<p>I avhandlingen behandles dannelse og utvikling av norrøne stedsnavn i tre sogn på Orknøyene fra norrønspråklig tid fram til i dag.</p>

<p>Posters have been used in political communication for more than a century, and are still an important element in the election campaigns. However, few studies have been devoted to the way in which text and image work together in order to obtain the rhetorical goal of making voters vote for a specific party.</p><p>In this study, election posters in the 2002 general election in Sweden from all parties represented in the Swedish parliament are analysed. The context of this specific sample of political communication is described through a sociological approach inspired by Pierre Bourdieu, and through theories of political marketing. The model for analysis of the posters combine semiotics and rhetoric in order to present a model capable of analysing both text and image, and the way in which they are used in order to influence and persuade voters.</p><p>The conclusions are that Swedish parties favour textual messages and not visual elements, and that when visual elements are used, these are mostly portraits of candidates. So apparently, the predominance of visual elements in advertising does not show in election posters. Neither can one claim that personalisation is a predominant element, as the total percentage of posters depicting candidates is quite low. The tendency towards negative campaigning seen in earlier elections is not present in the 2002 posters, and the rhetoric is mostly epideictic and thus aimed at keeping already convinced voters rather than attracting new ones. This might indicate that the posters have lost their role as means of attracting new voters and have become more of an “internal” affair, telling the party’s voters, in a way which presupposes shared points of view, that the party is there to be voted for as always. The posters thus fulfil a symbolic function of binding together adherents rather than attracting newcomers. </p>

<p>This thesis deals with interactional patterns in verbal disputes as portrayed in the written dialogue of Swedish drama over three centuries. The overarching aim is to contribute to research into conflict talk in Swedish dialogue, but also to contribute to historical pragmatics and linguistic stylistics.</p><p>The teoretical and methodological framework combines elements from conversation analysis and theories of communicative events (activity types). A corpus of 30 drama texts, written during the 18^th century, the late 19^th century, and the late 20^th century, was examined for examples of conflict events that are lexically marked as such in the texts (by words such as <i>argument</i>, <i>dispute</i>, <i>quarrel</i> etc.). </p><p>A total of 47 conflict events were identified in 21 of the 30 drama texts. The construction of the beginning of the three most significant types of conflict sequences found within 45 of the 47 events, totalling 111 sequences, is analysed in detail. The three sequence types concern differences in opinion (disagreement sequences), accusations (complaint sequences) and directives (rejection sequences).</p><p>One result of the study is that complaint sequences are shown to be by far the most common conflict pattern in the data. Another result is that few differences are found regarding the construction of the sequences over three centuries. For the most part, it is the same sort of moves that are frequent no matter which period the data stem from. One conclusion is therefore that the conflict patterns in drama dialogue appear to be relatively stable over time.</p><p>The study also deals with the dramatic functions of the conflict patterns (the events, sequence types or moves). Two functions are discussed, namely plot development and characterisation. While all conflict can further the process of characterisation, for example by showing the negotiation of differences in power between the characters, less than half of the events further the plot by having an effect on the disputants or other characters in the drama.</p>

I avhandlingen behandles dannelse og utvikling av norrøne stedsnavn i tre sogn på Orknøyene fra norrønspråklig tid fram til i dag.

Posters have been used in political communication for more than a century, and are still an important element in the election campaigns. However, few studies have been devoted to the way in which text and image work together in order to obtain the rhetorical goal of making voters vote for a specific party. In this study, election posters in the 2002 general election in Sweden from all parties represented in the Swedish parliament are analysed. The context of this specific sample of political communication is described through a sociological approach inspired by Pierre Bourdieu, and through theories of political marketing. The model for analysis of the posters combine semiotics and rhetoric in order to present a model capable of analysing both text and image, and the way in which they are used in order to influence and persuade voters. The conclusions are that Swedish parties favour textual messages and not visual elements, and that when visual elements are used, these are mostly portraits of candidates. So apparently, the predominance of visual elements in advertising does not show in election posters. Neither can one claim that personalisation is a predominant element, as the total percentage of posters depicting candidates is quite low. The tendency towards negative campaigning seen in earlier elections is not present in the 2002 posters, and the rhetoric is mostly epideictic and thus aimed at keeping already convinced voters rather than attracting new ones. This might indicate that the posters have lost their role as means of attracting new voters and have become more of an “internal” affair, telling the party’s voters, in a way which presupposes shared points of view, that the party is there to be voted for as always. The posters thus fulfil a symbolic function of binding together adherents rather than attracting newcomers.

This thesis deals with interactional patterns in verbal disputes as portrayed in the written dialogue of Swedish drama over three centuries. The overarching aim is to contribute to research into conflict talk in Swedish dialogue, but also to contribute to historical pragmatics and linguistic stylistics. The teoretical and methodological framework combines elements from conversation analysis and theories of communicative events (activity types). A corpus of 30 drama texts, written during the 18th century, the late 19th century, and the late 20th century, was examined for examples of conflict events that are lexically marked as such in the texts (by words such as argument, dispute, quarrel etc.). A total of 47 conflict events were identified in 21 of the 30 drama texts. The construction of the beginning of the three most significant types of conflict sequences found within 45 of the 47 events, totalling 111 sequences, is analysed in detail. The three sequence types concern differences in opinion (disagreement sequences), accusations (complaint sequences) and directives (rejection sequences). One result of the study is that complaint sequences are shown to be by far the most common conflict pattern in the data. Another result is that few differences are found regarding the construction of the sequences over three centuries. For the most part, it is the same sort of moves that are frequent no matter which period the data stem from. One conclusion is therefore that the conflict patterns in drama dialogue appear to be relatively stable over time. The study also deals with the dramatic functions of the conflict patterns (the events, sequence types or moves). Two functions are discussed, namely plot development and characterisation. While all conflict can further the process of characterisation, for example by showing the negotiation of differences in power between the characters, less than half of the events further the plot by having an effect on the disputants or other characters in the drama.

Students in upper secondary school write in a number of different genres, and do this in school contexts as well as in their spare time. The study presented here is an overview of this activity and the genres concerned. The theoretical framework of the study is that of genre theory whereby genre is understood as a socially situated concept. The study is based on 2 000 texts gathered from students on different study programmes all over Sweden in the school year of 1996-97. The texts were written in different situations. The most important distinction made here is between test texts (i.e. texts from national tests) and self-chosen texts, which may come from schoolwriting or spare-time writing. The texts are categorized according to genre. This text inventory shows a repertoire of 33 different genres in the text material. A small number of genres, such as story, book-review and expository essay dominate the school writing. The test genres differ from this pattern in that they clearly imitate texts with a genuine communicative intent. The most frequent genres are studied further and each of them is demonstrated by an interpretative reading. This reading shows that the genres differ considerably with respect to genre character and stability of text structure. A quantitative study of text length and variation in vocabulary further shows that texts written by two categories of students, those on vocationally oriented programmes and those on programmes preparing for higher education, differ significantly. Reference cohesion is studied in a smaller sample of the texts. This lexico-semantic mechanism of cohesion proves to exhibit an interrelation with variation in vocabulary as well as with text type. One particular cohesive tie, inference, shows different patterns in texts written by the two categories of students mentioned above.

<p>In this dissertation, I examine the correspondence of an upper middle-class family from the early part of the nineteenth century. My aim is to answer questions about correspondence and letter-writing as an everyday event and as a social activity. My principal theoretical framework has been ethnograpy of communication. </p><p>My main source is the Eurén-Snellman manuscript collection at Uppsala University Library (UUB, G65). The central figure of this collection is Axel Eurén (1803−1879), who was a clergyman in Dalarna and also a member of the Swedish parliament. The material expands over three generations and includes Axel, his mother, his sister, his wife and Axel’s and his wife Sophie’s three children. In each generation the letter-writing is reciprocal in nearly all relations.</p><p>By creating a database of the 2,267 letters that remain from the family correspondence and by extracting meta-commentary about letter-writing I have studied how the family organized their correspondence. From the total collection I have chosen 293 letters during the period 1825−1858. These letters constitute a digitalized corpus that consists of approximately 160,000 words. With this corpus as my principal source, I have examined two different aspects of language use: a structural analysis of each writer’s total sum of letters and a study on address. </p><p>Certain findings confirm that letter-writing was based on routine. Traits of orality appear less often in the latter part of the material, a result that is in line with earlier investigations.The dimension of formal−informal language has been interesting to examine in relation to gender. Whereas the women’s writing at a lexico-grammatical level is more informal and natural in style, their need to portray themselves in a virtuous Christian manner seems at the same time to promote a certain kind of formality in expression. The opposite seems to be true for the men. </p>

This thesis deals with jokes and gender as social meaning. Here gender identity is regarded as one kind of social meaning. The gender identity of the individual is produced in interaction with other persons and is also conditioned by cultural codes. Of particular interest is how social identity is constituted by linguistic means. This is discussed using a model of indexicality, i.e. how linguistic features index one or more dimensions of the social context. Especially the indirect and constitutive relations between language and gender are discussed in terms of stances, acts and activities. In this context the speech act joking is seen as an example of a male gender constituent. A second theoretical angle consists of introducing some linguistic theories of humour and applying them to two empirical materials. The first material consists of audiovisual recordings of school pupils’ group discussions with no adult leader present. The pupils work with the same task, both in unisexual and mixed groups. The study focuses on describing how the speakers present suggestions of their own, and respond to the suggestions of others. The suggestions have lent themselves to being grouped into three categories: serious suggestions, playful suggestions, and joking suggestions. Identifying jokes in conversation can be difficult; thus four criteria for joke identification are applied: intention, structure, reaction and convention. Two types of structural criteria are used: semantic and rhetorical. The second material consists of a questionnaire administered to university students, which asks whom the informant apprehends as funny. A general tendency in the answers is that men only mention men, while women single out both women and men. Another tendency is that few women are found in the answers of the questions concerning the mass media, while women mention many funny women in the questions about their own everyday experiences. In this study it is argued that language use not only reflects our place in culture and society but also helps to constitute that place. Women and men encounter different cultural codes, and thus their performance of different speech acts also differs. This has an impact on the speakers’ social identity, one of which is gender identity.

In any human culture the telling of stories for representing past events is likely to have a centralplace. The aim of this dissertation is to describe storytelling among Swedish adolescents from astructural, interactional and functional perspective, and to demonstrate how the meaning of thestory is interactionally constructed. The material consists of a corpus of 258 stories taken from 30 hours of tape recordings of conversations between adolescents, aged 10-15, of both sexes, mostly in naturally occurring situations. The majority of the recordings were made in the late 80's and early 90's, while others datefrom 1974-1984. The study tries to combine the theoretical and methodological ideas of conversational analysis(CA) and sociolinguistic discourse analysis. The method is basically qualitative and the analysesare carried out through detailed scrutiny of pieces of recordings and transcriptions. The aspects ofstorytelling that arc studied include the way the stories are introduced and accounted for in the ongoing conversation, how they are designed by the teller in order to propose and make the listeneraccept a certain version of what happened, and how the listener through his contributions duringthe telling can accept, modify, reject and negotiate the meaning proposed by the teller. Another aspect studied is how the stories serve as means for self- and other-presentations. The results show that, both as tellers and listeners, Swedish adolescents make use of many different strategies to structure the telling and evaluate the story. These include verb tense, word orderand different kinds of discourse markers as well as highly emotional and dramatizing features suchas reported speech, onomatopoetic expressions and laughter. A very important evaluative deviceis the discourse marker ba. Dramatization is also found in many of the listener's contributions tothe telling. It is also shown that there are substantial differences between boys and girls, both in the use of (some of) these dramatizing features and in the way they construct and present themselves and others in the stories. This seems to be due to the fact that storytelling serves different functions in groups of boys and girls. Finally, it is argued that there are some indications of an ongoing change in the narrative style of Swedish adolescents.