| 1. |
- Plejert, Charlotta, 1973-
(författare)
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To fix what’s not broken : repair strategies in non-native and native english conversation
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis investigates conversations involving native speakers and non-nativespeakers of English. The non-native speakers partaking in the study have a welldeveloped knowledge of the foreign language. The study is particularly concernedwith the function and interactional relevance of repair strategies that interlocutorsemploy when they talk to each other. The results of the analyses highlight issuessuch as participants’ self-representations as competent speakers, the notion “nonnativeness”,and language learning, relating to current developments within conversationanalytic research on second/foreign language conversations. Comparisonsbetween non-native and native speakers are made, highlighting similarities as wellas di¡erences in participants’ use of repair strategies.The study adopts a conversation analytic framework but is also in¤uenced bystudies of second/foreign language acquisition. Conversation analytic research has,until recently, dealt with conversations involving non-native speakers who have alimited or intermediate command of the second/foreign language. Repair behavioursof advanced foreign language users are thus a little investigated area. Whereasnon-native speakers with limited experience in using the second/foreign languageoften employ repair in order to solve problems that are related to their linguisticknowledge, such as ¢nding or knowing words and constructing utterances that areunderstandable in the context in which they occur, this thesis shows how an increasedknowledge of the foreign language involves a shift in focus as repair is carriedout, i.e. repair is used to address problems of a linguistic as well as of a socialnature. Since an increased knowledge of a foreign language is accompanied by an increasein the range of jobs that repair strategies do, “doing repair” is an importantpart of the development of non-native speakers’ interactional and linguistic competence.
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| 2. |
- Andersson, Helena, 1969-
(författare)
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Interkulturell kommunikation på ett svenskt sjukhus : Fallstudier av andraspråkstalare i arbetslivet
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation investigates the communication of immigrants employed at a Swedish hospital. The overall aim is to find factors that have a positive effect on their integration into the workplace. The data comprise observations, field notes and approximately 80 hours of audio recordings with five second language speakers made during their everyday activities at work. Since entire workdays have been recorded the data include both professional and social interaction, such as meetings, interaction with patients and small talk between colleagues. In preparation for the case studies a number of interviews were conducted at the hospital and they gave valuable knowledge about the hospital routines and how second language speakers experience their communicative situation.The five participants in the case studies are one male cleaner from Tanzania, two female nurses, one from Iran and one from Lebanon, and two female physicians, one from Hungary and one from Lithuania. The number of years spent in Sweden varies from 4 to 18.The analyses focus on communication strategies, humor and medical case rounds. The results show that lack of language skills is not a hindrance since the participants make use of different strategies to solve language problems. The dissertation also shows that, despite the difficulties and risks involved in the use of humor, the participants do so as a way of showing collegiality. The analysis of case rounds show that the participants are treated as equal interlocutors and contribute as much to the conversation as the first language speakers do. The results indicate, with a few exceptions, successful integration of the participants.Finally, the dissertation argues that a multicultural and multilingual staff is a positive feature since their skills in other languages can be used in ways that both save time and are of economic benefit to the employer. It also argues that Swedish teaching should focus more on interactional skills, for example so that the second language speakers are better prepared to face the communicative challenges they encounter in a workplace.
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| 3. |
- Sundberg, Gunlög, 1956-
(författare)
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Asymmetrier och samförstånd i rekryteringssamtal med andraspråkstalare
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In many institutional settings in today’s globalized job market, people have to deal with different role asymmetries in the co-construction of meaning. In this study, institutional, cultural and linguistic asymmetries are focused on in interviews at an employment agency in Sweden. Interviews between a recruiter and fourteen female job candidates with an academic background from other countries were video taped. Three sequences on personality were analysed: What do you consider to be your strengths? What personal characteristics do you want to improve? and What has made an impact on you? The general aim of the study was to gain knowledge of the processes whereby self-presentations are co-constructed and how participants try to reach common understanding when they do not share common linguistic and cultural resources.Theoretically, the study has a dialogical framework. Discourse is seen as the place where society, culture, situation, individual and language meet and where meaning is constructed through social action. Within an interactional sociolinguistics framework, an holistic approach to methods combines ethnography of communication with ethnomethodology and conversation analysis.The results show that the meaning-making project in this institutional situation is institutionally framed, culturally hidden, socially constrained by face-work and interactionally embedded. The recruiter orients to the institutional frame by embedding reformulations of the candidates’ answers in her uptake, often an adjective, which is filled in on a form and later transferred to a data base. The recruiter also takes on the face-work of the communicative dilemmas that the questions exhibit, for example by using explanations when candidates admit to low self-confidence. It is also shown that for some candidates the hidden agenda of the situation is concealed and that their communicative styles clash with the recruiter’s expectations.The asymmetrical situation can for the candidates be seen as both a resource and a constraint. The linguistic asymmetry is not foregrounded. Instead, the negotiation of meaning concerns the institutional and cultural frame rather than linguistic meanings. On the other hand, the recruiter shows a tendency to normalize the candidates according to her own institutional and cultural knowledge. This dynamic interplay between heterogenization and homogenization tendencies is an important feature in the interviews.
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