In 2008, Spain’s financial crisis had a great impact on the primary sector on which the nation’s ‘economic miracle’ was founded: housing.Land speculation, the increase in housing construction, and easy loans had become one of the hallmarks of twenty-first-century Spanish identity. The crisis del ladrillo (“brick crisis”) plunged the national economy into chaos and condemned many Spanish citizens to job insecurity, loss of earning power, threat of eviction, and put them at high risk of social marginalization. This dissertation studies the unusual proliferation of documentary films during the years surrounding this economic downturn about the ghettoization of the Spanish Gypsy population; a marginalization that was also indebted to the earlier economic development policies of the Franco regime and continued as Spain entered more fully into the free market in the late 1950s. As a result of Spain’s global socioeconomic exclusion due to the housing crisis, however, the Spanish Gypsy emerged in documentary film as a social actor who represented a reality that was no longer exclusive to the Other, but common to all. This project consists of a detailed analysis of three documentary films: Polígono Sur: el arte de Las Tres Mil (2002), Can Tunis (2006)and Una casa para Bernarda Alba (2011), all of which attempt to reconstruct national identity in an age of financial downturnthrough a shared emphasis on the spaces of exclusion experienced by gitanos (Gypsies). Informed by spatial theory, post-colonial studies, critical discourse analysis and theories of representation of the Other in film, the purpose of this research is to unveil the dialectical negotiation that is established between neoliberal discourse, economic crisis, and the experience of its victims (both Gypsies and non-Gypsies) in spaces of shared conflict: shanty towns, slums and housing projects. The findings of this dissertation are twofold: that the appropriation of the Gypsy population’s experiences by these documentaries reflects and at times continues legacies of internal colonization while, simultaneously, these films point the way toward representational strategies that open the door to the narratives of those who have been silenced under neoliberalism.

<p>Language choice is a required course in years 6-9 of compulsory school. Those who do not wish to study a Modern language of French, Spanish or German may choose language choice English or language choice Swedish instead. These two courses are meant to provide students with additional support and advanced work in those subjects. Although grades are given in Modern Languages, language choice English and Swedish do not merit a grade. Neither language choice English nor language choice Swedish has a set curriculum or syllabus. The regulations regarding these courses are dubious as well which results in varied interpretations among schools. Other research discussed in this thesis indicates that student motivation is low and truancy high. The intention of this thesis is to shed light upon an area left very much in the dark. Who are these students choosing language choice English and language choice Swedish? What have they based their choice upon? How are these courses organized, prioritized and taught? How do the students and teachers experience these courses? Data has been collected at three schools in the form of in depth teacher interviews and student questionnaires in order to answer these questions. In addition, school statistics have been examined and similar research utilized in the analysis of the collected data.</p><p> </p>

Language choice is a required course in years 6-9 of compulsory school. Those who do not wish to study a Modern language of French, Spanish or German may choose language choice English or language choice Swedish instead. These two courses are meant to provide students with additional support and advanced work in those subjects. Although grades are given in Modern Languages, language choice English and Swedish do not merit a grade. Neither language choice English nor language choice Swedish has a set curriculum or syllabus. The regulations regarding these courses are dubious as well which results in varied interpretations among schools. Other research discussed in this thesis indicates that student motivation is low and truancy high. The intention of this thesis is to shed light upon an area left very much in the dark. Who are these students choosing language choice English and language choice Swedish? What have they based their choice upon? How are these courses organized, prioritized and taught? How do the students and teachers experience these courses? Data has been collected at three schools in the form of in depth teacher interviews and student questionnaires in order to answer these questions. In addition, school statistics have been examined and similar research utilized in the analysis of the collected data.

Soviet writer Vasilii Grossman has been renowned in the West as a dissident author of Life and Fate, which multiple sources, including The New York Times have called "arguably the greatest Russian novel of the 20th century." Grossman, however, was not a dissident, but an official state writer attempting to publish for a Soviet audience. Grossman's work was criticized by Soviets as being "too Jewish", while Jewish scholars have called it "not Jewish enough." And, despite his modern critical acclaim, little scholarship on Grossman exists. In my thesis, I explore these paradoxes. I argue that Grossman attempts to reinterpret traditional state ideas of Sovietness into a more inclusive, democratic version by creating heroes from traditionally marginalized groups. To do this, he reinterprets and inverts traditional tropes of the Socialist Realist genre. Genric limitations on his worldview, however, prevent this vision from being completely realized in the course of his work. I trace Grossman's work from his early short fiction to his Khruschev era novels and show how this trope develops during his career as a Soviet writer and citizen.

The purpose of this research is to study the new curriculum in the topic of modern languages in the upper secondary school, and compare the curriculum from year 2011 with the one from year 2000 and thus try to find differences in the content and wordng. The research also aims to investigate teachers' interpretations and understanding of the new curriculum. The study is divided into two sub‐studies and those are based on the two methods of text analysis and interview. Text analysis of policy documents is made parallell with some aspects found in the background materials of the upper secondaryschool reform, which can be summarized as precision and globalization. My results also show that the subject presentation in the new curriculum of modern languages was diminished in scope and summaized. The interview study connects to the aspects that have emerged in the text analysis. The results of the interview study is that teachers find it difficult to interpret the new curriculum in an equivalent way, and this probably has to do with the fact that they have not received a sufficient or equivalent preparation in the new policydocuments. The general opinion of the teachers is that they have noticed the attempts of  precision in the new curriculum, but they would wish even more precision. The new curriculum has mostly changed their teaching in the aspect of the new grading scale.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Adelaide, Centre for European Studies and General Linguistics, 2001? / Bibliography: leaves 211-227.

La tesina investiga cómo cinco profesores interpretan la norma de Gy11 que indica que todo lo esencial de la enseñanza de lenguas modernas debe realizarse en la lengua meta. Las entrevistas semiestructuradas indican que los profesores interpretan la norma de maneras parecidas, es decir, que los profesores deben usar la lengua meta lo máximo posible en la enseñanza. La mayoría de los profesores están de acuerdo con la norma, sin embargo, tienen varias críticas contra Skolverket y la formulación de la norma. Ninguno de los profesores ha cambiado su uso de la lengua meta en el aula debido a la norma. / This thesis investigates how five teachers interpret the norm of Gy11 that indicates that the education of modern languages primarily should be held in the target language. The semi-structured interviews indicate that the teachers interpret the norm in similar ways, namely that the teachers should use the target language as much as possible in the education. The majority of the teachers agree with the norm, however, they have several critiques of the work of Skolverket and the formulation of the norm. None of the teachers have changed their usage of the target language in the classroom due to the norm.

In certain Germanic languages, there is a group of verbs called preterite-present verbs that are often viewed as irregular, but in fact behave very predictably. They exhibit a morphological phenomenon called deponency, often in conjunction with another morphological phenomenon called heteroclisis. I examine the preterite-present verbs of three different languages: Old Norse, Modern Icelandic, and Modern German. Initially, I approach them from a historical perspective and then seek to reconcile their morphology with the modern perspective. A criteria is established for a canonical preterite-present verb, and then using a lexical programming language called DATR, I create code that generates the appropriate paradigms while also illustrating the morphological relationships between verb tenses and inflection classes, among other things. DATR is a programming language used specifically for language models.

The inherent flexibility of the letter form or epistolary mode of writing frees the writer within the framework of salutations and closings to use vocabulary and language to create, to omit or to invert conventional constraints imposed on women by a patriarchal society. The letter begins as a blank page but becomes the space for writing one’s personal thoughts and emotions to the absent other in a communicative effort to minimize the separation. This dissertation examines the female narrator in actual letters written during the Spanish emigration to the New World in the sixteenth century and four epistolary novels written by female authors during the nineteenth- and twentieth centuries. The female “I” emerges in the selected texts and attests to the writer’s ability to inhabit her own writing space. By applying Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism and Janet Altman’s formal approach to the epistolary novel, the epistolary and literary textual creations by women writers challenge the silence and traditional anonymity generally assigned to women. I explore the cultural enculturation of the transgressive female who loses her “self”, her very being because of her inability to conform to societal norms as outlined by Barbara Creed and Elaine Showalter. In addition, I apply ideas from Linda Kauffman’s study on the transformation of the female writer who metamorphoses from victim to artist through the use of pen and paper. The female ‘self’ crafted by each of the letter writers is studied as they narrate their space, exercise agency, and negotiate the conflicts and contradictions of their domestic and public space. The epistolary, whether actual or fictional, becomes a textual creation challenging the silence and traditional anonymity assigned to women. The letter, when used as a literary device, is the perfect vehicle to create a narrator who controls his or her own life’s narrative. The writer constructs an implicit recipient linking the addressee and engages the reader in an absorbing story.

La narrativa de Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993) no goza del lugar que merece en la ficción argentina y latinoamericana como obra de la principal cuentista del siglo XX. Hace relativamente poco que su obra comenzó a despertar el interés de la crítica, atención que se evidencia en la cantidad de artículos y disertaciones recientes. Mediante una disección de la narrativa ocampeana a partir de las grandes coordenadas que la intersectan se pueden caracterizar los aspectos peculiares y distintivos de su estilo. Desarrollada tras la consolidación del psicoanálisis y su influencia en la estética surrealista, la narrativa de Ocampo incorpora algunos de esos elementos. El género fantástico también se articula aunque mediante una selección de rasgos configurados a su modo. Si bien Ocampo rechaza la etiqueta de feminista, ciertos aspectos de su estilo sólo pueden explicarse a partir de la visión particular de una mujer escritora y su representación de la identidad y las relaciones. La lectura pormenorizada de varios cuentos recogidos en “Cuentos completos” I y II (1999), once volúmenes publicados durante su vida, pertenecientes a distintos períodos de su producción permiten realizar un análisis diacrónico que ofrece una caracterización redonda de su estilo y evolución. El análisis sincrónico de estos textos incorpora datos históricos acerca del contexto de producción; a la vez que otras obras literarias del período ofrecen un punto de comparación para identificar influencias y contribuciones. Este análisis, realizado desde el marco teórico de la crítica literaria, da cuenta de la presencia de constituyentes narrativos (narrador, ironía, ambigüedad) que configuran espacios de indeterminación, noción postulada por las teorías de la recepción. Éstos explican las peculiares características de la obra ocampeana: su habilidad para inquietar, intrigar, sorprender y, en suma, desestabilizar al lector y sus expectativas. Es más, sirven para explicar la idiosincrática representación de la realidad que emana de su obra, su interés en lo fantástico y la articulación de lo anti-convencional, como mecanismo subversivo para escapar del orden social dominante, lo cual revela sensibilidades protofeministas. La narrativa de Silvina Ocampo se resiste al reduccionismo y construye una visión peculiar y multifacética de la artista y su obra.