English has, for some time, been one of the core subjects in the Swedish Educational Establishment and the English teaching has successfully enhanced Swedish students’ knowledge and competence of the language. The differences between American and British English are rarely a subject for consideration though, and the aim in this essay is to investigate what abilities, if any, Swedish students possess in order to distinguish between American and British English spelling and vocabulary. This essay will contain a limited study, which includes a sample of 97 individuals who attend an upper secondary school in Halmstad. The results are gathered and analyzed with a quantitative method.                       The conclusion suggests that Swedish students possess some abilities to distinguish between American and British English. However, none of the participants in the investigation were able to be consistent in their English use or stick to one specific variety of English. All participants mixed American and British English and they did so habitually.                       Because of the limitation of the study, further research needs to be conducted in order to determine whether the findings in this investigation can be supported or not. Similar research could be conducted elsewhere in Sweden with a similar scope or with a broader perspective including pronunciation and grammar.

This paper explores how flouting of the Gricean maxims is used to create comedy in the television series Community.  The aim of the paper is to find out what maxims are flouted the most to create comedy and what maxims the different characters flout in order to create comedy. The paper examines the use of flouts in different situations and explores in what situations the different characters flout the maxims for comedy.  The paper is based on transcription of eight episodes of the series. The results show that the maxim of quantity was flouted most often, and some characters used more flouts than others. These results suggest that the use of flouts has to do with their different personalities, which is why some characters did not use as many flouts in order to create comedy, since it would not be in line with their personality.

In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) revised the Course of Study in English education twice in the last decade (in 2002 and in 2011), and the drastic changes have been made especially in the section of communicative skills: introduction of English study in elementary school, teaching English in English in high school, requirement of the subject ‘Oral Communication I’ in high school, etc. The aim of the revisions is to produce international individuals, who have high English proficiency not only in input-skills but also in output-skills, especially in speaking (MEXT 2004: 90, MEXT 2011). Despite the revisions of the Course of Study, Japan is still ranked low in English proficiency not only among the developed countries but also among the Asian countries (Sakamoto 2012: 409; Sullivan and Schatz 2009: 586; Educational Testing Service 2012). Inputs on different cultures and languages take an important role in language learning especially in the modern society where students have high chances to encounter cross-cultural communication. The politeness strategy is one of those factors that the social actors must learn for the sound relationships with others. Each culture has its own politeness strategy; therefore, miscommunication is observed more often in intercultural conversations due to the various conceptualization of politeness in different cultures (Sifianou 1992: 216). That is, comprehending the diversity in politeness strategy seems to be a clue of smooth communication and better apprehension of different cultures in cross-culture conversations. The Course of Study for foreign languages and English language also refers to the significance of comprehending various cultures and languages (MEXT 2009); however, as previous studies represent the Japanese students studying abroad or the Japanese businessman in intercultural communications seem to lack the understanding of the western politeness strategy (cf. Fujio 2004, Nakane 2006). Besides, it is vague what ‘different cultures’ refers to in the Course of Study for English. Based on the attitudes of the Japanese students towards cross-cultural communication and ambiguous explanation on ‘cultural learning’ by the Course of the Study, I assume that one of the reasons why Japan cannot achieve the communication-focused curriculum might be attributed to the lack of politeness theory perspective in English learning. Taking differences in politeness strategies between the western societies and the Japanese ones into consideration, it seems to be unfeasible and insufficient to only increase the number of communicative lessons and compel students into speaking English. The differences in politeness strategy should be applied into English learning in order to boost the English proficiency of Japanese students and produce globalized students. The present paper focuses on the following two aspects of English learning in Japan in order to test the hypothesis: The Course of Study in English learning in Japan does not specify what is ‘cultural learning’, which triggers the lack of politeness perspective The lack of politeness learning obstruct Japanese students to successful crosscultural communication In the present paper, in order to observe the application of the politeness theory in English learning, firstly English textbooks used in Japan are analyzed in terms of the politeness theory by focusing on the following four aspects: silence, speech style, ambiguity, and hierarchical relationship. Previous studies have shown that extinctive differences between the western politeness and the Japanese politeness in communication are obviously revealed in those four points (cf. Fujio 2004; Kameda  2001; Nakane 2006). In addition to the analysis of the English textbooks, an interview on the correlation between English learning and politeness theory is conducted on international Japanese in order to observe how they acquire the western politeness strategy, how English learning at school functioned to learn the western politeness strategy, etc. (cf. see 3. for details). To contextualize this paper, the politeness theory and the previous studies on the relation between the Japanese politeness and crossculture communication will be presented first, and a brief overview of English education in Japan and tendencies in Japanese schooling will follow.

Suicide texts are the traces left by their authors for the public allowing them to understand the causes of the desire to commit suicide, regardless of whether such notes preceded successful suicide attempts or not. The types of such texts can vary dramatically in emotional expressiveness, be it a suicide note handwritten by the author or a short post typed on a web forum dedicated to suicides. While one text can be evidence of a successful suicide attempt, the other may point to a deeply depressive state which may or may not lead to a suicide attempt in future. The main questions this study aims to answer are: (1) what is the difference between the two above-named types of suicide texts (‘suicide notes’ and ‘suicide posts’) and (2) how is it expressed linguistically? Previous works on suicide texts have been of significant importance and have managed to investigate the differences between suicide notes of the attempters and those who completed suicide (Joiner 2002) as well as underline the typical features of genuine suicide notes in comparison to fabricated suicide notes. However, no studies indicating the differences between the ‘suicide notes’ of successful suicides and the ‘suicide posts’ of authors exhibiting various degrees of depressive behavior have previously been conducted. In this thesis, the comparative analysis of ‘suicide notes’ left by those successful in their attempts  and ‘suicide posts’ composed by authors with unknown fates has been carried out with the help of discourse analysis. Both types of texts have been examined from such linguistic levels as semantics, pragmatics and syntax. The results show several distinctive features peculiar to each type. While providing a clear reason for committing suicide in the one case contrasts with detailing a number of causes for depression in the other, further differences exist in regard to expressing such emotions as (1) fear of life, (2) relief, (3) lack of hope and (4) lack of doubt versus displaying such emotions as (1) fear of death, (2) preserved desire and (3) doubt. An easy to follow structure and purposeful past tense usage in suicide notes stands in contrast to the allusions to previous suicide attempts and indistinguishable pattern found in suicide posts. At the same time, specific punctuation signs were found to be peculiar mainly to the suicide post type of text.  The results of the research also demonstrate the necessity for further investigation of the characteristic features of different types of suicide text as well as their classification. Moreover, the study indicates the possibilities of tracing the probable transformation from ‘suicide posts’ to ‘suicide notes’ which may well serve for purposes of suicide prevention, especially if an additional category, i.e., notes written by survivors, is added to the analysis.

This is a case study focusing on the effects of extensive reading. The study mainly deals with grammatical development and the relationship between input and output, but it also discusses learning strategies. The study aimed to answer the following question: To what extent, and in what ways, does extensive reading affect output and grammatical performance? The essay analyses the grammatical performance of a Spanish speaking PhD student in chemistry, whose main exposure to English was scientific literature during the study period. Accuracy tests were used in combination with free writing. The study did not find any direct, unquestionable relationship between extensive reading and grammatical development. Instead it shows the difficulty of separating input and output. However, the study indicates that output may be an effective tool for improving grammatical performance and that some focus on form may be necessary, at least for the grammatical development of adults. Furthermore, the study indicates that teaching may influence grammatical performance and, therefore, the presentation of grammar needs to be carefully considered.

Sammandrag Klarspråk handlar om att kommunicera med medborgarna med ett vårdat, enkelt och begripligt språk. I Sverige finns en tradition av att arbeta med klarspråk och Sverige ses även som ett föregångsland i dessa frågor. Mexiko har tagit intryck av det svenska klarspråksarbetet. Syftet med denna uppsats är därför att undersöka hur de båda länderna argumenterar och motiverar klarspråk, eller lenguaje ciudadano, som det heter i Mexiko och vad det i förlängningen säger om klarspråksarbetet i stort i de båda länderna. Materialet för undersökningen består av tre svenska handböcker och fyra mexikanska manualer inklusive en Powerpointpresentation för klarspråk. Dessa har sedan med hjälp av argumentationsanalys undersökts för att kunna se vilka argument som används och hur de framställs. Resultatet visar att de båda länderna använder snarlika argument vilka har sin grundtanke i att klarspråk stärker demokratin. En framträdande skillnad är dock att de svenska handböckernas tyngsta argument består i att klarspråk sparar tid och pengar, medan de mexikanska manualerna finner sin tyngd i att klarspråk stärker landets demokrati. Det kan tyda på att det svenska klarspråksarbetet i stort har övergått från att vara ett initiativ grundat på demokratiska tankar till att användas som ett verktyg för att effektivisera myndigheters verksamhet. I det mexikanska klarspråksarbetet är det en fråga om hur man skapar en bättre demokrati och i förlängningen ett bättre land. Detta beror i sin tur på underliggande kulturella skillnader.

Denna studie har gällt två tvillingars idiolekter, och undersökningen har sökt finna skillnaderna mellan deras talspråk. En idiolekt kan analyseras som resultatet av en människas identitet, register och anpassningen den gör till världen runtomkring sig. Resultaten av undersökningen har visat att informanterna Eva och Idas idiolekter skiljer sig från varandra på alla tre plan. Båda har ett ordförråd med hög stilnivå, även om Evas är mer akademiskt än Idas, vilket kan bero på att Evas studier är huvudsakligen på svenska medan Idas är på engelska. Eva är mer säker i sina uttalanden även om hon ofta påpekar att det hon säger är hennes åsikt. Ida garderar sig mer genom användning av försvagande adverb och tvekljud. Resultaten visar också att Eva pratar mer än vad Ida gör, vilket kan kopplas till vilka samtalsstilar de är vana vid samt hur de förhåller sig till att tala mycket eller lite. De är helt enkelt två olika språkvarelser med olika sätt att förstå språk och använda sina språk, vilket leder till att de gör olika val, olika tolkningar, att de använder olika ord och olika mängd ord. Hur lika deras register än är gör deras identiteter och anpassningssätt att de ändå skiljer sig stort från varandra.

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This study aims to test Robertson’s lexical transfer principle, which posits that Chinese learners use demonstratives (particularly this) and the numeral one as markers of definiteness and indefiniteness. This is tested by analysing Chinese learners’ written production collected from the Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners 2.0 (SWECCL 2.0). The purpose is to understand the variation of article usage by adult Chinese learners of English. More specifically, the study examines to what extent articles, possessive and demonstrative pronouns are used in Chinese learners’ English and how definite and indefinite articles are used by the Chinese learners. Findings suggest that Robertson’s lexical transfer principle was corroborated by the present study. In addition, Chinese learners prefer to use demonstrative determiners, the possessive determiner our, and the numeral one to perform the function of marking definiteness and indefiniteness. In particular, the learners try to use the demonstrative determiners that and this in the anaphoric function instead of the definite article, and the demonstrative determiner those is frequently used in the cataphoric function. What is more, the learners use the numeral one as a marker of indefiniteness, and it is also used as a marker of definiteness in the anaphoric function. Further, the possessive determiner our is used as a marker of definiteness in larger situation uses referring to something unique. To this end, the study is able to show that the definite article is used to perform the function of marking indefiniteness, and in some particular contexts the definite article functions as a Chinese specifier in Chinese learners’ English. Also, the indefinite article is frequently used in quantifier phrases but is rarely used in other functions. There are three main reasons that may explain why Chinese learners use determiners variously. Firstly, the choice of determiners by Chinese learners is influenced by linguistic contexts. Secondly, because of learning strategies, Chinese learners try to ignore the anaphoric function and cataphoric function that they are not yet ready to process in article usage. Thirdly, interlanguage grammar influences the optionality in the use of articles.

No description available.