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.

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.

The aim of this study was to comprehend and explain the idea and function of Case Management and its diffusion in Swedish municipalities. More specifically its aim was to investigate factors for the diffusion of Case Management and its differences to similar professional roles. The study was based on interviews with four managers at various levels and two case managers representing two municipalities in Sweden. Five themes were identified that were especially interesting when discussing the function of Case Management, its differences to similar professional roles and its diffusion in Swedish municipalities. The themes were: shortcomings in the welfare system, the functions of Case Management, differences to similar professional roles, descriptions of Case Management and factors for the diffusion. The analysis was based on organizational institutionalism and translation, as well as previous research on Case Management and the diffusion of ideas. As a conclusion Case Management was described as a revolutionizing method that would import evidence based social work in the organization. That, and the obvious effort to adapt and integrate Case Management in the institutionalized metods and values of Swedish welfare organizations were factors for the diffusion. Case Management also turned out to be a similar method to the already established profession personligt ombud, wherefor Case Management can be seen as a relaunch of personligt ombud.

Un rhinocéros Berserker, des hordes de Vanir déferlant sur la Cimmérie, le fils d’Ymir emprisonné... les références aux récits médiévaux scandinaves couramment désignés par les termes « mythes nordiques » sont nombreuses dans le jeu de rôle en ligne massivement multi-joueurs Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Mais, comment des éléments issus de sources presque millénaires sont-ils devenus des composantes d’une production vidéoludique contemporaine ? À partir de ce cas d’étude, l’auteur de ce travail s’intéresse, de façon plus générale, aux phénomènes culturels et à leurs dynamiques à travers leurs processus de transmission, de manifestation et d’appropriation. Pour ce faire, il s’appuie sur une démarche qualitative et empirique à la croisée des Sciences de l’information et de la communication et des Études scandinaves afin de développer une approche anthropo-communicationnelle, fortement imprégnée par les travaux en Anthropologie. Celle-ci se fonde sur une méthodologie à la fois linguistique, socio-historique, d’observation participante sur le temps long et un suivi de veille sur le temps très long. Elle permet de constater que, des manuscrits médiévaux aux jeux vidéo en ligne, en passant par la littérature de fantasy américaine des années 1930, le sens donné aux références aux ressources culturelles du passé est sans cesse transformé et construit en fonction de la situation dans laquelle elles sont manifestées. Ces dynamiques culturelles s’inscrivent alors au cœur de la problématique du changement et de la permanence et mettent en lumière les constructions d’un imaginaire du commun tout en remettant au centre de la réflexion le travail des acteurs / A berserker rhinoceros, hordes of Vanir swarming upon Cimmeria, Ymir’s son imprisoned … references to the medieval scandinavian stories often designated as « Norse myths » are numerous in the massively multi-player online rôle playing game Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. But, how could elements coming from sources which are almost a thousand years old become parts of a contemporary videogame ? From this case study, the author of this work takes a more general interest in cultural phenomenons and their dynamics through their transmission, manifestation and appropriation processes. In order to do this, he leans on a qualitative and empirical research which articulates communication studies with scandinavian studies in order to build an anthropo-communicational approach, which is strongly influenced by Anthropology. This approach is based on a multi-layered methodology which includes linguistics, socio-historical method, long term participant observation and very long term information monitoring. It allows to observe that, from the medieval manuscripts to online video games, through american fantasy literature from the 1930’s, the significations which people give to past cultural ressources are always transformed and built according to the situation in which they are expressed. Such cultural dynamics fall within the heart of research questions about change and permanence and highlight the ways by which an imaginary of the common is built at the same time as it puts the work of the social actors at the center of the reflection

My master thesis is capturing the reflection Czech translations from Scandinavian literatures in fifties and sixties 20th century in Czechoslovakia. Part of the thesis is going to be research, which creates the base for bibliographycal list of books translated to Czech language from various Scandinavian languages. Thesis also focuses on period reception of these books in the form of reviews or prefaces and afterwords. Last part is going to present three chosen titles.

This study explains the process of how Kista bibliotek, a library in Stockholm, evolves from being an idea to a running activity. The library is created in a time of change, both political and economical and is supposed to meet many different goals set from many different actors. The library is placed in one of Stockholm’s biggest shopping centres, Kista galleria and close to Kista science city which is an important midpoint for international businesses and science. Kista is also an area of segregation and socioeconomic problems and the library want to connect the different ‘worlds’ and together; the local people, businesses and the community create an environment which to be proud of. With new institutionalism as theoretical frameworks and with the use of qualitative interviews and unobtrusive observations, this paper shows how the original idea transforms throughout different levels of the organization. How the library evolves to be both traditional and progressive, how it meets the needs of the locals and work with the commercial environment to fulfil their mission to be a public place in the middle a commercial shopping centre. This study portrays a picture of a library which is moves between different organizational fields, between the private and public sector to achieve the goal of being a modern library in a modern world.

The subject of this study is Viking-Late Norse settlement (c. AD800-1200) in the North Atlantic, focusing on Orkney and on longhouse complexes constructed on mounds. For the first time these mound settlements are investigated as a group and as deliberately constructed mounds. Settlement mounds in Orkney are also closely associated with nearly 40 Skaill ON skáli ('hall') place-names, which place-names linked the sites with the social and economic networks of Orkney's peripatetic leaders. This association is examined more closely. The analysis also demonstrates that constructing settlements on mounds required particular building techniques, which relied heavily on the use of midden-type material. Those techniques are examined using new and freshly analysed material from published and grey literature-published excavations and surveys of sites from the Viking-Late Norse period in Orkney and elsewhere. Three core data-sets were established to provide the evidential basis: the first, also drawing on site-visits, looking broadly at mound landscapes and skáli-areas in Orkney; the second at the building techniques and materials used on settlement mounds; and the third, also requiring site-visits, at all the skáli place-name sites. The possible origins of settlement mound living in the settlers' Scandinavian homelands are investigated, then the extent to which mound living was also followed in Shetland, Caithness and the Western Isles, and finally in previously unoccupied lands, using Iceland as a case study. The mound-sites, their archaeology, mound architecture, place-names and landscape setting are also analysed in a new theoretical framework to reach fresh understandings of Viking-Late Norse settlement in Orkney. The analysis thus considers the wider cultural significance of constructing and living on settlement mounds, and what that communicated about Viking-Late Norse society. The thesis argues that Viking-Late Norse groups chose prominently-placed sites for their visual dominance and commanding views, but also that the rebuilding of mound structures in one spot, and building out and up of the mound itself using midden material, set strong cultural messages about stability, continuity and association with the surrounding landscape. The mounds were complex features of culturally meaningful architecture.