The aim of this study is to determine what can be known about the people who were able to write runes during the Viking Age. The investigation is based on the runecarvers’ own statements about themselves and their work, which is normally found in the signature or the carver formula of the inscriptions. The material comprises all carver formulas known from primarily Scandinavian Viking-age runic inscriptions, but since most of the inscriptions are found on rune-stones, there is a focus on runecarvers who worked in this material. In the study the form and content of these carver formulas are closely analyzed in different ways. It can for example be shown that the choice of verbs in a carver formula is primarily determined by chronology, which is also reflected in the geographical distribution of different verbs in the material. The study also shows that the carver formula is normally positioned finally in the text, and that the examples of other positions might be determined by the content of the rest of the inscription. In some cases the runic monument is signed by more than one name, which has been interpreted as indicating the existence of workshops. Even if this is true for parts of the material, many of the co-signed stones seem to be the products of carvers who only worked occasionally. An investigation of the personal names and the use of attributes such as patronymic, titles or bynames, shows no difference from the normal Viking-age population, which indicates that the rune-carvers were not members of a special social class. The latter part of the study deals with the relationships between the rune-carver and the sponsor of the runic monument. Special attention is paid to some local carvers in the Mälar Valley in order to determine their social status and the extent of their production of rune-stones. The study shows that some of these carvers belonged to a wealthy group of land-owners with contacts abroad, and many of them have executed about ten rune-stones, often in the vicinity of their own dwellingplace. In conjunction with this, there is also an attempt to see to what extent the writing habits of these local carvers are influenced by more productive and presumably professional carvers. This investigation leads to a re-evaluation of one of the most famous carvers in the district, Åsmund Kåresson, which also has some implications for the picture of how the rune-stone custom was introduced into central Sweden at the beginning of the 11th century.

The aim of this thesis is to shed light on the handbook as a multimodal resource from a reader perspective, with the material consisting of 32 Swedish handbooks on gardening from 1643 to 2005. The study draws theoretically on social semiotics and multimodal discourse analysis, as well as dialogism. There is an emphasis on the addressivity of the text, which is taken as a starting point for tracing signs of the intended text use in the design of the texts. The analysis is meaning-based, with the focus placed on functional features in the design of the texts. The first part of the study considers the reading goals afforded by the thematizations conveyed in titles, headings and text type patterns. The core function of these texts turns out to be action orientation, although the more recent books often include sections oriented towards other goals, like shaping individual aesthetic taste. The second part illustrates how the multimodal cohesive patterns in the books afford non-linear reading paths and make the texts searchable, which is enhanced by the presence of devices such as indices and tables of contents. Concentrating on six of the books, the third part of the study maps out the role of the reader that is naturalized by the design of the text, drawing on appraisal theory, and shows the strong, authoritative role taken by the authorial voice. The evaluative patterns naturalize a fact-seeking reading. However, the most recent book, from 1996, emphasizes emotions to a greater extent, naturalizing a parallel reading that invokes sensory experience. The conclusion drawn is that the core characteristics of the handbooks are action orientation, searchability and factuality. As different parallel functions in recent books are discerned, a tendency towards diversity and multifunctionality is described. The range of semiotic resources has also expanded, it is noted, and there is growing support for the view of a tendency towards the visualisation of written texts.

The aim of the dissertation is to demonstrate and explain the place and function writing has in all subjects in two vocational classes in a Swedish upper secondary school. The material has been collected through ethnographic field studies in construction and health care classes over one school year. The material consists of literacy events, where pupils write, and the context of situation and text are noted. In theoretical terms the study takes a discourse analysis perspective, where writing is seen from within different frames. Writing is analysed based on an ideological view of literacy inspired by New Literacy Studies using the context of situation and text with the aim of describing different literacy practices in both classes. The material was classified into three different situation types, two school-initiated and one non-school-initiated. The first school-initiated situation type is orally-governed, the second writing-governed, while it is less clear how the non-school-initiated type is inspired. In the writing situations we investigate the writing activities that are used, while texts are analysed based on text acitivites. Writing and text activities are used together to explain the writing competences that are used in the writing situations. The conclusions are that writing gets little space and attention in both classes. The health care class writes in more situations and also writes longer texts than the construction class. Literacy practices differ between the classes. The health care class demonstrates one school-governed writing practice, while the construction class moves between two different school-governed practices. The literacy practices in the construction class are similar to the writing usage that can be found at a building site. Writing is used in both classes mainly to structure and store knowledge. The non-school-governed material also shows differences between the classes. Here too more writing takes place in the health care class. The function of the non-school-governed writing is to communicate and inform through writing.

Aiming to facilitate the description and evaluation of rhetorical responses to security issues, a framework was developed for comparative analysis of oral and written presentations. The framework was applied on three speeches held by the Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson and three speeches by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in the wake of the terrorist attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11 and the subsequent military operation in Afghanistan. The framework was based on four narrative structures, referred to as images. The image of aggression was used to describe the speaker’s interpretation of a dramatic event, the image of threat to describe his consideration of the security threat and the image of securitisation to analyse solutions suggested in relation to the threat. The image of communication, finally, was used to describe relations between the speaker and his audience appearing in the speeches. Each image included an actor, an act or event, a referent object to the act and time and space. The images were analysed as discrete parts and also by an integrating approach. In the analysis, descriptions of the images were related to rhetorical tools, including logos, pathos, ethos, identification, vividness and agency. The analyses revealed similarities and dissimilarities between the two speakers. As for similarities, Persson and Putin used similar topoi. Persson used democracy – terrorism whereas Putin preferred civilisation – terrorism/barbarism, and both used cooperation. To both speakers, the images of aggression and threat tended to appeal to pathos and identification, and the image of securitisation and communication to logos and ethos. As for dissimilarities, Persson relied on the UN whereas Putin offered direct help to the US operation. In Persson’s speeches, the predominant topos was cooperation, in Putin’s civilisation – terrorism/barbarism. Persson focused on democratic values, Putin on the fight against terrorism. Persson’s images were more elaborated and vivid, Putin’s more moderate. These dissimilarities were tentatively explained by the two speakers’ different individual styles and domestic situations and, most important, by the speakers’ different agency on the international arena. In essence, the present framework, based on four discrete images, was found to be well-suited for cross-cultural analysis of rhetorical responses to security issues. The similarities exceeded the dissimilarities, which led to the conclusion that rhetoric of security politics may be defined as a discrete rhetorical genre. A bi-polar world view pervaded the rhetoric, preventing long-term solutions to security issues. Instead a focus on cooperation topoi, nuanced information, and the means and ends of securitisation was suggested.

I denna uppsats undersöks viktiga framgångsfaktorer vid internationell expansion på tillväxtmarknaderna i centrala Östeuropa. Expansionsprocesserna hos Cramo och Volvo Lastvagnar jämförs med utgångspunkt i ett teoretiskt ramverk där Uppsala-modellen står i centrum, kompletterad med grundläggande teoretiska förutsättningar avseende egna etableringar respektive företagsförvärv samt avseende tillväxtmarknader. Studien inriktar sig på huvud-kontorens perspektiv, och det empiriska underlaget består av intervjuer med de huvudansvariga cheferna inom Cramo och Volvo Lastvagnar. De viktiga framgångsfaktorer som analysen resulterar i är: Tidig etablering har inneburit klara fördelar för båda företagen. För ett uthyrningsföretag inom byggbranschen som Cramo har det varit viktigt att växa klustervis. För ett produktionsföretag inom transportbranschen som Volvo Lastvagnar har det varit viktigt att äga både försäljningskanaler och eftermarknadskanaler. Kontakter är generellt sett viktiga inom ett land. Varumärket och att synas är viktigt. Eget engagemang i och aktivt internaliserande av kunskap från det relevanta nätverket är nödvändigt.

Syftet: Syftet med denna uppsats var att se hur Nordiska Afrikainstitutet använder sig av sociala medier och hur de tillämpar den information som organisationen kommunicerat via de sociala medierna. Teoretisk ram: Uppsatsen utgår ifrån teorier som ger överblick i hur traditionella och moderna kommunikationsredskap fungerar. Därutöver har ett analytiskt instrument använts som kartlägger kommunikationsprocesser i organisationer samt hur dessa tar tillvara på ny kunskap. Den teoretiska referensram består av följande teorier: Media Richness modellen samt de två artiklarna On using organizational knowledge capabilities to assist organizational learning samt Virtual worlds as platforms for communities of pratices från antologin Knowledge management and organizational learning. Metod: Uppsatsen bygger på en kvalitativ metod. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom respondentintervjuer, dessa bestod av telefonintervjuer samt epostkorrespondens. För att urskilja respondenterna har ett snöbollsurval använts. Intervjuerna har därefter analyserats utifrån den teoretiska referensramen. Resultat: Resultatet av undersökningen visar att både traditionella och sociala medier används vid institutet där de traditionella medierna anses trovärdiga men inte alltid flexibla. De sociala medier som används är Facebook, Twitter och institutets egna forum kallat NAI-forum. Undersökningen visar att de sociala medierna är en användbar kanal för nå ut till flertalet användare på ett informellt sätt. Tendenser visar att sociala medier underlättat kommunikationen för institutet då de lättare kan nå en större målgrupp och föra en dialog med dessa. Det framkom också att institutet diskuterar och kommenterar förfrågningar som görs via de sociala medierna och tar tillvara på den information som förvärvas genom de sociala medierna. Undersökningen visade också att det finns en stor potential med att använda sociala medier och respondenterna tror att inom en snar framtid kommer de också att spela en allt viktigare roll i NAI:s kommunikationsarbete. / Aim: The main aim of this thesis was to explore which communication tools the Nordic Africa Institute utilizes. We also looked into how the institution maintains the information created through the new communication channels. Theories: The essay is based on theories that provide an overview of how traditional and modern communication tools work. We also used an analytical tool to map/analyze communication processes in organizations. Theoretic framework was based on the The Media Richness model and the two articles On using organizational knowledge capabilities to assist organizational learning and Virtual worlds as platforms for communities of practices from the anthology Knowledge management and organizational learning. Method: The essay is based on qualitative methods. The empirical data was gathered through informant interviews. We gathered data by telephone interviews and e-mail. To identify the respondents a snowball sampling technique was used. Main results: The result of the study shows that both traditional and social media are used within the institution, whereas the traditional media are considered reliable but not always flexible. The social media channels the institute uses are Facebook, Twitter and their own forum called, Nordic Africa Institute forum. The general attitude among our respondents shows that social media is a useful channel for reaching out to the majority of users in an informal way. The answer of our respondents also showed a general trend that social media has also eased communication for the institute where they now can more easily reach users and have a dialogue with them. It also emerged that the NAI discusses and comments on inquiries made through the social media and they utilize the information that is acquired. The institute has a policy in place for the acquisition of information gathered through social media. Our study shows that the respondents believe that there is a great potential in using social media. They also envisage that social media in the near future will play an even more important role in how they work in the communication department at the Nordic Africa Institute.

This thesis develops the phonological model for the Stockholm Swedish intonation system. Though previous research provides a general model of this system, many phonological aspects of it have remained understudied. The intonational options that are available to speakers of Stockholm Swedish are discussed, and it is argued that Stockholm Swedish provides evidence for complex branching of phonological domains. Specifically, it is argued that so called focal accents, which are referred to as (H)LH-accents in the present work, have essentially two different functions. First, they signal information structural categories such as focus. Second, they signal left edges of Intonation Phrases (IP). It is also argued that a wide range of options exist in the post-nuclear area. Six types of contours for such areas are distinguished, plus one additional rising contour when there are no post-nuclear accents. Based on these findings, I present an account of the branching options for the phonological categories in the Stockholm Swedish prosodic hierarchy. I argue that there is evidence for recursive phonological structures in Stockholm Swedish, i.e. that a mother node and a daughter node can belong to the same phonological category. Also, Stockholm Swedish provides evidence for a distinction between prosodic coordination (equal sister nodes) and prosodic adjunction (unequal sister nodes). Prosodic structure is mapped onto syntactic structure via a set of variably ranked Optimality Theoretic constraints. The relation between phonological and syntactic structure shows that the phonology prefers prosodic coordination (equal sisters) over adjunction (unequal sisters). The material for the study comprises a corpus of approximately 420 read sentences, which were specifically designed to test various phonological hypotheses, and approximately 17 minutes of uncontrolled speech.

The aim of the thesis is to show how gender, ethnicity and generation membership categories are constituted in talk-in-interaction. The main material comprises seven video recordings of multi-participant conversations among school pupils, aged 16 to 19. An important theoretical term is intersectionality, i.e. the interplay between different social categories. The tools of analysis are mainly derived from conversation analysis and discursive psychology. Identity is seen as a dynamic phenomenon and I analyse the identities the participants themselves make relevant during the course of the conversations. The investigation, aided by membership categorisation analysis, is carried out into how social categories are negotiated and used in establishing identity. In the analyses, social categories in particular are used in order to constitute identities by the participants’ creating contrasts between in-group, we, and out-group, them. Category-bound activities are used to constitute social categories. The participants also use more specific resources for talk-in-interaction – for example, active voicing and extreme case formulations – to establish or negotiate social categories. Interactional strategies and tools are used in resistance to avoid being attributed membership in a certain category, and partly consist of various ways of renegotiating the implication of belonging to a certain category. Thus, generalising notions about social groups become more nuanced and the adolescents avoid being categorised as passive victims of cultural notions. Gender, ethnicity and generation membership are furthermore constituted through storytelling. To sum up, the above linguistic resources are used first and foremost for three different types of discursive work during the group conversations. First, the adolescents argue that they are unique and independent and therefore not dependent on cultural expectations. Secondly, they place themselves in relation to the categories by their enacting themselves as normal in various ways. Thirdly, the adolescents establish a positive self image by modifying or renegotiating the non-desirable activities associated with the categories. The results show how the categories have situational relevance and are dealt with locally, and invoke normative expectations as to how members of social groups ought to behave.

This dissertation is a study on the works of the Swedish author Carl Jonas Love Almqvist during the final years of his exile in America. Focusing on the monumental 1438-page unpublished manuscript 'About Swedish Rhymes', the study first presents the textual material and then discusses the text from different formal and content-based aspects essential to an understanding of Almqvist's works in exile. In the manuscripts preserved from his last years of exile, i.e. the period after 1860, Almqvist refers to 'Mr Hugo's Academy, established in the year 1838' introduced in one of the volumes of The Book of the Wild Rose (1839). In comparison with his earlier fiction about academic "cabinet meetings", this fiction of such an academy, conceived in exile, is in some ways extraordinary. A close reading of the texts reveals that the aging Almqvist, contrary to previous opinions about him, maintained strict control over the activity: the extension and division of the record, as well as its references to time and space, all indicate a complete consistency and an exact mimetic order. The consideration of 'About Swedish Rhymes' starts out from exterior qualities. The observations are first considered in relation to the author's statements on the importance of the manuscript for the literary work of art. Subsequently, the genesis of the "exile" texts is re-examined. One key question here is whether the manuscript was completed in Philadelphia, or was continued in Bremen during the final year of his life. The content of the conversations in the records of the cabinet meetings is also analyzed. Although questions of metre and versification dominate, the text also deals with a variety of widely differing subjects, including discussions about the use of language and linguistic norms. The fictitious frame that the cabinet meeting provides for the purpose of discussing metre and rhyme is also considered. Here we find various improvised verses composed at the cabinet meeting and put into the mouth of the authentic versifier H.J. Seseman. One important question is whether the cabinet-meeting discussions about the metre in these verses are intended to be a serious contribution to scholarly debate, or whether they in fact have ironic undertones. Next, the narration of the "exile" texts is discussed from the point of view provided by its own fictitious perspective, together with the author’s relation to irony, satire and parody. The concluding chapter deals with verse-making in the record of rhyming. The emphasis is laid on the analysis and characterization of the various rhymed verses collected under the title Sesemana. One essential question concerns the 'rubbishy' or 'plain' character of these poems. The present analysis indicates that questions of rubbish, textual triviality and the like must bow to the broader question of the character of the poems in a deeper sense. Seseman's poetry is considered in relation to the Songes collection. Finally the question of how rhythm manifests itself as 'free verse' in a number of these poems with more serious content is also discussed.

Uppsatsen undersöker könsfördelningen bland ideologiska personbaserade gatunamn i Uppsala och Gävle. Den utgår från teorier om att gatunamn vidmakthåller sociopolitiska maktstrukturer och har en normerande effekt på historieskrivningen. För att undersöka om tidens mer jämställda samhälle påverkat namngivningen indelas det totala gatunamnsbeståndet i två perioder med brytåret 2000 där den tidigare perioden jämförs med den senare när jämställdhets- medvetenheten förväntats ökat.Uppsala som under 2000-talet debatterat frågan uppvisar en ökad andel kvinnonamn på 30 procentenheter mot Gävles ökning på 16 procentenheter där man heller inte har några jämställdhetsstadgar vid namngivningen.Namnberedningarnas sammanträdesprotokoll granskas i syfte att undersöka genusanknytande resonemang där fallet Fadimes plats belyser en äldre och uteslutande kulturvårdande politik som format namnbeståndet. En enkät- undersökning där 193 kommuner ingår visar att 67 kommuner jobbar efter stadgar vid namngivningen varav 5 kommuner rapporterar jämställdhetsstadgar. Resultatet tyder på att de inriktningsmål som visat sig effektiva i Uppsala nationellt sett är ovanliga.