Abstract English language learning materials take a central role in Swedish secondary schools. The curriculum in Sweden advocates for communicative language teaching where students are expected to produce language in various contexts without restriction. There is much prior research on different textbooks used in Sweden. However, there has been limited analysis of how well a textbook aligns with the curriculum in terms of compliance with CLT expectations particularly for productive skills. As CLT preaches free production, it is important for teachers to know which books to choose for their courses to successfully incorporate the material to improve their students’ productive skills in various contexts. This study analysed Focus on English 8 which consists of a textbook and a workbook to shed some light on to what degree this textbook follows the Swedish curriculum with a focus on CLT aspects. This was done by using a mixed methods content analysis by conducting both a quantitative and qualitative analysis. The quantitative analysis was done by counting the amount of controlled to uncontrolled exercises in the textbook and workbook. In contrast, the qualitative analysis focused on the scaffolding present in the production exercises. Results show that while the book adheres to the curriculum, the textbook and workbook by themselves do not sufficiently facilitate free production. Thus, several steps outside the teaching materials need to be taken to encourage students to freely produce the language.  Keywords CLT, ELT, CEFR, Scaffolding, controlled exercise, uncontrolled exercise, teaching materials.

Despite various studies regarding love in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, little is known about true affection. Early research indicates that Jane’s romantic feelings for Rochester are a result of patriarchy and childhood trauma. However, these scholars have been influenced by an older view of affection that indicates that in love, cruelty and destructiveness cannot exist.   This study builds on previous research; however, it adds a new philosophical aspect to demonstrate that it is ontological rootedness that defines love rather than benevolence and altruism. The primary source for this study is Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre. Psychological theories have been incorporated to illustrate that Jane has endured childhood trauma which results in her being vulnerable to Rochester’s emotional abuse. However, the analysis also integrates a philosophical aspect of what love is that demonstrates that despite Jane’s childhood trauma and Rochester’s manipulation, Jane still has genuine affection for Rochester. In other words, this study shows that Rochester is emotionally abusive towards Jane but that love in the novel is not defined by kindness and selflessness. Thus, it is true love that Jane feels for Rochester.  Keywords: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, psychology, childhood trauma, emotional abuse, manipulation, love, Simon May, philosophy.

No description available.

Previous research has shown that L2 students have difficulties producing and even recognising sounds that do not exist in their mother tongue. It has also been concluded that accented speech not only compromises intelligibility but also makes the listener negatively biased towards the speaker. The present study explores how proficient Swedish students are in producing the speech sounds /dʒ/, /j/, /v/, /w/, /ʃ/and /tʃ/, of which /dʒ/, /w/ and /tʃ/do not exist in Swedish. In addition, it explores whether their pronunciation of these sounds improves after a brief pronunciation lesson, if this improvement is lasting and whether they tend to learn the pronunciation of words as separate units or are able to generalise the rules of pronunciation and appropriately apply them. It also investigates whether a difference in the structure of the pronunciation lesson affects the students’ results. The study revealed that the students do have difficulties with correctly producing in particular /tʃ/, /dʒ/ and /j/. More specifically, they tended to confuse /dʒ/ and /j/ whereas many students appeared to have been unaware that /tʃ/ exists and used the /ʃ/-sound instead, which exists in Swedish. After the pronunciation lesson, however, the students significantly improved their pronunciation. This improvement was shown to be lasting and the students were generalising rules rather than learning words as separate units. What the study failed to show was a significant difference in results caused by a difference in the structure of the pronunciation lesson.

Las personas que viven en colonias de inmigrantes desarrollan nuevas formas de comunicarse en su lengua materna, debido a influencias lingüísticas de la lengua que se habla en el país donde residen. Este estudio pretende investigar la interlengua de los suecos residentes en España, y determinar si el español influye a la hora de hablar en sueco entre ellos y también cuáles son las causas de esta influencia. Pensamos que puede haber varias razones, como por ejemplo, por comodidad o por falta de equivalentes entre las lenguas. Sobre este fenómeno que se está desarrollando en España existe muy poca información por lo que, el punto de partida ha sido nuestra propia experiencia. La metodología usada fue una encuesta "online". Los informantes fueron 21 personas, bilingües de sueco/español, residentes en España. Las preguntas se dirigen a averiguar en qué casos y en cuántos dejan que el español influya sobre ellos cuando hablan en sueco con otro sueco también bilingüe. En la encuesta se presentan ejemplos de situaciones cotidianas, y los informantes tienen que responder lo que dirían en cada caso, y por qué. La mayoría de los ejemplos elegidos son, según nuestro criterio, difíciles de decir en sueco sin influencia del español. Sin embargo, de suma importancia han sido los testimonios de los informantes de cómo perciben el fenómeno. Al evaluar los resultados se tuvo en cuenta entre otras cosas: el tiempo de estancia en España, y el nivel de español del informante. Los resultados mostraron que personas con un mayor nivel de español fueron en general los que se dejaron influir más. Ellos son también los que más usan el cambio de código, obteniéndose la conclusión de, que para poder "saltar" entre dos idiomas hace falta un cierto nivel lingüístico. Las personas con menos nivel de español se atuvieron a tomar palabras prestadas. La razón principal tras el cambio de código fue difícil de destacar, muchos dijeron que el cambio ocurría inconscientemente, aunque, varios de los informantes afirmaron que cambiaban el código al citar a una persona, una posibilidad, en la cual no habíamos pensado. La razón principal tras el uso del préstamo, fue sin duda por falta de equivalentes.

En este estudio presentamos una investigación que trata sobre la comprensión de los refranes por estudiantes de español como lengua extranjera con el propósito de saber, y qué es lo que influye en la adquisición de esta comprensión. Nuestra hipótesis es que los estudiantes que tienen más contacto con hispanohablantes son los que tienen más comprensión de los significados de los refranes. Nos apoyamos en las teorías de Bravo (2009) y (2003) acerca de la comunicación, las de Escandell [1996](2008) acerca de la metáfora y las teorías acerca de los refranes de Sbarbi y Osasuna [1871](1980) y Sardelli (2010). La metodología que hemos escogido ha consistido en utilizar encuestas dirigidas a 25 informantes. De una página de internet que trataba los refranes hemos escogido 21 refranes, los cuales pedimos a un grupo de control, que está formado por informantes hispanohablantes de varios países de habla hispana, sus versiones y sus definiciones de los refranes. De este grupo sacamos las definiciones y las formas más extendidas de los refranes que posteriormente se usaron en las encuestas. Sacamos a dos refranes que no fueron bien conocidos por los informantes del grupo de control y de los 19 restantes fueron desarrolladas las encuestas. En estas encuestas pedimos a los 25 informantes definir los 19 refranes, indicar su nivel de español según el nivel de la enseñanza formal que han cursado y qué relación tienen con hablantes nativos del español. Al terminar la investigación, concluimos que nuestra hipótesis fue comprobada, es decir, que encontramos que la relación que los informantes tienen con los hablantes nativos tiene una importancia relevante en la comprensión de los refranes. Además, concluimos que la comprensión de los refranes es muy limitada en los estudiantes de español como lengua extranjera y disminuyendo entre los hablantes nativos del español. Esta conclusión hemos llegado a tomar al ver la diferencia en los resultados entre los hablantes nativos residentes en su país de origen, los hablantes nativos residentes en Suecia, y los hijos de hispanohablantes residentes en Suecia.

The present work is a sample study in which the investigator asks a number of randomly selected informants[1]to evaluate a number of items and to answer questions on their take on and understanding of, unconventional language. The focus of the investigation is on the relationship between the interviewees’ understanding and recognition of unconventional language and their particular attitudes towards the same as their ability to recognise slang is compared with their respective attitudes. To fully appreciate the linguistic scope within which this exists, one must acknowledge what it is that generates an informant’s attitudes. The American linguist Penelope Eckert (2000) has in her Linguistic variation as Social Practice written something that quite well captures what it is all about. Here is what she writes: “In many cases it is easy to identity the common endeavour that assembles a community of practice (using language): a garage band, a day care cooperative, a research group, a kindergarten class. That endeavour develops a life of its own as local practices develop around it, transforming the enterprise, the activity, and knowledge. The practices that emerge as a rock’n roll band works together include such things as the choice of songs the band plays, the kind of music, a view of its place in the wider landscape of music, an attitude towards other kinds of music, the band’s “sound” and the contribution of each instrument of that sound, ways of dressing, ways of getting and choosing gigs, ways of performing and behaving on gigs, ways of developing new songs and rehearsing, ways of behaving and talking in encounters with band members and when representing the band. This practise is one that develops – it grows out of the band’s mutual engagement in being that particular band. The individual musicians, through their particular form of participation, simultaneously construct identities of participation in that band. At the same time, that process of construction, engaged in jointly by the various members of the bank, yields a band – or a (speech) community of practice – with a particular character. The character of that band in turn enters into the individual members’ interactions with people outside the band, in the members’ personae at work, at home, and at other bands’ gigs” (Eckert 2000: 35-36). The above captures what attitude ‘is’ in many ways, not merely the explicit attitudes one actively display such as clothes, personal attire or style, but it prevails the sense of what linguistic attitudes are. The use of language, ergo speaking, is what generates our attitudes, or rather linguistic attitudes are maintained and constructed in line with how we like to be perceived, thus what language we wish to use. This is what the present study aims to unfold – what command of unconventional features would a user of language have and what does the informants’ attitudes toward language of this nature look reveal. [1]This is not to say perfectly ‘randomly selected’ but more in the sense that the study is not set against a particular group but rather the contrary, no particular group at all. This is in order to, to the point it is possible, enable the informants to form a model of a general cut of speakers in a society. This should preferably then include people from all segments of a society, as well socially, economically as ethnically. The informants in this kind of segment should further be naturally distributed on the age scale.

This essay is predominantly a qualitative piece of research by which I mean it is mainly based on my own observations and analysis of the material. To do this I will cover the theories of communities of practice together with gendered language and apply it to the community and language of the online game World of Warcraft. Through using collected chat logs, I will analyse conversations held in World of Warcraft with a specific focus on gender and identity, I will then compare these to examples of face-to-face conversations. My analysis will draw on the works of theorists such as Holmes (2006), Sunderland and Litosseliti (2002), Eckert and McConnel-Ginet (1992) amongst others. This study will show that although Netspeak within World of Warcraft is written and not spoken, the strategies for creating gendered identities are not very different from real life discourse. The essay will be a general study of gendered language in a virtual community and will discover that there is an extremely nuanced language within the limited communication medium of chat, and lays the ground for more extensive research on the subject.

The aim of this essay is to find out which dictionary is the best for learners and how it can be improved even further, regarding delexical verbs.

No description available.