Spanish certain variations have slowly been eliminated over the course of time. The sociolinguistic situation of the informants has been observed as well as the nature of the immigration and identification and idiomatic awareness in relation to their integration or lack of integration into Swedish society. The use of 38 words with a high level of synonymy was also investigated in order to establish standardisation of these representative words among the varieties of Spanish, spoken in Sweden. Furthermore we have investigated clichés, lexical, semantic-pragmatic and syntactic loans from Swedish as well as Swedish cultural influence on use tense among the informants.
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| 3. |
- Isaksson, Malin, 1970-
(författare)
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Adolescentes abandonnées : Je narrateur adolescent dans le roman français contemporain
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines the image of the adolescent girl in contemporary French first-person novels, read from a gender perspective. It is both a thematic and a narratologic study of thirty-two novels (1950-1999), focusing on the use of stereotypical concepts of femininity. From a thematic perspective, the female protagonists’ world stands out as dark and problematic, especially in comparison with the world of the male protagonists. The recurrent themes revolve around sexuality and violence in both worlds, but they are treated differently depending on the biological sex of the protagonist. This thematic study thus shows that the protagonists live in a patriarchal world, with different norms for girls and boys. However, an examination of the ‘I’ narrator somewhat modifies the compact, gloomy picture of the girls’ situation. The authors introduce perspectives on the fictional universe of the adolescent, for instance by contrasting the focalization of the adolescent and potentially unreliable narrator with the supposed view of the adult reader. These perspectives are subversive in some novels, but mostly vague. Accordingly, the readers are often left to their own interpretation and evaluation of the adolescent girls’ situation. Finally, a discussion of virtual readers and “target readers” shows a tendency to read and market the novels in question as more or less autobiographical. Such readings modify their ideological potential.
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| 5. |
- Jonsson, Carla, 1974-
(författare)
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Code-switching in Chicano Theater : Power, Identity and Style in Three Plays by Cherríe Moraga
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis examines local and global functions of code-switching and code-mixing in Chicano theater, i.e. in writing intended for performance. The data of this study consists of three published plays by Chicana playwright Cherríe Moraga.Distinguishing between code-switching and code-mixing, the investigation explores local and global functions of these phenomena. Local functions of code-switching are functions that can be seen in the text and, as a consequence, can be regarded as meaningful for the audience of the plays. These functions are examined, focussing on five loci in which code-switching is frequent and has clear local functions. The loci are quotations, interjections, reiterations, ‘gaps’ and word/language play.Global functions of code-switching and code-mixing operate on a higher level and are not necessarily detected in the actual texts. These functions are discussed, focussing on two main areas, namely power relations (addressing questions of domination, resistance and empowerment) and identity construction (addressing questions of how identity can be reflected by use of language and how identity is constructed and reconstructed by means of language).The study suggests that code-switching fills creative, artistic and stylistic functions in the plays and that code-switching and code-mixing can serve as responses to domination in that they can be used to resist, challenge and ultimately transform power relations.
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| 6. |
- Krull, Kirsten, 1973-
(författare)
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Lieber Gott, mach mich fromm ... : Zum Wort und Konzept “fromm” im Wandel der Zeit
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Based on current research in historical and cognitive linguistics this thesis examines the German semantic field (), partly contrasting it with its Swedish correspondent . Starting at the time of Old High German the analysis follows the historical development of word and concept, exploring how attitudes to the Christian religion are verbalised in different ages. One important assumption is that ideas and attitudes are accessible to us through the lexicalised items of a language.The thesis is part of the interlingual research project “Ethical concepts and mental cultures”, which, by applying a pluralistic method, examines various ethical fields, and assumes as central the oppositions a/o (action directed to others vs. to oneself), right/wrong (virtues vs. vices) and too much/too little vs. the ideal mean.This study shows that true piety, in order to be classified as a virtue, has to include both trust and critical thinking in equal proportions and that if either of the two outweighs the other the virtue will become a vice. Furthermore, it is shown that a shift in meaning has taken place from ‘profitable’ or ‘advantageous’ in Old High German, through ‘excellent’, ‘righteous’, ‘virtuous’ into ‘religious’, with Luther’s usage as the critical factor in giving the word its religious meaning. As a result of Secularisation and Individualisation negative connotations have developed in modern German usage which do not seem to exist to the same extent in modern Swedish. This is confirmed by two corpus studies, evaluating the usage of fromm/from in German and Swedish newspaper texts, according to which fromm tends to be transferred to profane contexts, meaning for example ‘hypocritical’, ‘uncritically credulous’ and ‘uncritically obedient’ more frequently than its Swedish equivalent.Based on results from socio-psychological research the study also identifies some strategies that speakers employ in order to mark distance or adherence to a group of believers or non-believers, for example metaphors (i.a. GOOD IS UP ÷ BAD IS DOWN) or stereotypes, which are often used to ridicule, criticise or insult a member of another group in order to strengthen the speaker’s own social identity.
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| 7. |
- Lindgren, Eva, 1964-
(författare)
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Writing and revising : Didactic and Methodological Implications of Keystroke Logging
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Keystroke logging records keyboard activity during writing. Time and position of all keystrokes are stored in a log file, which facilitates detailed analysis of all pauses, revisions and movements undertaken during writing. Keystroke logging further includes a replay function, which can be used as a tool for reflection and analysis of the writing process. During writing, writers continuously plan, transcribe, read, and revise in order to create a text that meets with their goals and intentions for the text. These activities both interact and trigger one another.This thesis includes studies in which keystroke recordings are used as bases for visualisation of and reflection on the cognitive processes that underlie writing. The keystroke logging methodology is coupled with Geographical information systems (GIS) and stimulated recall in order to enhance the understanding of keystroke logged data as representations of interacting cognitive activities during writing. Particular attention is paid to writing revision and a taxonomy for analysis of on-line revision is proposed. In the taxonomy, revisions made at the point of inscription are introduced as ‘pre-contextual’ revisions, and highlighted as potential windows on cognitive processing during transcription. The function of pre-contextual revisions as revisions of form and concepts was ascertained in an empirical study, which also showed that 13-year-old writers revised more form and concepts at the point of inscription when they wrote in English as a foreign language (EFL) than in Swedish as a first language (L1).In this thesis, a learning method, Peer-based intervention (PBI), is introduced and examined through case studies and statistical analysis. PBI is based on theories about cognitive capacity, noticing, individual-based learning and social interaction. In PBI, the keystroke-logging replay facility is used as a tool for reflection on and discussion of keystroke logged data, i.e. representations of cognitive processes active during writing. In the studies presented in this thesis, teen-aged and adult writers’ texts, written before and after PBI, were analysed according to text quality and revision. Descriptive and argumentative texts in both L1 and EFL were included in the studies. The results showed that PBI raised adult and teen-aged writers’ awareness of linguistic and extra-linguistic features, and that the effect varied across levels of learner ability, text type and language.
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