Språket är i ständig förändring vilket innebär att språkligt material med tiden föråldras och blir inaktuellt. Vid talaudiometrisk testning av barn är det viktigt att testmaterialet innefattar ord som är välkända för barn eftersom förståelsen för materialet kan inverka på mätresultatet. Det talaudiometriska test som idag används för barn bygger på ordmaterial som ursprungligen insamlats under 1930-talet. Föreliggande studie är en del av ett större projekt och inleder arbetet med att utarbeta ett nytt talaudiometriskt material för barn. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att beräkna och jämföra ordfrekvens och antal ordformer utifrån inspelade samtal mellan de deltagande barnen i åldersgrupperna 5-8 år (Grupp 1) respektive 9-12 år (Grupp 2). Totalt 79 barn mellan 5 och 12 år deltog i studien. Inspelningar av barns samtal med varandra gjordes på förskolor och fritidshem i Linköpings tätort och cirka 300 minuter inspelat material analyserades. Barnens yttranden transkriberades ortografiskt och de ord som användes i samtalen grupperades för att därefter delas in i sex olika kategorier. Frekvensberäkning av ord per åldersgrupp utfördes och de båda åldersgruppernas totala volym av ordformer räknades ut. Resultaten visade att ordfrekvensen var högre i Grupp 2 än i Grupp 1. I Grupp 2 förekom också ett större antal ordformer än i Grupp 1. Hos båda åldersgrupperna var Substantiv den mest använda kategorin avseende antal ordformer, dock var det stor skillnad mellan Grupp 1 och Grupp 2 gällande vilka ordformer som användes. Resultaten diskuteras utifrån de åldersrelaterade skillnaderna mellan grupperna, olika sätt att beräkna ordfrekvens samt i relation till förändringar i svenska språket över tid.

Contemporary theories on frequency processing have been developed in different sub-disciplines of psychology and have shown remarkable discrepancies. Thus, in judgment and decision making, frequency estimates on serially encoded events are mostly traced back to the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). Evidence for the use of this heuristic comes from several popular demonstrations of biased frequency estimates. In the area of decision making, these demonstrations led to the conclusion that frequency judgments were generally error-prone. On the other hand, in memory literature detailed computational memory models are used to explain frequency estimates. Although these models to some degree differ evidently in their specific representational assumptions, they all arrive at the basic prediction that frequency estimates should usually be quite accurate but regressed. This prediction was confirmed in numerous studies. However, up to now there have been no systematic efforts in memory literature to identify factors that cause biases in frequency judgments and to explain the demonstrations of erroneous estimates in the area of decision making. The two studies presented in this thesis pursue the questions whether memory models are able to explain errors in frequency judgments and to generate new predictions about biasing factors. In the focus of the first series of experiments is the "famous-names effect": If participants are presented with a list of names of female and male persons, then the frequency of that sex is overestimated that was represented with more famous names on the list. As more famous names are additionally recalled better, this effect was usually explained with the availability heuristic. An alternative account was suggested within the framework of the associationist-model PASS (Sedlmeier, 1999) and the multiple-trace model MINERVA-DM (Dougherty et al., 1999). According to this, the effect is primarily caused by the different pre-experimental frequencies of famous and non-famous names. If this is correct, the famous-names effect should generalize to any stimulus material. This hypothesis was tested in four experiments. The predictions of the memory models were compared with the predictions of a recall-estimate version of the availability heuristic (e.g. Watkins & LeCompte, 1991). Contrary to the predictions of all tested approaches, the participants were mostly able to judge the frequencies of the presented categories approximately correctly. The results indicate furthermore that systematic biases only occurred if the participants based their judgments at least partially on the recall-estimate strategy. However, as the participants only did this in exceptional cases the entire result pattern is explained best within a multiple strategy perspective (Brown, 2002). A re-analysis of the data from all four experiments suggests that the size of the sample of retrieved exemplars is the crucial factor for the (additional) use of the recall-estimate strategy. In the second study new predictions about the influence of associations on frequency estimates are derived from the PASS-model and tested. In two experiments words that were either strongly or weakly associated with each other were presented to the participants. Predictions of the PASS model for the frequency estimates about this stimulus material were gained by means of simulations. In a first step PASS acquired associations between the stimulus words from a large text corpus. Subsequently, the model encoded the experimental study lists. PASS expects higher frequency judgments for associated than for non-associated words. The size of this effect should be independent of the actual presentation frequencies of the words. Finally, the model expects that the frequencies of associated words are discriminated slightly worse than the frequencies of non-associated words. These predictions were largely confirmed in both experiments. The decision times required by the participants to generate their estimates indicate here that they did not base their judgments on the recall-estimate strategy. The results thus strengthen the assumption that the encoding and representation of frequency information are based on associative learning. / Aktuelle Theorien zur Häufigkeitsverarbeitung wurden in unterschiedlichen Teilgebieten der Psychologie entwickelt und weisen erstaunliche Diskrepanzen auf. So werden Häufigkeitsschätzungen über seriell enkodierte Ereignisse in der Urteils- und Entscheidungsforschung zumeist auf die Verfügbarkeitsheuristik (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973) zurückgeführt. Evidenz für die Verwendung dieser Heuristik stammt aus einigen populären Demonstrationen fehlerhafter Häufigkeitsschätzungen. Diese Demonstrationen führten in der Entscheidungsforschung zu der Schlussfolgerung, dass Häufigkeitsurteile generell fehleranfällig seien. Demgegenüber wurden in der Gedächtnispsychologie detaillierte, computerimplementierte Gedächtnismodelle benutzt, um Häufigkeitsschätzungen zu erklären. Obwohl sich diese Modelle in ihren spezifischen Repräsentationsannahmen zum Teil deutlich unterscheiden, kommen sie alle zu der grundlegenden Vorhersage, dass Häufigkeitsschätzungen in der Regel recht genau, aber regrediert sein sollten. Diese Vorhersage wurde in zahlreichen Untersuchungen bestätigt. In der gedächtnispsychologischen Forschung hat es jedoch bisher kein systematisches Bemühen gegeben, Faktoren, die zu Verzerrungen in Häufigkeitsschätzungen führen, zu identifizieren und die Demonstrationen fehlerhafter Schätzungen aus der Entscheidungsforschung zu erklären. Die zwei in der vorliegenden Arbeit präsentierten Studien verfolgen die Fragestellung, inwieweit Gedächtnismodelle in der Lage sind, Fehler in Häufigkeitsurteilen zu erklären und neue Vorhersagen über verzerrende Faktoren zu generieren. Im Mittelpunkt der ersten Serie von Experimenten steht dabei der "Famous-Names Effekt": Nach der Präsentation einer Liste mit Namen weiblicher und männlicher Personen wird die Häufigkeit desjenigen Geschlechts überschätzt, das mit berühmteren Namen auf der Liste vertreten war. Da berühmtere Namen zudem besser erinnert werden, wurde dieser Effekt gewöhnlich auf die Verfügbarkeitsheuristik zurückgeführt. Eine Alternativerklärung wurde sowohl im Rahmen des assoziationistischen PASS-Modells (Sedlmeier, 1999) als auch innerhalb des Exemplarmodells MINERVA-DM (Dougherty et al., 1999) vorgeschlagen. Demnach wird der Effekt primär durch die unterschiedliche prä-experimentelle Häufigkeit berühmter und nicht-berühmter Namen verursacht. Ist diese Annahme korrekt, so sollte der Famous-Names Effekt auch auf anderes Stimulusmaterial generalisieren. Diese Hypothese wurde in vier Experimenten überprüft. Dabei wurden die Vorhersagen der Gedächtnismodelle mit den Vorhersagen einer "Recall-Estimate" Version der Verfügbarkeitsheuristik (z. B. Watkins & LeCompte, 1991) verglichen. Entgegen den Vorhersagen aller getesteten Ansätze waren die Teilnehmer in der Regel in der Lage, die Häufigkeit der verwendeten Kategorien recht gut einzuschätzen. Die Ergebnisse sprechen zudem dafür, dass systematische Fehler in den Häufigkeitsurteilen nur dann auftraten, wenn sich die Teilnehmer bei der Generierung ihrer Schätzungen zumindest teilweise auf die Recall-Estimate Strategie stützten. Da die Teilnehmer dies jedoch nur in Ausnahmefällen taten, kann das gesamte Ergebnismuster am besten innerhalb einer "Multiple Strategy Perspective" (Brown, 2002) erklärt werden. Eine Reanalyse der Daten aus allen vier Experimenten legt dabei die Schlussfolgerung nahe, dass die Stichprobengröße erinnerter Exemplare ausschlaggebend für die (zusätzliche) Verwendung der Recall-Estimate Strategie ist. In der zweiten Studie werden neuartige Vorhersagen über den Einfluss von Assoziationen auf Häufigkeitsschätzungen aus dem PASS-Modell abgeleitet und getestet. In zwei Experimenten wurden den Teilnehmern Wörter präsentiert, die untereinander entweder stark oder schwach assoziiert waren. Die Vorhersagen des PASS-Modells über die Häufigkeitsschätzungen zu diesem Stimulusmaterial wurden mit Hilfe von Simulationen gewonnen. In einem ersten Simulationsschritt erwarb PASS aus großen Textkorpora Assoziationen zwischen den Stimuluswörtern. Anschließend enkodierte das Modell die experimentellen Stimuluslisten. PASS erwartet, dass assoziierte Wörter höhere Schätzungen erhalten als nicht-assoziierte Wörter. Die Größe dieses Effekts sollte von der Präsentationshäufigkeit der Wörter unabhängig sein. Schließlich erwartet das Modell, dass die Häufigkeit assoziierter Wörter geringfügig schlechter diskriminiert wird als die Häufigkeit nicht-assoziierter Wörter. Diese Vorhersagen wurden in beiden Experimenten weitgehend bestätigt. Die Verwendung einer Recall-Estimate Strategie konnte dabei mit Hilfe von Reaktionszeitmessungen ausgeschlossen werden. Die Ergebnisse stützen damit die Annahme, dass die Enkodierung und Repräsentation von Häufigkeitsinformation auf assoziativem Lernen basiert.

Årsredovisningar är ett ofta förekommande objekt inom redovisningsforskningen. Årsredovisningarna är en viktig kommunikationskanal mellan företaget och dess olika intressenter. Rapportens ändamål är primärt att ge intressenterna information om företagets resultat och finansiella ställning. Årsredovisningarnas karaktär har genom åren utvecklats och berikats med bland annat bilder och kompletterande textuella avsnitt. I denna studie har den narrativa delen av årsredovisningar ’VD:n har ordet’ studerats. Avsnittet utgör en viktig del av årsredovisningens frivilliga element, och är en av de mest lästa delarna. Samtidigt är ’VD:n har ordet’, till skillnad från flertalet andra delar i årsredovisningen, oreglerad. Detta ger företaget och den verkställande direktören stora möjligheter att kommunicera ut legitimitetskapande budskap till dess intressenter. Tidigare forskning visar att aktiviteter kopplade till CSR har en positiv påverkan på intressenternas inställning gentemot företaget. CSR är ett rymligt begrepp som innefattar relationen och ansvarstagandet mellan företag och samhälle. Det har visat sig ha stor betydelse för företagen att lyckas signalera dessa aktiviteter till intressenterna. Denna studie syftar till att ge en bättre inblick i hur svenska företag använder ’VD:n har ordet’ för att lyfta fram CSR. Vidare undersöks om det har skett en ökning av CSR-begrepp i ’VD:n har ordet’. Studien uppvisar att det inte finns något samband mellan företagens vinstmarginal och andel CSR-begrepp i ’VD:n har ordet’. Det går inte heller att urskilja ett samband mellan andel CSR-begrepp och andelen begrepp kopplade till resultat. Däremot kunde vi bevisa att det skett en linjär ökning av CSR-begrepp mellan år 2006 och 2015. Begrepp kopplade till resultat har minskat, om än inte linjärt. / Annual reports are a frequently used item in the accounting research. The annual reports are an important communication channel between the company and its various stakeholders. The purpose of the report is to give the stakeholders information about the company's earnings and financial position. The character of the annual reports has evolved over the years and has been enriched with, among other things, pictures and additional textual sections. In this study, the narrative part of the annual reports ‘CEO-letter’ has been studied. The section constitutes an important part of the annual report's optional elements, and is one of the most read sections. At the same time, the ‘CEO-letter’, unlike most other part of the annual report, is unregulated. This fact gives the company and the CEO a great opportunity to communicate legitimacy-creating messages to its stakeholders. Previous research shows that activities related to CSR have a positive impact on stakeholders' attitude towards the company. CSR is a spacious concept that includes the relationship and responsivities between the company and its society. It has been found to be of great importance for companies to successfully signal these activities to stakeholders. This study aims at giving a better insight into how Swedish companies use the 'CEO-letter' to highlight CSR. Further investigations are made if there has been an increase in the use of words related to CSR in the 'CEO-letters’. This study shows that there is no correlation between the company's profit margin and the share of CSR concepts in the ‘CEO-letter’. In addition, we could not discern a relationship between the share of CSR concepts and the proportion of concepts linked to results in the ‘CEO-letters’. On the other hand, we could prove that there has been a linear increase in CSR concepts over the past ten years. Furthermore, concepts linked to results have decreased, albeit not in a linear manner. Please note that the thesis language is in Swedish.

This two-part study investigates the word frequency of a total of 1296 vocabularies presented in the textbooks Digilär Tyska 3 and Lieber Deutsch 3 2.0, which correspond to the language proficiency level A2. The aim of the study was to investigate to what extent the designated vocabulary in the two textbooks represents the most frequent words in the German language. To determine this, the study was divided into two parts: In the first part, a quantitative study was conducted to answer the following research question: To what extent does the vocabulary in two German textbooks used in Swedish upper secondary schools represent the most frequent words in the German language? The chapter vocabularies were compared to the corpus-based frequency dictionary A Frequency Dictionary of German which lists the 4034 most frequent words in the German language. This study showed that both textbooks provided a high coverage of high frequency words with a percentage of 78% and 73%. Additionally, the vocabularies belonging to the vocabulary excerises in Digilär Tyska 3 were investigated and the result showed that 62% of these words had a low frequency and were not included in the frequency dictionary. Due to this low frequency coverage in the vocabulary exercises a need for a second part of the study was identified to investigate whether this vocabulary, despite its low frequency would still be important for the students to learn. Therefore, a second study with the following two research questions was conducted: Which themes do the low frequent words belong to? To what extent would each word separately in a low frequent composition come across as high frequent?The analyses in the second part of this study showed that the most dominating themes among the low frequency words were describing words, animals, hobbies and other. Consequently, it was argued that these themes could be relevant to address the students’ varying interests. Furthermore, the frequency analysis of the low frequency compositions showed that 13.8 % of the low frequency words could be seen as high frequent when the frequency of each word within a composition was taken into account. Based on these results, it was argued that students learning German with the help of these textbooks would encounter many high frequency words. However, it was stressed that frequency alone cannot be the only deciding factor when identifying the adequate vocabulary for language learners. Motivational aspects such as incorporating vocabulary belonging to themes that students have an interest in would be another important factor that needs to be taken into account when choosing vocabulary. Furthermore, it was argued that teachers should incorporate strategies for German word composition to increase their students’ vocabulary range.

I detta arbete undersöks två etablerade och en experimentell metod för bestämmande av läsbarheten hos texter. Metoderna undersöks genom att de appliceras på två litterära verk: Atemschaukel av Herta Müller och Berühre mich. Nicht. av Laura Kneidl. Metoderna som undersöks är läsbarhetsformeln Flesch-Reading-Ease (meningslängd och ordlängd) och ordfrekvens (hur vanliga orden är). Dessa båda läsbarhetsundersökningar är väletablerade och har använts flitigt. I detta arbete testas även en ny möjlig läsbarhetsfaktor: Upprepningar av ord, där upprepningar av innehållsord räknas. Resultaten av analyserna enligt de olika metoderna sammanställs och jämförs för att besvara två frågor: 1. Vilket verk förefaller mest lättläst enligt de två etablerade läsbarhetsundersökningarna? 2. Samvarierar mängden upprepningar med resultaten från de andra två läsbarhetsundersökningarna? Resultaten ger en något splittrad bild: Atemschaukel är enligt Flesch-Reading-Ease det mest lättlästa verket, medan ordfrekvensen visar på motsatt förhållande: Berühre mich. Nicht. har de genomsnittligt vanligare orden. Huruvida upprepning av ord har ett samband med läsbarheten är svårt att avgöra baserat enbart på resultaten i denna undersökning. Användandet av språkliga stilfaktorer för eventuellt att läsbarhetstest inte lämpar sig för undersökning av skönlitterära texter.

Over the years, a variety of methods have been used in order toestimate policy positions for political parties in national parliaments. This papersets out to apply a novel computational method called Wordfish and apply it to aheavily under-researched form of political text, parliamentary speeches.Quantitative studies of this sort are even more rare the case in Sweden in whichquantitative studies on parliamentary speeches is close to non-existent. In anattempt to contribute to fill the gap in literature this study uses scaling techniqueusing word frequencies and to estimate positions of 4 Swedish political partiesalong two dimensions in political space. By observing the estimated movement bythese 4 parties over a 20-year time period one can draw conclusions of theSwedish political space and how it has shifted over time. One can also evaluatethe chosen method on this specific research material, a combination that has notbeen seen before. The results suggest that there is fine tuning that needs to bedone when using Wordfish considering the output was not in line with conventionalwisdom and previous research. The studied did show interesting movementtowards the authoritarian extreme by the two largest parties in Swedish nationalpolitics.

Vocabulary is a crucial component for language acquisition and EFL lessons are often dictated by the usage of textbooks and workbooks. The current study therefore aims to investigate how effective textbooks are in helping learners acquire high, mid, and low-frequency words as well as to what degree high and mid-frequency words are repeated throughout the textbooks. Additionally, the study explores the types of exercises presented in the EFL teaching materials, with a particular focus on the extent to which they promote learners' active engagement and use of the vocabulary presented. The findings suggest that EFL teaching materials could benefit from more comprehensive and systematic approaches to vocabulary instruction, which emphasize the active use and recycling of high and mid-frequency words in meaningful contexts. The present study recommends that teaching materials and EFL teachers incorporate more varied and interactive exercises that promote learners’ active engagement and use of the target vocabulary. Additionally, the study uses corpus-based methods to investigate the frequency level of text bodies compiled from EFL textbooks targeting sixth-grade pupils in Sweden. Furthermore, the accompanying workbooks are examined to establish the types of exercises pupils are exposed to through their use. In addition, the study suggests that teachers using the included teaching materials should incorporate additional vocabulary exercises in their EFL instructions to promote the repetition of words found in the textbooks.

Arctic Canada has seen significant ecological changes since the 1990s, leading to sea ice melt, increased temperatures, and increased accessibility to the Northwest Passage. The increased accessibility to the Northwest Passage has allowed for vessels to easily access maritime routes that were not previously accessible. Changes to the Arctic landscape has led to the beginning of open water shipping seasons in Arctic waters, attracting international audiences for trade, tourism, fisheries, and other economic activity. This new passageway increases options for companies to reduce costs in shipping, while also facilitating new and emerging hazards and risks for operational vessels. Comprehensive risk analysis and full assessments need to be completed to aid policy- and decision-makers to support and manage the increasing maritime traffic in Canadian Arctic waters. To fill this knowledge gap, the overarching aim of this master’s level research was to identify and preliminarily evaluate a comprehensive list of hazards (impact drivers) and risks (future impacts) for Maritime ship operations within Arctic Canada and to complete a preliminary assessment of identified maritime shipping hazards and risks throughout Arctic Canada. Hazards and risks were identified using several text-based sources, including social media, grey literature, and peer reviewed journal articles, in order to conduct a comprehensive content analysis to identify the perspectives and trends emerging among the online community. Natural language processing methods were then used, such as word frequencies, word correlation, and topic modelling to identify key phrases, terminology, and thematic groups. This allowed for the creation of an inventory of relevant hazard and risk themes and categories that could be used as a strong basis for informing a risk analysis. Emerging themes included: sea ice, navigability issues, geopolitical concerns, and operational challenges, among others. Following the identification of hazard and risk factors, a ‘failure modes, effects, and criticality analysis’ (FMECA) approach was used, along with a consequence-probability Rettinger ix matrix, as means of performing a preliminary risk analysis. The method enables the collection of information regarding hazard and risk descriptors, consequence, probability, control mechanisms, impacts, and data quality information, to establish a validated risk rating score. Risk rating scores are calculated using consequences and probability scores to determine average risk ratings for individual hazards and risks and at the sector-based category level. A total of 154 variables were inventoried: 55 hazards were identified and 99 risks were noted that influence maritime ship operations in Arctic Canada. Five variables were classified as ‘VERY HIGH’: three hazards (hydrocarbon releases, transportation of dangerous goods, and multiyear sea ice) and two risks (community member displacement and socioeconomic impacts on indigenous peoples). Five thematic groups were seen as priority risk ratings, two of which identified with “HIGH” data quality indexes (Sea Ice, Environmental). A total of 35 hazards and 36 risks are recommended for further investigation, being classified with a ‘VERY HIGH’ or ‘HIGH’ data quality score. Results of this research supports a preliminary attempt at a comprehensive risk analysis that can be used in the future to conduct a full risk assessment.

Text in English / This study examined the vocabulary and academic literacy levels of undergraduate students at the University of Namibia, as well as the effects of an explicit and an implicit vocabulary programme on vocabulary development and academic literacy. The study also sought to determine the effects of the programmes on students’ attitudes about vocabulary and explicit vocabulary strategies. The relationship between students’ vocabulary size, academic literacy levels, and their self-assessment of their vocabulary knowledge was examined. Many students had not reached the desired word mastery and did not have adequate academic literacy skills to cope with the demands of university. Students in the explicit group modestly improved receptive vocabulary knowledge at the end of the intervention but there was no significant improvement in academic literacy skills. Overall, students showed an increase in positive responses regarding their attitudes to vocabulary. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)

隨著資訊技術的進步，各種史料文本的數位化工作已經處理完成，運用資訊技術於史料文本分析的研究日益增加。本研究以詞頻分析與社會網路分析為主軸，對於古代《易經》爻辭的文字進行多元化的觀察，本研究首先以詞頻分析探討《易經》爻辭字詞頻率的觀察，再利用《易經》爻辭位置資訊建構成各個社會網路結構，對每個社會網路結構運算各項社會網路指標數據，最後將實驗結果與過往《易經》爻辭的論點做印證與對照，期望對於《易經》爻辭之分析，有更多元性的客觀研究觀察。本研究提供了一個分析《易經》爻辭的新面向，也可供未來研究者對於其他古文研究作參考。 / With advances in information technology, digitization of various historical text has been completed.The study of historical text analysis by using information technology is in-creasing daily.In this paper, we used word frequency analysis and social network analy-sis in the I-Ching line statements.First, we used word frequency analysis in I-Ching line statements,using N-gram and TF-IDF technique analysis word frequency.Second, we constructed social network structure by I-Ching line statements position infor-mation,calculating several social network analysis indicator on each network.We com-pared our experiment results with some existing I-Ching theory, expecting to get more objective results and more diverse analysis for the I-Ching line statements. We not only provided a new perspective to study I-Ching line statements but also expected to help other researchers to study different historical text.