This essay analyzes the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston, 1937. The main focus is how the protagonist Janie uses her voice to subvert patriarchal oppression. In this essay my hypothesis is that she has a voice all along. However, it evolves due to her ability to engage in activities that are subversive to patriarchy. Her journey throughout the novel is a journey where the oppression from her relationships only makes her grow stronger as a woman. During her journey towards self-revelation as an empowered woman, she gradually gains her freedom and her own authentic voice by asserting control over her body and thoughts. The main theoretical terms of this essay are used in direct link to the struggles and achievements of formulating the self in a male dominated society. What I aim to achieve with this essay is to show how Janie emerges as a subject with a voice of her own in Hurston’s novel.
Denna studie handlar om textsamtalets påverkan på elevers läsförståelse. Studien utgår från en undersökning som genomfördes i två skolklasser. Det är två högstadieskolor inom Hallands län och klasserna har delats in i grupp A och B. Grupperna har fått besvara sex frågor till H.C. Andersens saga Flickan med svavelstickorna men testet har bedrivits på två olika sätt. Grupp A fick texten och sex frågor att besvara individuellt utan någon hjälp. Grupp B fick använda sig av ett textsamtal med sina klasskamrater innan de fick besvara de sex frågorna individuellt. Resultatet som framställs från de olika skolorna jämförs på individuell nivå men skolorna jämförs även på skolnivå då det är stora skillnader dem emellan. Studien har sin relevans då undersökningar har visat att elevers kunskaper inom läsförståelse blir allt sämre och därför är det av vikt att komma fram med strategier för hur vi kan motverka detta. Resultatet denna studie visar är att samtalet gynnar många elever. Fler elever kan besvara innehållsfrågor till en text efter att ha samtalat om den.
Many studies and much research highlight the importance of English pronunciation. This study aims to find out how English teachers describe the difficulties their students face with English pronunciation and how English teachers think about improving their students' pronunciation. In this study, we use a qualitative study to have a better understanding of students' pronunciation in English. The research is based on a qualitative questionnaire shared with 14 qualified English teachers from three different schools, asking for their opinions about the students' pronunciation and the teaching of oral language skills and pronunciation possibilities. We identified three themes: 1-English sound system 2-pronunciation with flaws, 3-pronunciation training and listening exercises. The result shows that the teachers are aware of the difficulties that the Swedish students face in pronunciation and the strategies they can use in the class to improve their pronunciation. In addition to that, they also show that students make mistakes when pronouncing certain sounds.
Our conclusion, as this study shows, is that there are other factors that cause students to make mistakes. One factor is that there are some phonemes in English that do not exist in the students' mother tongue, another factor is the students lack knowledge of pronunciation rules. According to research, students' pronunciation will be improved once the students are aware of these differences and factors that affect their pronunciation.
Emojis are colorful pictorial icons used in day to day conversations via SMS and on plenty of different platforms, available for everyone today, but not yet studied to an extent even though they they are highly ambigous. The aim of this study is to find which semantic meanings emojis can have, if gender or age is a causing factor and if any norm for when and how emojis should be used exists among the users. Through a digital survey uploaded on different platforms and sent to different companies, the results show that misconceptions do happen, and that they happen often. However, gender does not seem to matter to the same extent as age. There is also evidence pointing to the users following some rules when it comes to what emoji should be used when and when no emoji should be used at all.
The aim of this study was to investigate the interrelation between teaching, testing and assessment of English as a foreign language in the Swedish school system. The focus is on the Swedish National test of English, and teaching and assessment of English in Swedish schools. A comparison with the Cambridge testing system is part of the study which has given rise to questions regarding the validity and reliability of the Swedish National test of English.
The study was carried out through qualitative questionnaires and interviews aimed at 5 English teachers working within the Swedish School system. The findings of the primary data suggest that the test is, with the exception of its marking procedures, regarded highly by the interviewees. The results of the interviews and questionnaires also suggest that the common factor between teaching, testing and assessment of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in the Swedish school system appears to be the syllabus and, thus, indirectly, the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).
The main aim of the present study is to investigate whether there is a difference in retentionbetween two groups of Swedish second language learners of English when they are faced withidioms in a written context or in the form of still pictures. The subjects of the investigation aretwo different groups at a high school in Sweden. Both Group 1 and 2 consist of 24 subjectseach. For this study, 15 idioms were randomly selected. To Group 1, the idioms werepresented in a written context and to Group 2 the idioms were presented in the form of stillpictures. The subjects were given a pre-test and two post-tests to measure their retention.Moreover, the subjects were given a questionnaire in order to learn more about theirperception of idioms. I believe that, on the immediate post-test, Group 1 (the “written contextgroup”) did better than Group 2 (the “still pictures group”). Nevertheless, on the delayed posttest(testing long-term retention), Group 2 remembered more idioms than Group 1. But, it isimportant to note that contextualization of L2 idioms using written context and/or using stillpictures resulted, in general, to be effective strategies for the retention of idioms.
Svenskan har två plurala obestämda artiklar: ena och några. Bruket av ena är dock mycket begränsat; artikeln tycks fungera endast i beskrivande, värderande och rematiska nominalfraser (Teleman et al. 1999, s. 410). I Collberg och Agebjörns (2023) korpusstudie förekom ena företrädesvis i predikativer, som i Barnen är ena riktiga vildingar. Artikeln förekom också i utbrutna led och egentliga subjekt samt undantagsvis i objekt. Däremot förekom den aldrig i subjekt eller adverbial och aldrig i topikaliserade fraser. Föreliggande studie undersöker i vilken utsträckning detta begränsade bruk av den plurala obestämda artikeln ena styrs av syntaktiska respektive informationsstrukturella faktorer. Med en experimentellt designad enkät testas hur acceptabilitetsbedömningar av meningar med ena beror dels på nominalfrasens grammatiska funktion, dels på dess informationsstrukturella funktion, operationaliserad som position i relation till meningens verb. Som kontrollvillkor används motsvarande meningar med default-artikeln några. Preliminära resultat visar att ena fungerar lika bra som några i predikativer och utbrutna led, sämre än några i subjekt, egentliga subjekt och objekt samt inte alls i adverbial. Nominalfrasens position i relation till verbet verkar inte påverka bedömningarna av ena-meningarna mer än bedömningarna av några-meningarna. Sammantaget tyder detta på att bruket av den plurala obestämda artikeln ena styrs av syntaktiska snarare än informationsstrukturella begränsningar.
This essay examines the sadomasochistic relationship between the main characters of the Twilight Saga from a psychoanalytic perspective, and looks at the family and gender roles in the Saga from a post-feministic view. Aspects also considered are the portrayal of female sexuality as something dangerous and negative, recreational sex as something perverted, and the pro-marriage and anti-abortion propaganda in the last two novels. The purpose of the essay is to reveal how the author’s personal, and to some extent religious, beliefs and values are validated through the storyline; how the relationship between the main characters, as well as their personal psychological and physical health, change after matrimony and parenthood.
This essay examines Neil Gaiman’s Coraline from a psychoanalytic perspective, with focus on the formation of the super ego. While the young girl’s identity formation has been examined before, the general focus is often oedipal. In this essay, I choose to step away from the oedipal and examine the psychosymbolism throughout the novella. The aim is to see how Coraline’s own psychic development manifests itself in the other world. The characters in the novella are looked upon as representations of different aspects of Coraline’s psyche. Her actions with them are considered to be representations of internal conflicts or resolutions.
In short, this essay examines how the novella portrays the psychodevelopmental nature of the child's identity formation.
The present study aims to investigate if grade 9 English students, being 15-16 years old, attending a Swedish secondary school, use English slang during their English as a second language lessons, and if so, why they do it, and if there are any differences between the two genders in their slang usage. In order to incorporate a didactic perspective, it is also examined how English teachers deal with their students’ slang usage. Three English lessons has been observed, alongside with interviews with three English teachers, in order to conduct the investigation. The results indicate that slang words are common during grade 9 English lessons, and the male students’ usage of slang exceeds their female counterparts’ usage to a great extent. Reasons for these results can be found in the field of gender language which argues that slang usage, and language usage in general, is strongly connected to identity, and to how the two genders are expected to behave. Moreover, the English teachers display a varied opinion about their students’ slang usage, yet accounts for utilizing it when teaching register and linguistic adaptation. This approach is approved by a great amount of research, which states that by incorporating youth-language, in this case slang, students are able to gain a linguistic awareness where they can identify with what is taught, as well as adapt their language depending on situation and context.
Denna uppsats undersöker hur uttrycket gilla läget används i olika språkhandlingar och vilken innehållsmässiga betydelse uttrycket får. Det är en korpusbaserad studie där över 200 belägg i Twitter 2015 till 2017 är granskade och analyserade. Det avgörande i analysen för hur uttrycket används är språkhandlingen som uttrycket förekommer i och vilket skiljetecken som används. I de fall där skiljetecken saknas analyseras språkhandlingen utifrån eventuellt responssvar som kan förväntas. Vidare studeras också om meningen, där uttrycket ingår, rent språkligt är formulerad som en fråga eller som ett påstående, men om funktionen av uttrycket är något helt annat. Resultatet visar ett komplext uttryck som kan varieras, och hur det tolkas beror på sammanhanget och vem som läser texten som det förekommer i.
The recently founded Nordic network New Trends in Nordic Socio-Onomastics was started as a workshop program in 2018 and 2019, funded by The Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The aim was to stimulate innovative research development within the socio-onomastic field by enabling Nordic researchers to come together, participate in discussions, explore new theoretical and methodological tools and identify new problem areas suitable for future joint Nordic projects. In this article, we present the network and the activities that have been organized in order to enhance international collaboration. We also discuss the current state of socio-onomastics in the Nordic countries and identify some important objectives and areas for future research. © Copyright by the Jagiellonian University Press & Authors
Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur klass och genus skildras i samtidsromanerna Björnstad av Fredrik Backman och Störst av allt av Malin Persson Giolito. Studien ämnar även att se vilka teoretiska föreställningar om makt, vad beträffar klass och genus, som kan identifieras i romanerna. Utifrån dessa perspektiv har en kvalitativ och textnära analys gjorts. Genom ett urval av karaktärer och passage fokuserar analysen på att ta fram de mest intressanta aspekterna inom klass och genus. Studien koncentrerar sig på karaktärernas egenskaper och framställning i relation till genus och klass samt hur dessa relaterar till makt och maktordning. Analysen framhäver aspekter i hur romanernas karaktärer uppvisar stereotypa beteenden och om eventuella avvikelser framkommer samt vilka paralleller som kan dras mellan klass och genus till makt. Teorierna som används i studien är formulerade av Judith Butler, Michel Foucault och Pierre Bourdieu. Dessa tre teorier beskriver hur romanerna relaterar till samhälleliga normstrukturer och till maktordning. Den slutsats som framhävs i diskussionen är att Foucaults maktteori kan appliceras i olika sammanhang i romanerna där karaktärerna utmanar maktordning genom vrede, sorg och maktlöshet.
This study investigates the effects of name-based ethnic and social stereotypes on teachers’ grading of pupils’ texts in contemporary Sweden. A total of 113 practicing Swedish high school teachers assessed an authentic pupil text with one of three male names inserted, each intended to evoke a certain ethnic or social stereotype. Participants also explained their grading and answered questions regarding key features of the text. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted. The study concludes that name-based stereotypes generally have little influence on teachers’ assessment in contemporary Sweden. Results indicate a systematic but small and not statistically relevant name effect. A negative effect can be seen with regard to an ethnically marked name. This effect is shown when teachers evaluate language proficiency, but not for other features of the text. Regarding socioeconomically marked names there is little systematic effect. The study also suggests, however, that there may be compensatory mechanisms limiting the name effect. © 2016 American Name Society.
The Swedish language conventionally separates female and male first names respectively. Previous research from Sweden, as well as other cultures, shows that first names for girls and boys are chosen in partly separate ways with a desire for separate characteristics and structures, in a way that often contributes to traditional gender stereotyping. When parents choose to create a completely new name for the child, they have an opportunity to use new structural and semantic patterns and thus may negotiate the traditional gender boundaries. This article investigates newly created first names in Sweden in order to explore to what extent and in what ways parents do this. The data consists of 226 newly created first names registered by SCB (Statistics Sweden) for children born in 2012. The overall conclusion is that the newly created names generally still express gender and recreate stereotypical gendered patterns contributing to symbolic dominance. When gender negotiation occurs, it is primarily in boys’ names.
This article discusses the naming of objects and presents a socio-onomastic study of contempor-ary Swedish recreational boats. Based on survey data from 187 informants, the discussion focuses on the process of naming, name variation (in terms of gender, linguistic choices, semantic cat-egories and wordplay), and explicit reasons for names. Comparisons are drawn with personal naming. The influence of factors in the social context (type of boat and gender, age and education of the owner) is considered throughout, but generally found to be limited. It is argued that this kind of naming can be seen, rather, as a construction of the personal identity of the owner and of the boat concerned.
This article presents a theoretical framework for applying an identity approach to personal naming. It also presents some results from a doctoral thesis project in which this framework has been applied in an analysis of parents’ choices of first names for their children. Questions discussed in this article include: To what extent do choices of first names function as acts of identity? Which aspects of first names are used as resources for identity creation? Which kinds of identities are created? To what extent are traditional sociolinguistic variables (such as age, education, etc.) able to account for the social variation of naming today? To what extent is the identity creation of naming negotiated from moment to moment? The discussion is based on results from two component studies: a written survey (with 621 participants) and group discussions (with 23 participants) conducted in Göteborg, Sweden 2007–2009.
Choosing a name for a child is seldom a matter of simple labelling. It is often rather a long and complex process. Names are collected for inspiration, compared and evaluated by the parents. Many aspects are taken into consideration and (more or less consciously) viewed in the light of the parents’ own emotional, aesthetic, ideological and social stances, as well as personal experiences and hopes for the child. In this chapter, the act of naming a child is regarded as an act of identity. Parents, through the choice of first name for a child, engage in a social act which is very much about expressing their own identity – who they are or who they want to be – and constructing a hoped-for identity for their child.
This article analyses patterns of personal naming in an urban environment. It focuses on parents’ choices of first names in contemporary Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden. The discussion is based on three proposed characteristics of urban environments often cited in urban culture research – innovation, awareness of trends and cultural meetings – and explores how these are reflected in a set of name data. The article also examines to what extent social variation exists in parents’ participation in these patterns and considers the parents’ age, education, housing and linguistic background. The analysed data consist of first names chosen for 621 children, all born in Gothenburg during the year 2007, and their parents’ motivations for the name choice as described in a written survey. The analysis is primarily quantitative. To some extent the article also refers to spoken data that were collected through focus group interviews with another twenty-three new parents in Gothenburg in 2008 and 2009. Both sets of data have previously been used in my PhD thesis, Naming as a social act. Parents’ choices of first names and discussions of first names in Göteborg 2007–2009 (2011). The article shows that all three of the proposed characteristics of urban life are prominent in the name data. Innovative first names, trendy first names and multicultural first names are common throughout the data regardless of social factors, suggesting that these patterns may be typical of urban naming rather than typical of a certain social group. However, the patterns are realized in somewhat different ways depending on social factors, which shows that the same name characteristics can be handled in different ways in order to create different social stances. Since the study does not include non-urban data for comparison we cannot conclude that the examined characteristics are specific for naming in urban environment, but it is hoped that the results can serve as a starting point for further research.
The primary aim of this article is to test the relevance of phonetic symbolism for people's conceptions of gender connotations in first names. Students were asked to grade their perceptions of seven female and male names. Primarily for female names certain phonetic properties correlated with higher perceived degree of femininity. However, the study also showed resistance towards gendering first names and attempts of "undoing gender".© Aldrin 2020
This article analyzes how a small group of Swedish teenagers handle onomastic choices of self- and other-referencing as part of their everyday mobile phone interaction. It further discusses how the teenagers explained their views regarding online names during interviews. The data are analyzed qualitatively using theories of identity and socialpositioning. Results show considerable differences between onomastic strategies used for self- and other-referencing. Self-referencing names were often practical, coherent, and authentic to the offline self, while other-referencing names were more flexible, creative, and socially positioned. However, the teenagers also displayed varying individual onomastic strategies and different folk-onomastic views on the function of usernames. © 2018 American Name Society
In the Swedish school curriculum it states that the school must impersonate as well as convey certain founding values for the Swedish society, such as individual freedom and integrity, equality, solidarity and understanding of cultural pluralism. This paper is about an ongoing research project on how social and cultural representations in educational materials contribute to impersonate these commitments with a focus on the use of names. Naming strategies have been highly neglected or treated in a simplified, unsystematic way in previous studies in the field. This project analyses the kinds of names that are used for people and places in educational materials, which kinds of referents are named as well as not named and how the use of names contributes to creating images of social and cultural identities. The data consists of educational materials within three school subjects (Swedish, social studies and mathematics) with a focus on contemporary as well as diachronic patterns. The analytical approach is influenced by critical as well as positive discourse analysis.
The aim of this doctoral thesis is to examine how parents in Sweden at the beginning of the twenty-first century use the process of naming as a resource to contribute to the creation of various identities for both themselves and their child. It is based on a two-component study — a postal survey and qualitative group interviews, both conducted in the city of Göteborg, Sweden — and includes parents with children born during 2007 and 2008. By combining different sources (names, surveys and interviews) and different methods (quantitative and qualitative), this study attempts to elucidate how first names and choices of first names can be given various social meanings. In contrast to previous socio-onomastic studies, this study considers not only whether naming contains any social variation, but also how and why such variation arises. The theoretical framework is a combination of onomastic, sociolinguistic, identity-theoretical and interactional theories. The results demonstrate that parents’ choice of first names for their children is an important social act. Through name choices and discussions of these choices, parents create what is known as social positioning, which in turn contributes to the creation of certain identities both for themselves and their child. A number of resources are identified which are used by parents to create different social positionings. This study also demonstrates how both macro-societal structures and interactional aspects influence this social positioning. Finally, this study argues that the observed social variation is best explained by the parents’ desire to identify with and contribute to the creation of different models for society, in which varying social values and attributes are important.
This article presents the results from an ongoing project on naming patterns in Swedish social science textbooks from the 1920s to the 2010s, focusing on changing representations of gender and cultural diversity. Personal names are closely related to personal, social, and cultural identities, and this article therefore argues that the use of such names in textbooks contributes to indicating to pupils who should (and who should not) be seen as part of society, who is considered important enough to know by name, who is desirable to identify with and which names are considered appropriate for a certain identity. Six social science textbooks were analyzed using both quantitative analyses (of names) and qualitative analyses (of the illustrations of named and unnamed people). The results show how and to what extent the use of gendered and culturally marked personal names in social science textbooks changed over the period of study and emphasize some of the tensions involved in this process.
Artikeln undersöker praktiserande svensklärares attityder och erfarenheter kring textbedömning, samt betydelsen av sociokulturella faktorer för bedömarvariation. Materialet består av en webbenkät som besvarats av 135 svensklärare i Västsverige verksamma i årskurs 7–9. Frågorna behandlade textbedömning generellt, det nya betygssystemet, samt bedömning och beskrivning av en autentisk elevtext. Resultaten visar flera goda exempel och erfarenheter, men också behov av ökad information från Skolverket på flera punkter. Vidare framkommer en påfallande bedömarvariation, som föreslås hänga samman med en stor variation i synen på textkvalitet bland deltagarna. Bedömarvariationens samspel med den sociala kontexten (läraren, dennes erfarenhet samt skolmiljön) är begränsad men visar ett intressant mönster som efterfrågar fortsatt forskning.
This paper presents results from a doctoral thesis in socio-onomastics (ALDRIN 2011 Namnval som social handling [Naming as a social act]). It is based on a postal survey from the year 2007 with 621 participants who were newly-become parents and were living in the area of Gothenburg, Sweden. The survey included approx. 40 questions on parents’ choice of name and the process of naming. The focus of this paper will be to what extent naming motives and the naming procedure as such (sources of inspiration, time of choice etc.) varies in relation to traditional sociolinguistic variables such as parents’ age, level of education, and the gender of the child. The presented analyses are primarily quantitative, consisting of univariate tests and tests of statistical signification. Based on these results, the paper discusses to what extent the act of naming a child can be seen as having a function as a social marker in contemporary Sweden and which of the investigated social variables are of greatest importance in this context.
This article presents a systematic review of published research on adolescents’ use of proper names and other forms of address in their interaction with one another. The aim is to identify both central issues and gaps within the field, as the basis for a future research project. In all, 45 Scandinavian and English-language publications, dated between 1970 and 2015, are identified and analysed. The review reveals a number of recurring themes: playfulness, power and resistance, and identity. Several gaps in existing research are also identified, the most important of which are: combinations of data, theories and methodologies from both onomastics and interactional research; forms of address in digital communication, especially with regard to power issues; and finally young people’s perceptions of different ways of being addressed and how these influence their identity, power relations and well-being.
The purpose of this article is to study how Swedish adults conceptualize the relationship between their name and identity and how their views relate to scientific theories. It also discusses to what extent the relation between name and identity changes throughout life and which social factors may influence this. The data consists of 173 written survey answers, including both highly structured answers and freely written comments. Perspectives from folk onomastics, sociocultural identity theory and psychological theories life span identity are combined in the analysis. Results indicate that most people do not experience that their name reveals anything about their identity, however a third of the participants do see such a relation. This is often conceptualized as a process and includes both personal and social identity traits. A third of the participants further perceive that this relationship has changes throughout life and basing on these results the article suggests a tentative model of the life development of name identity through certain phases.