Detta arbete undersöker det muntliga interimspråket hos två f.d. illitterata L2-inlärare av svenska. Informanternas språksystem analyseras utifrån Klein och Perdues teori om basvarietet som slår fast att kortutbildade inlärare som tillägnar sig ett L2 informellt utvecklar ett språksystem som präglas av förenklade strukturer och ett begränsat ordförråd, men som fungerar väl i kommunikativa syften. Arbetet syftar till att pröva om teorin är tillämpbar även på f.d. illitterata inlärare som deltagit i formell undervisning och uppnått kursmålen för SFI 1A. Undersökningen, som fokuserar på lexikon och tempus, bygger på samtal som har spelats in och transkriberats. Resultatet visar att basvarietetens kännetecknande drag i hög grad kan appliceras även på de formella inlärarnas språksystem.

This paper is a study within the general area of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), focusing on second language learning in formal (class room) settings. The main questions discussed in this essay are firstly, whether social factors matter while learning a second language, secondly, to what extent attitudes towards the second language matter and thirdly, what attitudes students actually have towards studying a second language. The paper compares both students and teachers in the UK and Sweden. To be able to make this comparison I travelled to the UK and followed a class at the University of Wolverhampton that study Swedish. This paper has benefited from both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative part consists of a questionnaire that was handed out to the students in both England and Sweden. For the qualitative part of my research I made use of the structured interview form, which is a method that has a compact nest of questions and where the sequence of questions is decided before the interview. I interviewed two students and one teacher in each of the countries that this paper covers. The social factors that this paper recognises are age, gender, social class and ethnic identity. Furthermore, the essay examines the impact of students’ motivation and attitudes while studying and learning a new language. It has been demonstrated that motivation has a major role to play while learning a second language. It can be argued that the more motivated students are the more and better they will learn. According the students in question their opinions are that you have to have a good teacher while learning languages, i.e. a teacher that can encourage you and make you develop. On the other hand the teachers in question said that the students must be interested in learning second languages otherwise it is pointless since they will not develop. The findings of the present paper are analysed in the light of previous research published in this field.

Viele Schüler haben Schwierigkeiten, eine korrekte Wortfolge zu produzieren. Die Wortfolge in deklarativen V2-Sätzen sollte eigentlich kein Problem für schwedische Deutschlerner ausmachen, weil die syntaktischen Strukturen des Deutschen und des Schwedischen in diesen Sätzen gleich sind. In Hauptsätzen haben beide Sprachen SVO-Wortfolge und wenn Sätze mit einer anderen Konstituente anfangen, verlangen beide Sprachen invertierte Wortfolge, das heißt AdvVSO. Es hat sich jedoch herausgestellt, dass L2-Lerner Probleme bekommen, wenn sie eine andere Konstituente als ein Subjekt am Satzanfang platzieren. Die Schüler schreiben manchmal keine invertierte Wortfolge und die Wortfolge wird damit inkorrekt. Das Ziel dieses Aufsatzes war es, die Wortfolge in Textproduktionen schwedischer Deutschanfänger zu analysieren und mit der Analyse Bestätigung für Pienmanns Prozessabilitätstheorie oder für die Transferhypothese zu suchen. Laut Pienemanns Prozessabilitätstheorie beruhe die inkorrekte Wortfolge darauf, dass die XSVO-Wortfolge einfacher als invertierte XVSO zu produzieren sei. Pienemann meint, dass alle L2-Erwerber von dieser kanonischen Wortfolge (SVO) ausgehen. Meine Untersuchung ergab jedoch, dass schon die Anfänger nicht subjektinitiale Sätze produzieren, was gegen Pienemanns Theorie spricht. Überdies produzieren auch die L2-Lerner in meiner Studie in großem Ausmaß eine korrekte XVS-Wortfolge und das deutet auf Transfer aus der Muttersprache hin. Im Vergleich zu Pienemanns Studie, in der nur etwa 20% der nicht subjektinitialen Sätze korrekt waren, produzieren die L2-Lerner in meiner Studie in 80% der Sätze eine korrekte Wortfolge, was ein erheblicher Unterschied aufweist. In Bezug auf die inkorrekte Wortfolge bin ich der Meinung, dass diese auf Transfer aus dem Englischen ins Deutsche beruhen könnte. Die Schüler lernen zuerst die englische Wortfolge und somit könnten diese Strukturen ins Deutsche transferiert werden.

Over the past few decades analyses of causation have proliferated in almost immeasurable abundance, and with two things in common; firstly, they make much of counterfactual dependence, and secondly, none of them successfully handle all the pre-emption cases. In this thesis, I fore-mostly investigate David Lewis’ promising counterfactual analyses of causation (along with many others), and provide an extensive examination of pre-emption cases. I also offer my own counterfactual analysis of causation, which I argue can handle the problematic pre-emption cases, and therein succeed where so many other prominent analyses of causation have failed. I then conclude with some morals for the continuing debate.

This study aims to analyse errors written by Year 9 and examine whether the errors derive from the pupils´ mother tongue (Swedish) or not. 20 essays collected from a school in southern Sweden were examined for this study. The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, which states that grammatical errors in L2 English are the result of interference from L1 Swedish, was used as the theoretical basis for this study. Different processes of errors in second language acquisition were then analysed, which are called transfers and generalisation. Four different types of grammatical errors will be described and the errors found in the essays are discussed on the basis of these linguistic errors. In addition, some lexical errors will be accounted for. This study aims to find out whether it is possible to see any connections with the pupils´s errors to Swedish. The results show that some errors can be directly linked to their mother tongue, such as direct translations of prepositions, which were by far the most common type of errors. Some errors are however more likely to be generalisations, where the pupils´ have used their previous knowledge of English syntax, in a new context.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka hur lärare i moderna språk ser på L2-elevers möjligheter att lära sig ett modernt språk på grundskolan. Utifrån en kvalitativ metod samlades materialet genom intervjuer med sex lärare i moderna språk på grundskolan. Resultatet visar att lärarna betonar flera olika förkunskaper och förutsättningar för att L2-elever ska få börja läsa och kunna lära sig moderna språk. Dessa är kunskaper i svenska och engelska, bra skolbakgrund och klara skolans andra ämnen i första hand. Lärarnas syn på språkinlärning och vem ämnet moderna språk är till för är ledande för hur de kommer att rekommendera eleverna att välja, hur undervisningen ska se ut och vilket stöd eleverna får möjlighet till. Resultatet kommer fram till några motsägelsefulla slutsatser. Å ena sidan är flerspråkiga elever framgångsrika språkinlärare, å andra sidan behöver de först lära sig svenska och engelska för att få läsa moderna språk. Å ena sidan ska eleverna inte ha läxhjälp i moderna språk, å andra sidan förväntas föräldrarna kunna stötta sina barn i ämnet. Hur lärare ser på L2-elevers möjligheter i moderna språk kan kortfattat antas bero på vilken inställning de har till ämnets prioritet och språkinlärning.

This is a small, mixed-methods study focusing principally on the learning experience element of Dörnyei’s L2 motivational self system and its effect on students’ ideal and ought-to selves. The specific purpose of this investigation was to explore the L2 classroom environment and explore any potential relationship to the ideal and ought-to selves of the students. The secondary element of this study was to discover whether this potential relationship could impact teacher-training and how. The study was conducted in two English (L2) classes at a Swedish upper-secondary school. A quantitative questionnaire was compiled using features from previous studies in this field and questions designed for this particular study. Each student filled out a questionnaire individually. The results of these were then analysed to establish a picture of the students’ general level of motivation, their possible selves, their classroom environment, and how they felt the former was affected by the latter. Qualitative contributions to the investigations were made through interviews with individual students and observation of lessons. The results indicated that, for the majority, four components of the classroom environment impacted significantly on the ideal and ought-to selves of the students, namely, the teacher, the group cohesiveness and orientedness and finally, the facilities. However, one factor did not demonstrate such a noteworthy influence: course material. The implications of these findings are that course material may not be as critical as originally thought in influencing student motivation. Moreover, teacher-training could, in future, include training on ideal and ought-to selves in order to maximize the positive effect of the classroom environment, as a whole, on individuals. This could be achieved by, for example, adapting the classroom facilities to suit different student needs, forming groups based on common interests and allowing for extra-curricular activities to enhance group-cohesiveness.

The main objective of the present study is to investigate whether there is a difference in comprehension between two groups of Swedish L2 learners of English when they are faced with idioms in either a written context or in an audio-visual context. The investigation was performed at a Swedish upper secondary school. The subjects of the investigation are two different groups, where group 1 consists of 21 subjects and group 2 of 26 subjects. To one group, the idioms were presented in a written context, which is a transcribed version of the audio-visual context to which the second group was subjected. The results of the study are statistically confirmed, which means that they are generalizable to any two similar sets of students taking the same two tests and they show that there is a difference in comprehension for L2 learners if they are presented with idioms in an audio-visual context in comparison to when they are presented with a written context. This difference suggests that the comprehension of L2 idioms can be strengthened when the idioms are presented in an audio-visual context.

The topic of this diploma thesis belongs to the field of language acquisition and language learning. It aims to explore Czech as a second and foreign language of speakers whose mother tongue is German, namely concerning the pronunciation of the r-sound and its perceptual acceptability for Czech native speakers. The theoretical part summarizes the area of pronunciation learning and acquisition in a second and foreign language and outlines various pronunciation difficulties German speakers tend to have in Czech. It deals with the rhotics in general and subsequently focuses on the r- sound, both in Czech and in German, as well as in mutual comparison. In the last chapter, the combinatorial qualities of the r-sound which are used as a basis for the practical part are discussed. The practical part describes the conducted research. Five recordings of German students were collected. The students were staying in Prague for one semester with the Erasmus programme exchange and were learning Czech for the first time. For the recordings a written text was constructed which the students read individually. The text emphasized words including the r-sound. From the recordings, various key words were cut off and a perceptual test was compiled and given to Czech native speakers to evaluate the pronunciation of the...

The use of English has increased greatly in the higher education system with universities across the world including English as part of their education programs. One of many consequences of this is that many students have to read and study in a second or foreign language, which has shown to be of difficulty for many students according to previous research. The purpose of this present study is to investigate the academic reading habits of students and explore their perceptions and attitudes towards reading academic English, and what experiences they have in relation to that. A total of 68 participants took part in this study, all recruited at Stockholm University. All participants responded to a questionnaire and interviews were conducted with four of the students. A relatively high degree of commitment was reported towards the assigned reading and a majority of the students did not perceive reading academic English as difficult and reported mostly positive attitudes about it. The results suggest that the personal interest and perception of the assigned reading is crucial and matter more for students than the target language.