This essay argues that literature enhances the discussions of sensitive issues in a Swedish EFL classroom. Building on reader-response theory and Judith A. Langer's envisionment building, the themes affinity, suicide and discrimination found in Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees could be discussed. The reader-response theory gives the pupils an emotional outlet that the envisionment builds on. However, the identified themes also need to be critically analysed to create rewarding discussions, and to be able to fulfil Langer's envisionment. This will hopefully make the pupils think more deeply about these social issues and question their own possible prejudices.

<p>This thesis deals with model readers in contemporary Swedish magazine advertising texts aimed at different target groups: children (aged 7–12), teenagers (13–19), and adults (20–29) of both genders. The model reader is the presupposed reader of the text, realised in the text itself and not identical with the empirical reader, who is anyone reading the text.</p><p>The study takes the consumer culture of late modernity and the gender system as its point of departure. The model readers are regarded as socially motivated mass mediated identities that are offered to the empirical readers of the advertisements. Through the theoretical assumptions of social semiotics and critical discourse analysis, the model readers are, on the one hand, treated as textual realisations of the consumer culture and the gender system and, on the other, as varying with respect to target group.</p><p>A total of 14 advertisements, selected according to the age and gender of the target groups, are analysed. The texts are multimodal; the copy combines with the images, graphics, colours etc. to create meaning. A qualitative model for analysis was developed and applied both to the copy and to other visual representations in the texts. This model allows an analysis of the construction of the model reader at different levels in the text. The textual composition of the ads as well as ideational and interpersonal meanings are analysed along with intertextual and extratextual presuppositions.</p><p>One of the main findings of the study is that the model readers in the ads with male target groups tend to relate to a reproductive type of consumption, where an already successful model reader reproduces success, activity and leadership through consumption of the advertised products. The model readers in ads with female target groups tend to be more concerned with looks and the female body, and are not as successful or leadership-oriented. They also relate to a pretentious type of consumption, where the product is needed to adjust or improve the identity of the model reader. A gender system in which masculinity is superior and femininity inferior can thus be traced in the advertisements analysed. Another result is that more traditional, often more person and product-oriented, advertising formats are found in the ads with older target groups whereas more collage-oriented, or intertextual, formats are found in the ads with younger target groups.</p>

<p>The implied reader of a novel is the person that the author writes for. In the case of Åsa Larsson’s Swedish detective novel Solstorm, the implied reader is familiar with Swedish politics, history, and geography but also with biblical references and Swedish customs. When the novel is translated into English, The Savage Altar: Innocence will be Sacrificed, there is a new implied reader, the translator’s implied reader. When culture-specific material is either omitted or misunderstood, or a cultural filter changes the material to suit the new target audience, the context of the novel is also changed. The result is a loss of context.</p>

<p>During a few hours of a school day, a student might read textbook texts which are highly diversified in terms of abstraction. Abstraction is a central feature of specialized language and the transition from everyday language to specialized language is one of the most important things formal education can offer students. That transition is the focus of this thesis.</p><p>This study introduces a new three-graded classification of abstraction including the levels of specificity, generalization and abstraction, based on a discussion of the concept of abstraction. The investigations performed, based on this classification, show that texts from different subject areas display distinct patterns of abstraction. The Swedish literary texts had the lowest degree of abstraction, the social science texts had an intermediate degree and the natural science texts were the most generalized and abstract. The results also show that the degree of abstraction in the textbook texts increases in later grade levels.</p><p>The thesis presents a new way of analyzing shifts between levels of abstraction and their functions. Interestingly, the texts with a medium degree of abstraction, the social science texts, are the ones with the greatest variety in shifts. The functions of the shifts differ with respect to cultural domains. The shifts in the Swedish literary texts in general belong to the everyday domain while the shifts in the natural science texts belong to a specialized domain. The shifts in the social science texts had features of both domains.</p><p>A secondary aim of the thesis is to develop the understanding of the relationship between author and reader in the texts. The results from my investigation of modality in the Swedish textbook texts confirm the earlier findings from English and Spanish textbooks. In comparison to other text types, textbook texts present knowledge in a more authoritative and less modalized way.</p><p>From time to time, abstraction is described as a feature that hinders students accessing texts. Some researchers even suggest a removal of features of specialized language in textbook texts, in order to increase students’ understanding. However, in a society where specialized knowledge is necessary, the access to specialized texts is important. A democratic view of education and school mandates that children and adolescents have the opportunity to encounter and learn to encounter specialized language in school. In analyzing the texts special attention is paid to the relationship between the texts, the contexts of use and the student readers.</p>

During a few hours of a school day, a student might read textbook texts which are highly diversified in terms of abstraction. Abstraction is a central feature of specialized language and the transition from everyday language to specialized language is one of the most important things formal education can offer students. That transition is the focus of this thesis. This study introduces a new three-graded classification of abstraction including the levels of specificity, generalization and abstraction, based on a discussion of the concept of abstraction. The investigations performed, based on this classification, show that texts from different subject areas display distinct patterns of abstraction. The Swedish literary texts had the lowest degree of abstraction, the social science texts had an intermediate degree and the natural science texts were the most generalized and abstract. The results also show that the degree of abstraction in the textbook texts increases in later grade levels. The thesis presents a new way of analyzing shifts between levels of abstraction and their functions. Interestingly, the texts with a medium degree of abstraction, the social science texts, are the ones with the greatest variety in shifts. The functions of the shifts differ with respect to cultural domains. The shifts in the Swedish literary texts in general belong to the everyday domain while the shifts in the natural science texts belong to a specialized domain. The shifts in the social science texts had features of both domains. A secondary aim of the thesis is to develop the understanding of the relationship between author and reader in the texts. The results from my investigation of modality in the Swedish textbook texts confirm the earlier findings from English and Spanish textbooks. In comparison to other text types, textbook texts present knowledge in a more authoritative and less modalized way. From time to time, abstraction is described as a feature that hinders students accessing texts. Some researchers even suggest a removal of features of specialized language in textbook texts, in order to increase students’ understanding. However, in a society where specialized knowledge is necessary, the access to specialized texts is important. A democratic view of education and school mandates that children and adolescents have the opportunity to encounter and learn to encounter specialized language in school. In analyzing the texts special attention is paid to the relationship between the texts, the contexts of use and the student readers.

Learning in school is in many respects done through language. However, it has been shown that the language of school assignments is seldom explicitly discussed in school. Writing tasks are furthermore assigned without clear guidelines for how certain lexical choices make one text more powerful than another. The present study is a contribution to a linguistic and pedagogical discussion of student writing. More specifically the focus is on the use of evaluative language in texts written by students in the school subject of Swedish in grades 5, 8 and 11. The major investigations of the study have been accommodated within the theoretical framework of Appraisal. An overview is given of the language resources in the student texts for constructing emotion, judging behavior in ethical terms and valuing objects aesthetically. Another question addressed is that of how attitudinal meaning is intensified, thus creating greater or lesser degrees of positivity or negativity associated with the feelings. The results show that manifestations of attitude are found in practically all texts in the study. However, variations are noted in relation to different genres, age, proficiency level, language background and gender. A contribution of the study in relation to the theoretical framework upon which it draws is an extension of the system of Attitude as well as an identification of different patterns in the use of attitudinal resources. These patterns are furthermore discussed in relation to how students talk about their own written production in terms of text movability. Results indicate that students with a high degree of text movability also use attitudinal resources to a large extent. It is argued that applying the linguistic tool of Appraisal can facilitate a discussion of how to make one aspect of the hidden curriculum more visible, namely, how to write with an Attitude.

The Batman media franchise (comics, movies, novels, television, and cartoons) is unique because no other form of written or visual texts has as many artists, audiences, and forms of expression. Understanding the various artists and audiences and what Batman means to them is to understand changing trends and thinking in American culture. The character of Batman has developed into a symbol with relevant characteristics that develop and evolve with each new story and new author. The Batman canon has become so large and contains so many different audiences that it has become a franchise that can morph to fit any group of viewers/readers. Our understanding of Batman and the many readings of him gives us insight into ourselves as a culture in our particular place in history.

Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka kommentarsfälten på svenska litteraturbloggar, och diskursanalys används för att avgöra hur diskursen ser ut. Diskussionen i kommentarsfälten ställs i relation till forskning om traditionella läsgrupper, för att se om och hur fenomenen kompletterar varandra. Uppsatsens frågeställning är ”Hur diskuteras och tolkas litteratur i bloggkommentarer?”.Uppsatsens resultat visar att en tiondel av de 165 kommentarer som studerats innehåller tolkning. Detta innebär att de läsare som söker sig till de studerade litteraturbloggarnas kommentarsfält inte huvudsakligen gör det för att tolka litteratur. Diskursen präglas av utvärdering av böcker och läs-ning. Kommentatörerna har ett behov av att uttrycka sina känslor om litteraturen de läser snarare än att söka efter verkens betydelse eller författarens intention.Det finns en livlig interaktion mellan olika kommentatörer, vilket gör att relationer skapas mellan kommentatörer och även mellan olika litteraturbloggar. Traditionella läsgrupper består ofta av en bestämd grupp som träffas vid bestämda tider, medan vissa av kommentatörerna i undersökningen endast deltagit med en enda kommentar. Det finns samtidigt kommentatörer som återkommer i flera kommentarstrådar. Kommentarsfälten kan knappas anses vara en ersättning till den traditio-nella läsgruppen, men dock ett komplement för läsare som vill diskutera sin upplevelse och söker ett socialt utbyte i flera gemenskaper. / The aim of the essay has been to examine commentaries on Swedish literature blogs. Discourse analysis has been used to determine the nature of the discourse. The discourse has been compared to research on traditional reading groups, in order to determine if and how the phenomena sup-plement one another. The question of the essay is: “How is literature discussed and interpreted in blog commentaries?”The results show that one tenth of the 165 commentaries that have been studied contain interpre-tation. This means that the readers who visit the blogs do not mainly do this to interpret literature. The discourse is characterized by evaluation of books and reading. The commentators have a need to express their feelings about the literature they are reading rather than search for the meaning of the work, or the intention of the author.Among commentators, the interaction is active. As a result, relationships are created amongst commentators and different literature blogs. Traditional reading groups often consist of a set mem-bership that meet on fixed times, while some of the commentators in the study have participated only with one entry. The blog commentaries can hardly replace the traditional reading group, but it can however be a complement for the reader who wants to discuss his or her experience and search for a social community in which to do so.

This thesis has two purposes: (1) to analyze the emptiness in Blodbok by Christine Falkenland, and (2) to analyze my own reading of the same book. I have chosen to focus on how emptiness is expressed through the body, the language and the place in Blodbok, because of the deep impact these seem to have on the emptiness. The thesis discusses what kind of emptiness that is described, what it does to me as a reader, and how it is connected to other works by Falkenland. Cultural politics of emotions by Sara Ahmed, Uses of literature by Rita Felski and Pouvoirs de l’horreur by Julia Kristeva together form the theoretical framework. Blodbok is a poetry collection, about the loss of a mother. The first part of the thesis shows how emptiness is connected to the borders of the body. When the borders of the body are solid, emptiness is expressed trough the I’s will to pass these borders, to become a part of the mother or at least less lonely. When emptiness surround the I her body becomes indistinct and borderless, which makes the emptiness take place both inside and outside the body. The indistinctness of the body also leads to confusions between the body of the mother and the body of the daughter (the I), which also implies an uncertainness about the limit between life and death. This uncertainness becomes ‘sticky’, and I experience my own body being more borderless than before, and threatened by the death in the same manner as the bodies in the book. Emptiness also takes place as a part of the language in Blodbok, because of its inability to describe the feelings of the I. Though, in what I have called the simple language, for example clichés, the I find a way to express some of the despair, loss and fear that she feels. As a reader I find it very releasing when the I manage to express the emptiness in words. Even if loss is described I feel satisfaction while reading, because I recognize myself in the feelings of the I. I find the text being a witness to a horrible feeling and by functioning as a witness the poem moves the feeling from inside of me, to the outside. The place in Blodbok is connected to emptiness by being the place where life meets death. It is in this place the I circulate, and the emptiness and death is described again and again through the circulation. The place becomes the centre of the book, it is at the same time the beginning and the end. The thesis also shows how the emptiness in Blodbok corresponds to emptiness in other works by Falkenland. The emptiness is Blodbok isn’t empty; it is filled with death, horror, loneliness, love, mourning and loss. This emptiness ‘sticks’ to me as a reader. By picturing an in many ways indescribable emptiness, Blodbok manages to give me a feeling of satisfaction, a feeling of being filled.

本研究以《中時》「家庭版」為例，從1956年11月25日起至2004年12月31日逐日翻閱歷時五十年的該版面。作者以「形式與內容｣為經緯，檢視「家庭版｣變化，將歷史沿革分為五個時期：始自週刊、繼而日日出刊、刊名的改變—各類軟性題材齊聚、報禁解除：「家庭版」重生、周末報時期版面倍增。筆者歸納影響的因素，發現早期因報禁限張政策，使得非藝文、體育和影藝的其餘軟性題材，全都置於「家庭版」中，報禁解除後，家庭類的版面激增，設立與內容轉而受商業力量左右。 「家庭版」與其他版面最不同之處，就是強調讀者參與。讀者參與空間漸增，從限時限定主題的刊登，到每日至少刊登1~3篇讀者投書。近五十年當中，讀者除踴躍參與「家庭版」徵稿外，從讀者筆戰交鋒中更可發現，其對家庭價值捍衛有時更勝於編輯。 「家庭版」中的女性角色，從主內持家轉為家庭與事業兩者兼顧的形象，女性新角色承擔了雙重壓力。家庭不是封閉體系，亦受到外在政治、經濟與社會影響。歷經1980年代經濟起飛、政治開放，女性從事政治、社會運動與社會志工的社會角色漸漸增多，女性角色更顯得多元且豐富。 / This thesis focuses upon the Family section of the Chinatimes and examines its presentations of female roles during the past fifty years on a daily basis, ranging from November 25, 1956 to December 31, 2004. The author discerns that historical evolvements of the Family section into five periods: it came initially as a weekly, followed by a daily format, with the change of its title, the Family section took in more and more various soft subjects. The latest is the arrival of Taiwan’s newspaper deregulation and consequently the revival of Family section and the multiplication of weekend edition. As a conclusion, we should say that the Family section was deeply conditioned by the government’s newspaper policy of limiting the competition of the media. The press landscape has seen a sea-change since the late 1980s though, when topics used to be covered in the Family section gradually expanded into other pages. Commercial forces has by this time overridden political effect. The reader participation is the most important and distinguished characteristic in Family section. Family section is considered to defend our social value. From the reader’s argument, it is found that readers make more efforts than the editors. The female roles are represented in Family section.The changes from housewife image that helps the husband and teaches the children, to the professional women image that looks after both work and family. However, even when economically independent, women have never been released; instead, they take much more stress than before. After 1980s, raise of economic and openness of politics ,the social roles of women have seemed to be more abundant.