Göteborgsstudier i nordisk språkvetenskap
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Department of Swedish Language, University of Gothenburg
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Item Estlandssvenskans språkstruktur(2018) Rosenkvist, Henrik; Göteborgs universitet ; Institutionen för svenska språketItem Grammatik, kritik, didaktik. Nordiska studier i systemisk-funktionell lingvistik och socialsemiotik.(2018) Institutionen för svenska språketItem -(2017-12-20)Item Svenskans beskrivning 35. Förhandlingar vid trettiofemte sammankomsten. Göteborg 11–13 maj 2016.(Institutionen för svenska språket, 2017-04) Golden, Anne; Malmgren, Sven-Göran; Agebjörn, Anders; Bergh, Gunnar; Ohlander, Sölve; Bylin, Maria; Ekberg, Lena; Östman, Jan-Ola; Karlsson, Susanna; Lind Palicki, Lena; Kolu, Jaana; Kosunen, Riitta; Lahtinen, Sinikka; Toropainen, Outi; Leinonen, Therese; Lindgren, Josefin; Lindström, Jan; Wide, Camilla; Löfdahl, Maria; Tingsell, Sofia; Wenner, Lena; Malmberg, Anja; Sörlin, Marie; Melander Marttala, Ulla; Mattsson, Elisabet; Nilsson, Jenny; Norrby, Catrin; Nissilä, Niina; Pilke, Nina; Nord, Andreas; Sörlin, Marie; Palviainen, Åsa; Sopanen, Pauliina; Randahl, Ann-Christin; Rehnberg, Hanna Sofia; Sahlstein, Annmari; Sköldberg, Emma; Hannesdóttir, Anna Helga; Vaakanainen, Veijo; Valdeson, Fredrik; Volodina, Elena; Borin, Lars; Pilán, Ildikó; François, Thomas; Tack, Anaïs; Wengelin, Åsa; Bengtsson, Lisa; Torrance, Mark; Sköldberg, Emma; Andréasson, Maia; Adamsson Eryd, Henrietta; Lindahl, Filippa; Prentice, Julia; Lindström, Sven; Sandberg, Malin; Institutionen för svenska språket, Göteborgs universitet,Sedan 1963 har det vid olika universitet i Sverige och Finland regelbundet arrangerats sammankomster för svenskans beskrivning. Forskningsprojekt och forskningsresultat om svenska språket har presenterats och diskuterats. Den trettiofemte sammankomsten ägde rum den 11–13 maj 2016 i Göteborg och samlade ca 160 deltagare. Konferensen anordnades av Institutionen för svenska språket vid Göteborgs universitet. Det övergripande temat för sammankomsten var Ord och detta belystes i 68 presentationer – plenarföredrag, sektionsföredrag, posterpresentationer och workshoppar. I denna volym finns två av plenarföredragen och 26 av de övriga presentationerna publicerade.Item Lov og tekst i middelalderen. Produksjon og resepsjon av Magnus Lagabøtes landslov(2016-02-19) Horn, Anna CatharinaThis thesis investigates fifteen out of a total of thirtynine extant manuscripts containing The Norwegian Code of the Realm (1274), henceforth the Code. They are all dated before 1400. The fifteen manuscripts display some kind of harmonization of two particular chapters in the sections on assault and land rent, respectively. I work from the hypothesis that these manuscripts share a common background in a particular exemplar and/or scribal milieu. The thesis has two aims. One is to further our understanding of the relation between the preserved MSS of the Code. The other is to develop a method for analysis of texts which display contamination, or texts that have been transmitted using several exemplars. The analyses are based on parameters that are tied to the production and reception of the Code. The new method is composed of elements from both textual criticism and material philology. The object of study is raised from the level of the word, phrase, or clause to that of the graphic unit of the chapter, defined by elements as initials and rubrics. The chapter is the crucial component upon which the structure of the Code is built. First, a selection of variables regarding codicology, layout, and script are analyzed. Based on the scribes’ ability to execute these features, the manuscripts are sorted into three levels of proficiency. Second, the analysis of the structure of the text shifts to a focus on the order of the chapters. Thus, the structures of the fifteen manuscripts are put into a diagram. The variants are revealed as patterns, which show that the manuscripts have additional variants in common. Nearly all variants relating to rearrangement or interpolation turn out to be attested in earlier regional laws, although by the time when the Code was promulgated, these should presumably have been rendered obsolete. This suggests that the manuscripts derive from a milieu where the Code was seen as a symbiosis of old and new rules, and that older law codes were used as exemplars together with the new Code in order to produce the most convenient Code.Item Progressive constructions in Swedish(2015-09-18) Blensenius, KristianThis thesis aims to provide new insights into the semantic properties of some progressive constructions in Swedish and to provide better understanding of aspect in Swedish. The five included studies present analyses of previously understudied as well as more familiar progressive constructions, based on authentic language data. Constructions with a verb followed by a verbal present participle, e.g. försvinna skrikande ‘disappear screaming’, are analyzed in the first study, and they are labeled progressive participial. It is shown that the verb and the participle, taken together as a construction in a construction-grammar sense, yield progressive reading. More familiar constructions, standardly considered progressive in the literature, are studied in the remaining papers, primarily from a two-componential theory of aspect. The second study analyzes the constructions hålla på att ‘hold on to’ + infinitive verb and hålla på och hold on and’ + finite verb. While the difference between them is usually taken to be primarily stylistic, it is shown that only hålla på att is a progressive marker in a canonical sense. Posture-verb pseudocoordinations, e.g. sitta ‘sit’/stå ‘stand’/ligga ‘lie’ + och ‘and’ + finite verb, are analyzed in the third study. It is shown that posture-verb pseudocoordinations are not progressive like e.g. hålla på att but instead locative and, in some cases, episodic. The fourth study returns to the hålla på construction, primarily assessing the pseudocoordinative hålla på och variant in detail, noting its restrictions in terms of compatibility with certain types of VP. It is shown that hålla på och does not combine with VPs with homogeneous internal structure, and a pluractional analysis is proposed instead. Finally, as a way to find out the nature of hålla på att constructions, the fifth study investigates constructions of the type from the perspectives of e.g. finiteness and aspect.Item Purism på glid? Studier i nutida isländskt ordbruk(2015-02-25) Jansson, HåkanThe aim of this thesis is to investigate changes in vocabulary use in modern Icelandic. This is done by surveying loanwords not conforming to loanword patterns dominant in standard Icelandic since the rise of purism in the second half of the 19th century, and by mapping of the use of colloquialisms and colloquial word forms in written language. The surveys are based on a corpus study and a study of recorded speech. This research serves as a departure point for further investigation of words and word forms. The investigation has shown three categories of words that depart from earlier, purist influenced practice: (1) unorthodox words with sound-alike spelling or non-standard word formation; (2) words formed with foreign morphemes; and (3) foreign words with Icelandic spelling. The spoken language survey shows an increased use of loanwords over the time span covered (1990, 2000 and 2010). It also shows that the older interlocutants are more prepared to adhere to purist norms, while the younger ones are less hesitant to use loans. The observed tendency of change in those vocabulary use patterns is seen in the light of four underlying factors briefly explored: (1) social relations in general, (2) the organisation of education and the extent to which it involves exposure to foreign languages, (3) the development of travel, concerning both Icelanders’ trips abroad and foreigners’ visits to Iceland, and (4) the new electronic public sphere, that allows ordinary language users to communicate without the involvement of “gatekeepers”, who control language usage in other kinds of media.Item Modala hjälpverb i språkhistorisk belysning(2014-08-29) Lagervall, MarikaIn this thesis, the syntactic and morphological characteristics of modal verbs in Swedish have been investigated in order to identify and examine the changes these verbs have undergone. The survey was conducted as a quantitative comparative study in corpus-based materials from both medieval and contemporary Swedish texts. The results show that some of the characteristic properties of modal verbs are connected to the origin of the verbs and to different language changes, e.g. that the verbs occur without the infinitive marker, while others are related to their development into more typical auxiliary verbs, i.e. losing their ability to be used independently. In order to define the category of modal verbs, a combination of several criteria is required. The weighting of the criteria is important, as is to which extent a verb must fulfill a criterion in order to count as a modal verb. The results also show that the verbs evolve towards being more and more grammatical words. In this grammaticalization process, some of the changes apply to all verbs and are therefore predictable, whereas others apply only to certain verbs. A comparison with modal verbs in other Germanic languages shows many similarities, which follow from their common origin in a Germanic inflection category called preterite-present verbs. The modal verbs have undergone similar changes in the different languages, but at different rates. In addition the verbs have, in varying degrees, been affected by other language changes. Keywords: Modal verbs, auxiliaries, modality, preterite-present verbs, Germanic languages, infinitive marker, language change, grammaticalization, Swedish.Item ”Herravälde. Är det bara killar eller?” Andraspråksläsare möter lärobokstexter i historia för gymnasieskolan.(2014-05-23) Olvegård, LottaThis thesis explores and characterizes Swedish high school students’ encounters with history textbook texts, with a focus on students having Swedish as their second language. Reading history textbooks entails comprehending and learning not only the subject matter but also the specific language of history. In order to perform successfully in history as a school subject, Swedish high school students are expected to read texts in the field of history in an analytical and critical manner. However, difficulties in understanding written school-related texts is likely a contributing factor why many L2-students do not achieve the same marks as their L1-peers. These difficulties are investigated within the current body of work. The results of this thesis are generated from two empirical studies. The first study investigates structural and lexico-grammatical features in five high school history textbooks, drawing on systemic-functional linguistics, SFL. The second study explores a number of L2 and L1 high school students’ mediated encounters with their history textbook. The data for the second study is derived from two series of conversations with eleven L2- and L1-readers. The results show that history textbook texts impose great linguistic demands upon the L2-readers. For example, in order to comprehend the texts the reader must have: a large and deep knowledge of vocabulary, an ability to analyze complex linguistic structures, and an ability to make inferences which is necessary for interpreting implicit information in addition to identification and tracking of historic actors within the texts. The L2-readers who struggle to comprehend the textbook texts, and/or do not share the textbook author’s frame of references, use various textual and contextual resources to find clues in order to make meaning of the text. One important resource for the L2-readers to make meaning of the text is the reader’s own interpretation of the teacher’s expectations of the students’ understanding of history as a school subject. However, both textual and contextual clues can lead readers to unexpected interpretations of the text contents.Item Vägar till förståelse. Andraspråkstalare i samtal med en studie- och yrkesvägledare.(2013-05-29) Sheikhi, KarinThe aim of this work is to explore how shared understanding is achieved in career counseling with second language clients. Video-recorded counselling sessions are analysed along with participant interviews and other secondary data. The methods are mainly interpretative, but some quantification of data has been made. The thesis has an emergent research design and comprises three sub-studies. These make use of various theoretical frameworks and concepts, such as interactional sociolinguistics, modified interaction and CA. The results show that the second language speakers’ knowledge of Swedish, as it is normally tested, is not crucial for the degree of success in achieving shared understanding. Instead, other aspects of conversational ability, such as explicitness, persistence and social skills, in combination with the ability to utilise the first language speaker as an interactional resource, are more significant. It is also clear that the first language speaker, being at the same time the institutional representative, has far-reaching responsibilities in the conversation in order for the interactants to reach shared understanding. The analyses show that “understanding” in counselling often implies a kind of learning for the clients. Only after a certain degree of learning are the clients able to express their ideas or make a decision and, subsequently, negotiate shared understanding of their intentions. All three sub-studies show that the negotiation of understanding is successful at a local level in most cases. Global understanding, however, is a challenging task. The cause of these difficulties is more often the asymmetrical relationship regarding knowledge of education and the labour market than linguistic shortcomings in the clients. To achieve shared global understanding requires a degree of awareness and activity from both interactants and a substantial amount of negotiation.Item Att hantera praktiken – om sfi-studerandes möjligheter till interaktion och lärande på praktikplatser(2013-02-13) Sandwall, KarinThe overall aim of this work is to explore and problematize adult second language students’ opportunities for interaction and language learning at work placements. The study is designed as four case studies where students enrolled in Sfi – the basic Swedish language programme for adult immigrants – were observed in school and at various work placements. Data from interviews, field observations, audio and video recordings were analysed from an ecological perspective (van Lier 2004a). Also, notions such as identity, agency, face, investment, and participation in (imagined) communities of practice have been used. The quantitative and qualitative analyses, partially supported by a computer program, suggest that several factors influenced the students’ opportunities for interaction and language learning. These factors are related to aspects of interaction, workplace tasks and relations concerning participants, workplace practices and tuition. The quantitative analysis shows that three of the students interacted by means of verbal utterances, body language and/or artifacts to a very limited degree. An exception was a student placed at a preschool who was indeed involved in interaction to a higher degree, but almost exclusively with 2-3-year-olds. During the period observed, students talked, on average, between 30 seconds and 2 minutes each day. Further, the amount of interaction decreased significantly over time. The qualitative analysis shows that as the situated interaction was mediated by affordances, it generally worked well. Paradoxically, this reduced the students’ need to use and expand their linguistic resources. Also, students’ “simple” and solitary workplace tasks, as well as their limited tutoring and participation in social intercourse, contributed to the scarcity of interaction. The analysis further suggests that the “school world” and the “work placement world” were perceived as two separate entities with no mutual relevance. One implication is that the learning potential of both contexts must be made visible, more fully exploited and strengthened. For implementing this, and for integration of (in-)formal learning within and between the contexts, pedagogical tools are proposed. The results are further related to short-term goals of labour market policy as well as to more long-term integration-policy goals concerning individuals’ further education and active participation in society.Item Tala om att tänka – om processer och projekt vid användning av orden tänka och tanke i tre samtal(2012-04-20) Grahn, Inga-LillThis thesis is a qualitative investigation of how the Swedish verb "tänka" and the noun "tanke" are used in three radio phone-in counseling conversations (the words are comparable with, but not equivalent to, the English verb "think" and the "noun" thought). The aim of the study is to explore in detail what the participants talk about when they use these two words. The investigation focuses on two roles, referred to as the thinker and the thought, representing someone who is thinking and something that is thought. A systemic-functional analysis of the processes containing the words "tänka" and "tanke" shows that the thinker and the thought are engaged in an emergent interplay which can be described as a pattern of material, verbal and relational processes, rather than the expected mental processes. Furthermore, an activity analysis of these processes in terms of communicative projects shows that talking about the thinker and the thought contributes in a critical way to a successful outcome of the ongoing counseling activity. Following Harvey Sacks’ seminal article On doing “being ordinary” (1984), the study proposes that the uses of the words "tänka" and "tanke" support, grammatically and interactionally, an interpretation in which the speakers cooperatively are doing “being thinking”. The combined description of process types and communicative projects in languaging turns out to be a fruitful method for exploring the dialogical and dynamic aspects of human sense-making.Item Skolspråk i utveckling. En- och flerspråkiga elevers bruk av grammatiska metaforer i senare skolår.(2011-09-29) Magnusson, UlrikaAbstract The aim of this thesis is to compare the use of grammatical metaphor in 365 texts written by Swedish mono- and multilingual students in year 9 and 11, both regarding occurrence of GM and the use of its functions. The theoretical framework for the thesis is Systemic-functional linguistics, and second language research on age and development of educational language. The results show that older students make more use of grammatical metaphors than younger students, and that the monolingual students use more grammatical metaphors than the multilingual students. Among the multilingual students, the students with an early and a late age of onset use grammatical metaphors more than multilingual students with an age of onset in between the two others. On the other hand, L2 deviations increase with a higher age of onset. Thus, grammatical metaphor might represent a different kind of language competence, than do the deviations, that depend on familiarity with texts and education. The results are interpreted in relation to the Interdependence Hypothesis, formulated by Cummins (1979). Apart from the mere occurrence of grammatical metaphor, the functions of grammatical metaphor, e.g. expansion of the nominal phrase in the case of nominalizations, was found to be more frequently used in texts dense with grammatical metaphor, contributing to the construction of specialized, educational knowledge. The analysis comprises a methodological discussion of the demarcation of the phenomenon of grammatical metaphor. Different types of grammatical metaphor are distinguished and discussed regarding their functions for abstraction, concretizations and different “world views”.Item Young Urban Swedish Variation and change in multilingual settings.(Department of Swedish Language, University of Gothenburg, 2011) Källström, Roger; Lindberg, Inger; Magnusson, Ulrika; Otterup, Tore; Prentice, Julia; Sköldberg, Emma; Svensson, Gudrun; Tingsell, Sofia; Bijvoet, Ellen; Bodén, Petra; Boyd, Sally; Ekberg, Lena; Fraurud, Kari; Ganuza, Natalia; Johansson Kokkinakis, Sofie; Källström, Roger; Lindberg, Inger; Department of Swedish Language, University of GothenburgThis book contains twelve chapters on the structure and use of Swedish multiethnic youth language, as well as articles on multilingualism in Swedish schools and society at large.Item Skriftspråksutveckling under högstadiet(2011-04-28) Nordenfors, MikaelThe aim of this thesis is to characterize patterns of development in texts written by pupils in secondary school in Sweden. The thesis applies both a traditional quantitative approach to 318 texts and an approach based on the concept voice to 266 texts. The texts were written by the same 31 pupils through school years five to nine, thus the overall approach is also a longitudinal one. The study showed that text length increases overall during the examined years, but the increase tapers off towards the end. Word length and word variation also increase, but the rate of increase does not seem to decline in the same way text length does. There was some correlation between text length and high grades, but the two other measures, word length and word variation, were found to correlate more regularly with high grades. The quantitative investigation of voice showed that the use of voice increases between school years 5 and 8 and then decreases. However, when the different types of voice were investigated in detail, it was found that pupils developed more sophisticated strategies for ”voice loans”. This was particularly characteristic of texts that received high grades. Some pupils did not develop such strategies at all, and some did develop them, but only partially. The two approaches showed significant differences between text types, e.g. in texts where a specialized vocabulary was dominant, average word length turned out to be much higher. It was also found that referring and referred voice dominates the voice loans of texts that concern facts but quoting and quoted voice dominates the voice loans of fictional texts.Item Platsannonsen i tiden. Den orubricerade platsannonsen 1955 - 2005(2011-04-28) Helgesson, KarinThe aim of this thesis is to analyse potential changes in the genre of recruitment advertisement during the period 1955 to 2005, and investigate if changes in society can explain these changes in the genre. The study shows that some conventions regarding content, laoyut and style develops during the period. An important change is that information about the employer becomes an almost compulsory part of the advertisement by the end of the period. It also gets a salient place in the advertisement. The language/style is more conservative in some regards in the recruitment advertisements than in other genres. In the advertisement, an ideal applicant is constructed through the personal qualitaties asked for, the kind of benefits promised and information about preferred age and sex. During the whole period, one of the personal qualities most sought after is the ability to co-operate. This could be seen as a sign of the stability in Swedish working life. In the year of 2000, however, personal drive becomes the most desirable qualification instead of ability to co-operate. As the ideal candidate is constructed in the advertisement, so is the employer constructed as an attractive employer. The most common way of describing the employer during the whole period is as large, leading and expansive. At the end of the period there is a small but increasing amount of advertisements, which construct a new kind of employer identity more focused on advantages for the employee. During a period of fifty years, conventions for content, visual design and style develop in the recruitment advertisement. Some of these conventions are no longer in use when Internet becomes a competitor to the printed daily newspaper, but some are still used in recruitment advertisements on Internet. What is changing most is the view of the ideal candidate and the good employer. The way these are presented also affects the genre.Item På rak sak. Om ordförbindelser och konventionaliserade uttryck bland unga språkbrukare i flerspråkiga miljöer.(2010-08-19) Prentice, JuliaThe overall aim of the thesis is to investigate and describe the use and mastery of different types of phraseological units and conventionalized expressions in the language of adolescents in multilingual environments. The thesis comprises three studies focusing on different aspects of phraseology in relation to first and second language acquisition, development and use. The studies have been carried out mainly from a cognitive perspective. The first study focuses on deviation from standard Swedish in adolescents’ use of phraseological units. Data from the SUF-project (Language and language use among adolescents in multilingual urban settings) have been analyzed in relation to standard Swedish reference data and compared to a constructed variety, rendered in a novel placed in a Swedish multiethnic setting. In the novel deviations from standard Swedish were found to be mostly lexico-grammatical, whereas the authentic data appears to be more complex and deviate both on a lexico-grammatical and a semantic-pragmatic level. The second paper reports on a study on the use of figurative word combinations and their degree of conventionalization in written data from the SUF-project. The results support the initial hypothesis that the frequency and types of figurative expressions in the participants’ texts can, at least to some degree, be linked to the participants’ linguistic background. L1 students use more conventionalized figurative word combinations than L2 students, whereas modifications of conventionalized figurative expressions are more frequent in the L2 students’ texts. The study also shows that the students create novel figurative word combinations based on a great variety of source domains. The third study focuses on the mastery of Swedish conventionalized expressions among adolescents with various linguistic backgrounds. Complementary data have been collected by means of a survey that contains four tests focusing on various aspects of the mastery of conventionalized expressions. The quantitative results show that L1 students reach significantly higher test results than L2 students. Furthermore, L2 students with an early age of onset reach significantly higher results than the later L2 learners. Thus, age of onset appears to be an important factor for the participants’ mastery of conventionalized expressions in Swedish, a conclusion that is also confirmed by the qualitative analysis of part of the data.Item Modalitet och förändring. En studie av må och kunna i fornsvenska(2007) Andersson, Peter