Discourses of adolescence/ts that reduce teenagers to impulsive, hormonal, incomplete adults are pervasive, and affect the way that adolescence/ts is regarded in institutional spaces like schools. However, scholars in Critical Youth Studies (CYS) reject these determinations in favor of a vision of adolescence as a social construct; a construct that has changed throughout time and does not accurately reflect the lived experiences of diverse youth. This study considers the way in which these discourses are mobilized and circulating in one English Language Arts (ELA) classroom and, specifically, through the study of literature. Grounded in empirical scholarship that approaches classroom literature pedagogy and response through a sociocultural lens, and in theoretical scholarship in Critical Youth Studies (CYS) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the purpose of this qualitative inquiry is to observe student response to young adult literature (YAL) in one ELA classroom in order to locate discourses of adolescence that are mobilized and circulating as students comprehend, analyze and interpret texts.

The purpose of this study is to understand how colleges and universities use language to represent themselves on their institutional websites (official websites of higher education institutions). Organizations, like colleges and universities, seek to create and maintain a distinctive identity in an effort to build legitimacy (i.e., status) and attract students (i.e., tuition dollars). Institutional websites are increasingly important to the admissions and marketing practices of colleges and universities due to their ability to rapidly communicate a significant amount of content to a vast audience. Colleges and universities use language, whether textual (i.e., written) or visual (i.e., images), to position and differentiate themselves from other institutions and promote their efforts. This study utilizes Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the language on the institutional websites of 12 colleges and universities across a number of characteristics (e.g., control, type, geographic region, admissions selectivity) in the United States. Theoretically, CDA provides the means to examine everyday language in an effort to raise awareness about issues of inequality, such as access to education. Methodologically, Fairclough's approach to CDA has three dimensions of analysis. The first dimension is descriptive analysis where the intent is to describe the properties of the textual and visual elements. The second dimension involves interpretive analysis where the goal is to examine the contents of language and its functional parts to understand and interpret the connections between the role of language and the greater social structures it reflects and supports. Societal analysis, the third dimension, focuses on explanations of larger cultural, historical, and social discourses surrounding interpretations of the data. The analyses from this study suggest that colleges and universities utilize a common promotional discourse en masse to market rather systematic representations of "higher education" despite the fact that they vary widely by a number of institutional characteristics. Specifically, analyses reveal that institutions use language to repeatedly establish prestige and relevancy by touting the accomplishments of their institutional actors. The institutions attempt to engage the viewer with relational language, present numerous co-curricular experiences along with numerous images related to generic institutional characteristics (e.g., architecture, campus scenery), and multiple layers of navigation. The scholarly commitment associated with higher education plays a reduced role while the intangibles available to the prospective student are at the forefront of representations in the sample. Institutions also poorly represent other social goods (e.g., class, sexual orientation). Of the 453 images in the study, 98 feature a non-white actor (21%) and 146 feature a female actor (32%). Representations of diverse actors often appear in the form of caricatures (e.g., Native American in tribal dress). Given the mission and rhetoric stemming from many postsecondary institutions, including the institutions in this sample, to increase access to education for underrepresented individuals and enhance diversity in all its forms, the language utilized on the websites does not align with such statements. By deploying similar promotional discourse, the institutions choose what to present, emphasize, and exclude. Hence, institutions retain a great amount of control over information the viewer has access to on the institutional website. The language in use reveals that the institutions retain significant control over its actors with strategic placement of obligational discourse and, in most cases, complete silence on issues. Such discourse constructs an unrealistic portrayal of higher education while simultaneously reducing the role higher education has as a social institution committed to teaching, research, and service.

Abstract not available

<p>Revoicing Sámi narratives investigates the relationship between storytellers, contexts and collective tradition, based on an analysis of North Sámi narratives published in the early 1900s. This dissertation “revoices” narratives by highlighting the coexistence of different voices or socio-ideological languages in repertoires and by considering Sámi narratives as utterances by storytellers rather than autonomous products of tradition. Thus, this study serves as an act of “revoicing,” of recovering voices that had been silenced by the scientific discourse which enveloped their passage into print.</p><p>Narrators considered “tradition bearers” were interviewed or wrote down folk narratives that were interpreted as representative of a static, dying culture. The approach chosen in this thesis highlights the dynamic and conscious choices of narrative strategies made by these storytellers and the implications of the discourses expressed in narration. By taking into account the intense context of social change going on in Sápmi at the time the narratives emerged, as well as the context that includes narrators, ethnographers and tradition, the analysis demonstrates that storytelling is an elaboration that takes place in negotiation with tradition, genres and individual preferences.</p><p>The repertoires of four storytellers are studied according to a methodological framework consisting in critical discourse analysis from a folkloristic perspective. The analysis underscores the polyphony of the narratives by Johan Turi, who related with skillfulness of tradition by taking position as a conscious social actor. This study also investigates the repertoires of storytellers Ellen Utsi, Per Bær and Isak Eira who were interviewed by the</p><p>Norwegian “lappologist” Just K. Qvigstad. Their contributions to his extensive collection of Sámi narratives express their relation to tradition and to the heteroglossia that surrounded them. Based on a receptionalist approach, this dissertation investigates the implications of these narratives for the North Sámi community at the turn of the twentieth century.</p><p>Storytelling appears to have had a set of functions for community members, from the normative as regards socialization, information and warning against dangers to the defensive with the elaboration of a discourse about solidarity, identity and empowerment.</p>

<p>Namibia is one of the most unequal countries in the world and has high rates of poverty. In the thesis the proposal for a basic income grant as a strategy for poverty alleviation in Namibia is analyzed. The study is based on six interviews with the Basic Income Grant Coalition in Namibia and their four publications. The theoretical and methodological framework is Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis and social theory of discourse. Conceptions about the economical and political situation of Namibia in relation to inequality are discussed, as well as the image of the desired citizen in neo-liberal societies. Poverty is conceptualized as a trap where the BIG is regarded as a way out from poverty to a situation of confidence, engagement and economic activity. Contemporary classifications and means testing for social grants are problematized as inefficient and discriminative. The BIG is regarded as right in the context of the big inequalities in Namibia. It is suggested that the BIG Coalition with the proposal for the grant also offers alternative conceptions about Namibia and about the possibilities for change in the situation of poverty.</p>

<p> </p><p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>A textbook is a key component in the arsenal of a teacher of English. For this reason, it is of importance that textbooksused in Swedish schools are compliant with the fundamental values of equality, provided in the LPO 94. I will attempt to discover the extent to which English textbooks present males and females in non-stereotyped ways and as equal. I want to provide an overview to show how they deal with gender issues. In addition, I aim at establish whether there are any connection between learning and gender, and whether it hinders the pupil’s language learning.</p><p>My analysis will draw on previous research  and theories presented by prominent figures in the field, such as, Butler (1990), Mills (1995), Renner (1997), Ravitch (2004) and Jones, Kitetu & Jane Sunderland (1997)among others. Thereafter, these theories, and my own research will be compared, to and contrasted with the guidelines from the Swedish National Agency of Education.</p><p>This dissertation comprises a qualitative critical discourse analysis of two randomly selected textbooks that have been, or are being used, in Swedish secondary schools. For my study, I have chosen <em>Team 8</em> (1984) and <em>Wings 8</em> (2000).</p><p>In my analyses, a number of different aspects will be taken into consideration, such as the   gender distribution of narrators, main characters and sub characters, as well as the   description of gender/gender roles, and the representation of gender in illustrations. Further, I will study what kind of language is used: the extent to which it is gendered or de-gendered language.  These aspects will be collected quantitatively.</p><p>The findings from the analysis show that the language in <em>Wings 8</em> gives a broad and non-stereotypic view of gender roles, which is in accordance with the fundamental values of LPO 94. However, the illustrations tend to portray males and females in what can be considered as quite stereotypical.</p><p><em>Team 8</em>, on the other hand, contains gendered language and male dominance; women were placed in the background or left out completely.  Therefore, <em>Team 8 </em>would not be deemed to be compliant with<em> the </em>requirements set by the Swedish National Agency of Education today.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Key words:</strong> Education, teaching material, Wings, Team 8, gender, critical discourse analysis.</p>

<p> </p><p> </p><p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p></p><p><p><strong><strong><p> </p></strong><p> </p></strong></p></p>

<p>Reading and analyzing literature has a long tradition of being an essential part of the teaching of English in Sweden. As the offers of entertainment have increased in popular culture with the introduction <em>of computer games, internet and other media, interest in reading novels has decreased. Literature is still a compulsory part of English teaching and the question is how teachers of today use literature and what kind of literary instruction they use.</em></p><p>The aim of this study is to explore and discuss the literary instruction discourse in pedagogical texts, lessons, created by and for English teachers of Swedish Upper Secondary Schools. The lessons have been collected from the site <em>lektion.se</em>, where teachers are able to share knowledge and lessons. The study uses an analytical method based on Norman Fairclough´s <em>Critical Discourse Analysis</em> in order to analyze the lessons. In the analysis aspects of language, intertextuality and assumptions are discussed. As a theoretical base, Louise M. Rosenblatt´s and Judith Langer´s ideas of reader centered literary instruction is used as well as Design Theory.</p><p>The result of the study shows that the overall discourse is text orientated and, with few exceptions, there is little room for students to contribute to a creative, personal experience of literature. Furthermore, it is shown that literary texts are often used as an exercise of reading comprehension and specific literary reading is scarce. The study postulates that more effort should be put into involving the students in the reading, and less effort on literary terminology.</p>

<p>Large retirement numbers and fierce competition of available labour, results in municipalities have to be more attractive as an employer. One way for the municipalities to fulfil their staffing requirement is partly to increase their recruitment efforts, and partly to educate their existing employees. Discussions about the supply of competence are therefore pressing within municipal activity. The aim of the study was to investigate how the concept of competence is used within a municipal administration. The method that has been used is Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, a method that allows multi dimensional analysis. By illustrate which discourses that exist around the concept, it was my supposition to make visible the usage of the concept. The analysis of the studied material has resulted in four discourse’s being identified around competence: a political salaried discourse, a neoliberal discourse, a pragmatic discourse and a sociocultural discourse. Consistently competence is viewed as an important part of the activities efficiency, quality and development.</p> / <p>Stora pensionsavgångar och hård konkurrens om arbetskraften medför att kommuner måste vara mer attraktiva som arbetsgivare. Ett sätt för kommunerna att tillgodose sina personalbehov är att dels öka satsningen på rekrytering, dels att utbilda redan anställda. Diskussioner om kompetensförsörjning är därför angelägna inom kommunal verksamhet. Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur begreppet kompetens används inom en kommunal förvaltning. Metoden som använts är Norman Fairclough’s kritiska diskursanalys, en metod som möjliggör en flerdimensionell analys av undersökningsmaterialet.</p><p>Genom att åskådliggöra vilka diskurser som finns kring begreppet var det min förhoppning att synliggöra begreppets användande. Analysen av undersökningsmaterialet har resulterat i att fyra diskurser har identifierats kring kompetens: politisk tjänstemannadiskurs, neoliberal diskurs, pragmatisk diskurs och en sociokulturell diskurs. Genomgående ses kompetens som en viktig del för verksamhetens effektivitet, kvalitet och utveckling.</p>

<p>Purpose/Aim: The aim of this thesis was to study Sydsvenskans coverage of the police crisis in Skåne 2009.</p><p>Material/Method: The study is based on 26 articles which has been analysed within the frames of Norman Faircloughs Critical Discourse Analysis.</p>