The primary purpose of this study is to explore a case of remarkably powerful contemporary rhetoric, namely Robert Parker’s wine writing, which has had an unprecedented impact in the world of prestigious wine for more than two decades. Parker, an American autodidact who gave up his career in law to become a fulltime wine critic, is considered the most influential critic of all time. This background motivates the approach of the current enquiry, which targets the persuasiveness in Parker’s writing. The investigation strives to bring to the fore both explicit and implicit elements of his wine reviews that have the potential to contribute to rhetorical success. The material selected for analysis comprises a corpus of reviews extracted from Parker’s extensive bulk of wine writing. The texts are studied against the backdrop of socio-cultural and institutional frames. Considerable importance is assigned to the fact that the reviews occur within a strictly specialized field of discourse with a highly conventionalized configuration. This hermeneutic enquiry approaches the topic from three analytical perspectives, designed to highlight persuasiveness in representations, argumentation and appraisal. The presentation reports on schematic patterns in Parker’s discourse as well as close interpretation of individual texts. The analysis of representations shows that both visual and verbal representations contribute to the persuasiveness of the text. The argumentative exploration of Parker’s discourse, which is assisted by the analytical tools of pragma-dialectics, demonstrates that the reviews involve rational argumentation on several subordinate levels, given in support of assessments and recommendations. Finally, the perspective of appraisal draws on the analytical resources provided by the Appraisal model to shed light on the way in which the audience is positioned to respond with respect to emotional, associative and perceptual values. The results indicate that the persuasiveness of Parker’s discourse arises as a result of concordance among an intricate array of interrelated factors. The audience is recurrently demonstrated to play a crucial role as co-constructors of the message. The present study also has methodological outcomes, presenting a novel combination of analytical methods to perform contextually situated discourse analysis. In addition, the material is allowed to challenge the theoretical ideas and notions that are addressed.

In a joint dissertation project, 11 brass instrument and guitar lessons, with 4 teachers and 21 students aged 9-35 years, were videotaped, transcribed and ana­lyzed. Two were group lessons and 9 were private lessons. The object of the pro­ject was to study how music teaching and learning can be under­stood from an institutional perspective by describing, analyzing and in­terpreting musical in­strument lessons. The lessons were viewed as social encounters in which the action of participants creates and re-creates social orders at different institutional levels, by means of communication rou­tines using speech, music and gesture. Data were derived from micro-ethnographic transcriptions of speech, gesture and music of a total of five hours of videotape, supplemented by text analyses of 14 method-books. The transcripts were analyzed as text from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. At the analytical level the study applied the cognitive concepts of experiencing and learning music, as well as those of educational gen­res of speech and music use. The analyzed data were interpreted and discussed from the per­spectives of interaction-theory and institution-theory. The results show how the music during the lessons was broken down into sepa­rate notes, as read from the score. Music was not addressed as phrases, rhythms, or melodies. Expressive qualities of music performance were not ad­dressed. The characteristics of the interaction were found to be asymmetric, with the teacher being the one controlling the definition of the situation. Student at­tempts to take initiative were ignored by teachers. This asymmetric pattern of interaction had negative consequences for students’ as well as teachers’ opportu­nities to learn. The organization of the teaching situation as well as teaching methods is discussed from the perspective of institution-theory. A major conclu­sion is that the way instrument teaching is organized leaves little room for stu­dents and teachers to discuss and reflect on the teaching process.

In recent years knowledge has been brought forward as an important political issue both in the EU and in Sweden. It is said to be of the uttermost importance not just for education but for society as a whole. As a result of increased globalization and a European striving for economic growth, knowledge has come to be associated with both individual and national competitiveness, and education and learning in schools and workplaces have become a political priority. In this global competition the EU has become an important policy actor in the educational field trying to create a common European education policy field. Despite this development, only a limited number of reports relating the European arena to Swedish educational reforms have been published. Against this background the aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of the knowledge discourses which struggle for legitimacy in Swedish and European education policy and how these discourses relate to each other and change over time. The empirical material consists of a number of fundamental official policy texts produced by the EU and the Swedish state. The study takes its theoretical point of departure in critical discourse analysis using an analytical grid where production, content and communication are seen as three aspects constituting every knowledge discourse. The result shows a process of silent Europeanization in Swedish school reform where European knowledge discourse is being re-contextualised and in many cases re-interpreted without any declaration in terms of explicit references. It also confirms the general trend towards increased focus on learning outcomes and demands for measurability. Furthermore, the result shows how competition rhetoric dominating the EU contributes to an increased sense of crisis in both European and Swedish educational reforms. As a result of this crisis rhetoric the study shows how the proactive reform-perspective is being replaced by a retrospective where solving already existing problems replaces the planning of an uncertain future.

Purpose/Aim: The aim of this thesis was to study the construction of gender and to compare Media’s portrayal of male and female athletes. Material/Method: 140 articles covering seven famous Swedish male and female athletes were selected from two Swedish newspapers (Aftonbladet and Expressen). The articles has been analysed within the frames of Norman Faircloughs Critical Discourse Analysis. Main results: Male athletes are often described in powerful ways and are framed as being strong and successful. Skills and strengths of women athletes are often devalued in comparison to standards of hegemonic masculinity and self-control. They are often framed as women and girlfriends in advantage of the fact that they are athletes.

This dissertion is focused on the concept of caring and its historical development. The aim is to examine the meaning making processes involved in shaping the caring practice in the twentieth century by pointing out and analysing conceptions of caring in texts. The study is based on analyses of union publications, textbooks and texts produced by Swedish governmental committees. Theoretically and methodologically this study is inspired by Norman Fairclough, his critical discourse analysis and his views on meaning, language, change and power relations. The analysis shows that two separate constructions of meaning have dominated the twentieth century. During the first half of the twentieth century, medical science was the chief influence on caring, the idea being that caring should be supplementary to medical practice. Both nurses and nurse's assistants have contributed to this concept of meaning. In the sixties, however, something happened. Old and predominant views on caring are being rejected and questioned by the nurses. The dominant medical discourse is being problemized. Ideas from discourses formally marginalized are being employed by nurses and the governmental committees. The importance of satisfying needs, not just medical ones, and a holistic view on caring are now being stressed. The patient, not the doctor, is thereby focused in the caring practice. The meaning of caring changes from a doing with the body inte a special attitude to the patient. "Omvårdnad" (nursing) is more and more the term around which meaning is evolving.

Every year, approximately 17 500 drunk drivers are sued in Sweden. Of these, only 10 percent are women. The women are therefore considered a minority. In this study, I have taken interest in how the female drunk driver is constructed implemented by the probation service. By using critical discourse analysis I have found that the woman in these investigations is contributed the role of a deviant in two senses. She deviates because she is a woman who has committed a criminal deed and also because she often has problems with alcohol as well. I have found that the woman, because of these deviations, is depicted as a victim, both for the situation she is in and for her own actions.

This paper presents the results of a critical discourse analysis of a selection of Canada’s security texts and argues that the country’s security discourses construct Muslims as dangerous and different from the normative Canadian. The research relies on a social constructionist understanding of discourse and the recognition that our state’s representatives and agents, operating from positions of discursive power, wield disproportionate influence in directing the national conversation and managing the signals that shape our social attitudes and imaginaries. By persistently qualifying terrorism with Islam, portraying the terrorist figure as a religiously and ideologically-motivated actor opposed to ‘Western values’ and by casting suspicion on the ordinary behaviour of Muslims, Canada’s security discourses produce a mental model in which Islam and its followers are associated with a propensity for terrorist violence. The discourses also naturalize the idea that Muslims are in need of surveillance, not only by the state’s agents, but by the public itself. When examined alongside a body of research illustrating Canada’s ‘visible minority’ population continues to be negatively affected by dominant group discrimination, the results of the study raise questions about the culpability of state representatives in the reproduction of ideas of difference which continue to inform the country’s social imaginary and hinder the equality and inclusivity of minority groups within the national collective.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vad som händer med dramapedagogik när den är en tillfällig besökare i skolan genom regeringssatsningen Skapande skola. Studien undersöker vad som händer med dramapedagogikens processinriktade arbetssätt när den ska rymmas inom en målinriktad projektverksamhet som Skapande skola vars syfte är att möjliggöra professionell konst i för- och grundskola. Med socialkonstruktionistisk ansats genomförs en kritisk diskursanalys för att belysa hur dramapedagogiken konstrueras inom ramen för Skapande skola projekt. Föremål för detta arbete är studier av texter producerade av regeringen samt intervjuer av dramapedagoger med erfarenhet från Skapande skola. Resultatet bearbetas utifrån ett maktperspektiv med stöd av Faircloughs modell för kritisk diskursanalys samt diskuteras utifrån Tönniers begrepp gemeinschaft och gesellschaft. Studien visar på att Skapande skola och dramapedagogik har lärande som gemensam nämnare. Det är i det praktiska arbetet som Skapande skola och dramapedagogik kan hamna i maktkamp eftersom det kan saknas enighet om hur lärande definieras och iscensätts. Studien identifierar reflektion, holistiskt och transformativt lärande, fördjupande processer och möte genom interaktion som dramapedagogiska nyckelord för att definiera lärande. Studien visar på att dessa nyckelkomponenter ofta försvinner när ramarna för Skapande skola är allt för strama. / The aim of this dissertation is to investigate how pedagogical drama is affected when temporary appearing in schools through the art project Skapande skola initiated by the Swedish government. The dissertation examines how the process of drama pedagogy is being exposed and used within some of the projects of Skapande skola. By using theory of social constructivism a Critical discourse analysis I carried out in order to expose how pedagogical drama is constructed within the frames of Skapande skola. The subjects of research are texts produced by the Swedish government and interviews with drama practitioners with experience of working with Skapande skola. The result is discussed by using a power perspective with the support of Fairclough’s model of Critical discourse analysis as well as Tönnier’s theoretical ideas of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. The study unfolds that Skapande Skola and pedagogical drama have learning as a key component. It is within the social practice that Skapande skola and pedagogical drama may enter a power struggle, as there could be a disagreement on how learning shall be defined and staged. Key components identified in this study defining learning in pedagogical drama are reflection, holistic and transformative learning, accentuated process and meeting through interaction. The study reveal that the key components are often left out when the frames are too tight within the Skapande skola project.

Syftet med denna undersökning har varit att undersöka ifall män och kvinnor representeras på lika eller olika sätt i en svensk branschtidning. Syftet har även inkluderat att studera ifall det har skett någon förändring i denna representation över tid. Därför har undersökningen innefattat ett tidsperspektiv. Tidsperspektivet har inneburit att undersökningen har utförts vid fyra olika tidsnedslag, vilka är år 1981, 1991, 2001 samt 2011. Den frågeställning som vi har avsett att besvara är: Hur har män och kvinnor porträtterats i branschtidningen Veckans Affärer från 1980-talet fram till 2010-talet? Finns det likheter och/eller skillnader? Finns det också någon skillnad i hur mycket utrymme som män respektive kvinnor har fått i branschtidningen genom åren? Undersökningen har tolkats utifrån ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av R.W. Connells teori om den hegemoniska maskuliniteten. De feministiska perspektiven liberalfeminism, radikalfeminism och marxistisk socialistisk feminism har också använts. Även Gunilla Jarlbro och Maria Edströms genomgång av genusstrukturer har använts som teoretiskt underlag i denna uppsats. Den metod som har använts till denna undersökning är dels en mindre kvantitativ räkning av samtliga nummer av tidningen Veckans Affärer under 1981, 1991, 2001 samt 2011. Därefter har en kritisk diskursanalys utförts på fyra stycken utvalda nummer från respektive tidsnedslag under undersökningsperioden. De huvudsakliga resultaten som har kunnat uttolkas i denna undersökning är att män får mycket mer utrymme i det undersökta tidningsmagasinet än vad kvinnor får. Det finns dessutom tydliga skillnader i hur män och kvinnor porträtteras i tidningsmagasinet. Den slutsats som därmed kan dras av denna undersökning är att kvinnor inte är helt jämställda män när det kommer till hur de representeras i media. / The purpose with this essay has been to study if men and women are represented in different ways in a Swedish trade magazine. The purpose has also been to study if there have occurred any differences over time. The study has therefore included a timeline where we have studied four years with ten years apart. These have been during the years of 1981, 1991, 2001 and finally 2011. The question formulation in this essay has consequently been as follows: In what ways have men and women been portrayed in the trade magazine Veckans Affärer from the 1980’s up to the 2010’s? Are there any similarities and/or differences? Is there also any difference in the amount of space that has been given to men and women in the trade magazine throughout the time? Several theories have been used in order to interpret the results of our study. These have consisted of R.W. Connell’s theory about the hegemonic masculinity, the three feministic perspectives of the liberal feminism, the radical feminism as well as the Marxist-socialistic feminism. Also the theory of different gender structures of Gunilla Jarlbro and Maria Edströms have been used. The method in this study has consisted of two steps, first has a smaller quantitative analysis been made. It has been made on all of the copies that have been published of the magazine Veckans Affärer during the time of our study, which is during 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011. A critical discourse analysis has subsequently been made on four chosen copies from all the chosen years during the time of our study, which are 16 copies of the magazine in total. The main result that we have been able to distinguish from our material is that men in general are provided more space in the studied magazine than women are. There are also clear differences in the ways that men and women are portrayed. One of the main differences in the magazine is that women are more often than men described to be more connected to the private sphere. The conclusion one therefore can draw from our study is that little has happened over time in the area of gender research. Women are still quite unequal compared to men in the ways they are portrayed in media.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the longest and most violent conflicts in modern history. The language used to represent this important conflict in the media is frequently commented on by scholars and political commentators (e.g., Ackerman, 2001; Fisk, 2001; Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007). To date, however, few studies in the field of applied linguistics have attempted a thorough investigation of the language used to represent the conflict in influential media outlets using systematic methods of linguistic analysis. The current study aims to partially bridge this gap by combining methods and analytical frameworks from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Corpus Linguistics (CL) to analyze the discursive representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in American, Arab, and British media, represented by CNN, Al-Jazeera Arabic, and BBC respectively. CDA, which is primarily interested in studying how power and ideology are enacted and resisted in the use of language in social and political contexts, has been frequently criticized mainly for the arbitrary selection of a small number of texts or text fragments to be analyzed. In order to strengthen CDA analysis, Stubbs (1997) suggested that CDA analysts should utilize techniques from CL, which employs computational approaches to perform quantitative and qualitative analysis of actual patterns of use occurring in a large and principled collection of natural texts. In this study, the corpus-based keyword technique is initially used to identify the topics that tend to be emphasized, downplayed, and/or left out in the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in three corpora complied from the news websites of Al-Jazeera, CNN, and the BBC. Topics –such as terrorism, occupation, settlements, and the recent Israeli disengagement plan—which were found to be key in the coverage of the conflict—are further studied in context using several other corpus tools, especially the concordancer and the collocation finder. The analysis reveals some of the strategies employed by each news website to control for the positive or negative representations of the different actors involved in the conflict. The corpus findings are interpreted using some informative CDA frameworks, especially Van Dijk’s (1998) ideological square framework.