This thesis investigates the grammatical constructions of be-and get-passives and their usage by Swedes writing in English. The investigation is based on findings from four different corpora, two of which were compiled for the purpose of this study. The first one, SWENC (the Swedish English Newspaper Corpus), contains texts from online newspapers and a corporate newsletter written by Swedes in English. The second, BESC (Blogs in English by Swedes Corpus), contains material collected from blogs written in English by Swedes. The results from these corpora are compared with results from the press sub-corpora of the native English Frown (American English) and F-LOB corpora (British English). The results show that Swedes writing in English use passive constructions to a similar extent as native English speakers do within the news genre. Furthermore, Swedes writing in English use significantly more be-passive constructions within the news genre than the more informal blog genre. Lastly, the study shows that Swedes writing in English use get-passives, and that they are considerably more common in the informal language used in blogs than the more formal language used in online newspapers.

The aim of this study is to examine to what extent Swedish writers, who write in English, use the modals must, have to and have got to. The hypothesis being tested argues that the core modal must is not being challenged by the emerging modals have to and have got to in this non-native variety of English. The objective of this thesis is to be accomplished by attempting to answer the following research questions: 1) What is the frequency and usage of the English modals must, have to and have got to in the material? 2) How do the frequencies in the Swedish material compare with the frequencies in the British and American corpora and to the previous studies? 3) How do the Swedish writers use the modals with regard to epistemic and deontic meaning? The study is corpus based, and the corpora used consist of Swedish newspapers in English (SWENC) and material from blogs and tweets which are written in English by Swedes (SESMC). These are compared with the press sub-corpora in BE06 (the British 2006 corpus of CQP web at Lancaster) and in AE06 (the American 2006 corpus of CQP web at Lancaster), which represent British and American native varieties of English. The method is quantitative and the results are presented after the process of normalization. The results show that must, have to and have got to are used in SWENC and SESMC although, to greatly varying degrees. The core modal must is more frequently used in the Swedish corpus than in the British and American sub-corpora. The emerging modal have to is used more frequently than must in all three corpora. The second emerging modal have got to is very seldomly used. Additionally, a qualitative examination of the modals and their meanings reveal that the writers in SWENC and SESMC use the older modal must alongside the newer have to and newest modal have got to, but with a preference for a toned-down style of language. The conclusion drawn is that the core modal must is indeed being challenged by the emerging modal have to even in the non-native variety of English.

Med avstamp i en korpus bestående av svensk fiktionsprosa utgiven 1809–1930 studeras språkförändring innan, under och efter det moderna genombrottet. Utifrån en hypotes om att förändringar sker framför allt på frasnivå kartläggs nominalfrasens utveckling med avseende på längd och komplexitet. Längd och djup för samtliga nominalfraser i 303 verk analyseras för att synliggöra övergripande förändringstendenser. Desamma jämförs också med den grafiska meningens förändring i längd under perioden. Vidare görs också en närläsning av fyra av korpusens verk, vilka kan antas ha fungerat pådrivande alternativt bromsande i utvecklingen mot ett alltmer modernistiskt språk. Utifrån fem beskrivande kriterier för vad modernistiskt språk är och med fokus på verkens grafiska meningars och nominalfrasers utformning analyseras och diskuteras språket i Rosen på Tistelön, Psykologiska gåtor 3, Blå blommor och Tidens kvinnor i förhållande till stilutvecklingen under hela tidsperioden i stort. Resultatet visar en ökning av nominalfrasens längd och komplexitet under 1839–1878. Efter det vänder utvecklingen. År 1879–1930 minskar längd och komplexitet som snabbast, vilket delvis sammanfaller med det moderna genombrottet (1870–1905). Genom närläsningen framkommer att de kortare och enklare konstruerade nominalfraserna sammanfaller relativt tydligt med en mer modernistisk språkstil. Med viss modifikation av årtalsgränserna går det således att tala också om ett modernt genombrott språkligt sett.