The subject of this diploma thesis is discourse theory and its reflection on the style of judicial decision-making and argumentation. Discourse theory is based on the fundamental assumption that an interaction of more people is needed to achieve right and just knowledge. This is so because an individual is not capable of surmounting her or his own subjective perception of reality. On the contrary, a dialogue enables the articulation of opposing points of view and thus makes it possible to arrive at a more objective and just knowledge. The discourse theory of law, developed by J. Habermas and primarily by R. Alexy, ranks among the theories of legal argumentation with the dialogical approach to the desicion- making as a basic feature. The judge is no longer perceived as an authority that dictates a binding solution of the case to the parties. He or she cooperates with the parties to find and co-create the law to be applied. Discourse theory also stresses the claim to the equal position of parties. According to the contradictory principle, all parties have the same possibility to defend their statements and points of view. The parties and the judge thus create a discourse community in which they argue about the disputed subject and its legal solution. The ideal of the legal discourse theory is to render...

This study explores the articulation of a popular political identity by the US Senator Bernie Sanders and the political coalition he communicates. The analysis part is conducted on two levels: the construction of the populist signifier ‘the people’ and the construction of the antagonist in Sanders’ political communication. The theoretical part is mostly driven by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s perspective in radical democracy, identity construction, collectiveness and the chain of equivalence. By deploying theoretically unprejudiced approach, the thesis shows how a popular identity, namely ‘the People’, emerges, how it is communicated in order to put forward an alternative reading of populism which is hotly-debated subject among scholars and political scientists. Furthermore, the thesis elaborates how the theoretical discussion proposes a way of understanding the collective subject of ‘the People’ which appears as an identifiable and contra- conjectural category. The analysis ascertains that ‘the people’, as a populist subject, emerges as collective citizens demanding equal rights and taking the larger issues of inequality at stake based on inclusive values and positions, rather than as undemocratic, authoritarian, ethnically and culturally homogenizer subjects. Consequently, any subject causing ‘injustice’ becomes the antagonized other who obliges ‘the People’ to experience misery, oppression, and discrimination. The research tackles how Senator Sanders’ political communication brings disperse identities along with the chain of equivalence, how his movement articulates the political front of ‘the People’, and how it signifies the outsider through dichotomizing the political space. The study concludes that Sanders popular articulation provides a critical perspective for us to read populist zeitgeist of the twenty-first century.

The thesis called Qualitative Analysis of Media Discourse of the Far-right Blog cz.altermedia.info deals with the discourse analysis of the Czech version of an international project Altermedia.info. Discourse analysis aims at differences between the discourse of the founding editor and the current one and analyses the neo-fascist nature of the blog. The theoretical framework of the analysis is based on the postmarxist theory of discourse introduced by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The theoretical part of the thesis summarizes the findings of researchers who are engaged in discourse analysis (structuralism, poststructuralism, Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Norman Fairclough, Teun van Dijk). The thesis also examines how specific meaning is constructed within the nationalist discourse of Altermedia and to what extent a new team of authors contributed to the change of discourse. The analysis identifies the main nodal points, which are involved in the construction of discourse, and examines the antagonistic processes within the two different editors. Discursive analysis reveals particular inclination of the current discourse of Altermedia for the neo-Nazi ideology, and thus indicates the fundamental antagonism between the founding editors and current one.

Turkey and its authoritarian policies are in the headlines: the topic of Syrian refugees and the EU – Turkey deal, gross human rights violations, repression against opposition parties, and last but not least the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in March 2021. Heavy protests of feminist activist groups are demanding the end of gender-based violence and femicide.Against this background, the thesis investigates the reasons for the rapidly rising number of femicides in Turkey since 2008. It is argued that femicides are not isolated, individualized acts. Rather, they need to be grasped by the present social, political, and gendered context of Turkey. A contextual intersectional analysis is applied to examine the multifaceted and multilayered political phenomenon of femicides.The analysis reveals that femicides are not caused by single-issue factors, but rather by a variety of interlocking determinants such as deeply entrenched gender roles and patriarchal structures, gender-based violence, the regulatory landscape and the creation of political conditions that institutionalize gender hierarchy and violence.The unique contribution of this paper is the adoption of a decolonial view that incorporates a view to the resistance practices embedded into practices of repression and violence.

The aim of this study is to examine how British culture and British cultural identity is discursively constructed and represented in two texts, including images accompanying the texts, found in two textbooks used in the foundation course for English as a second language in the Swedish upper-secondary school, the textbooks published in the 1970s and the 1980s respectively. The aim also includes to see if British cultural identity is represented in a stereotypical manner and to see which views on culture are present in the texts. The methods used in the study are discourse analysis based on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, and Hall’s visual analysis. Two theories are applied to the material, these are Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory and Hall’s theory of stereotyping. The result of the present study shows that there are several representations of British cultural identity in the 1970s text and that all are stereotypical. In one of the representations, British cultural identity is understood as someone who is an Englishman which entails amongst other things being brought up in England as a real Englishman. The other representations of British cultural identity included the identities English people, Englishmen and cockneys. The identity English people includes both of the identities Englishmen and cockneys. The representation of English people is that background, class and the way you speak are important and that English people check each other’s background and class by listening to one another’s speech. The representation of Englishmen includes that they are upper-class proper Englishmen who speak the Queens English whereas cockneys are represented as lower-class people who speak a vulgar sort of English. In the 1980s text there are two representations of British cultural identity. The first one of these, which was found to be represented in a stereotypical manner, is constituted by the group identity pupils with British cultural background within a culturally and nationally diverse class in Britain. This representation is culturally exclusive since only pupils with British cultural background are included in this representation. The second representations of British cultural identity found in the 1980s text is a British class made up by a group of pupils with culturally and nationally diverse backgrounds. This representation was deemed to be non-stereotypical and culturally inclusive since this representation of British cultural identity is culturally diverse.

Through Laclau and Mouffes discourse theory, this study seeks to find and analyze the different types of discourses regarding digitalisation that exist in the Swedish upper secondary schools curriculum, focusing on those documents that regard the subjects Swedish and Swedish as a second language, and finally analyze what kind of implications these discourses can have for teachers in the subject of Swedish. The study starts with going through digital literacy and why it’s important in a digitalized world. With Laclau and Mouffes discourse theory as method, this study identifies several discourses available in the curriculum. These discourses are digital competence, digital work, digital tools, digital change and digital copyright. In addition to this, the study identifies three subjects as bearers of the discourse, the teacher, the student and the curriculum itself. The study finds that digitalization is loosely defined within the curriculum, leaving the teacher with the duty of both analyzing and construing their own view of digitalization within the subject Swedish. Finally, the study discusses the implications of these findings.

I den här uppsatsen redovisas hur tystnad används i musik och vad för effekt tystnad kan komma att skapa i musik. Syftet med uppsatsen är att studera begreppet tystnad och dess samband till musik. Undersökningens analys är uppdelad i två akter där jag först genomför diskursanalys kring hur andra forskare beskriver och diskuterar begreppet tystnad samt dess koppling till musik. Jag utför sedan en receptionsbaserad musikanalys där tre olika fonografiska verk analyseras för att skapa en bredare förståelse hur tystnad används. Musikanalysen undersöker verk av banden Bon Iver respektive Led Zeppelin i hopp om att finna partier i musiken som använder sig av tystnad i någon form. Efter närmare granskning kring begreppet tystnad så är det tydligt att tystnad i musik har flera syften och kan definieras utifrån olika begrepp och former. Tystnad uppfattas olika beroende på ett flertal faktorer och har i ett historiskt perspektiv varit ett självklart val bland större kompositörer.

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Sedan uppstarten av Sverigeförhandlingen 2014 har diskussionen kring infrastruktursatsningar i Sverige präglats av en ny höghastighetsbana vars syfte är att sammankoppla landets tre storstäder. Sverigeförhandlingens slutrapport (SOU 2017:107) visar på att den tidsmässiga aspekten har varit en ledande faktor vid potentiella spårdragningar, där ett begränsat antal stopp har framhävts som den bästa lösningen för att spara tid. Konsekvenserna blir dock att majoriteten av de svenska kommunerna hamnar utan direkt anslutning till höghastighetsbanan. Tidigare forskning har visat att rörelse och mobilitet är en central del av människors vardagsliv; för att kunna ta oss till arbetet, träffa familj och vänner med mera. Koppling mellan mobilitet och vardag är intressant då tidigare forskning traditionellt sett har tittat på ekonomiska aspekter, spatial rättvisa och klimatfrågor gällande höghastighetståg. Höghastighetstågens inverkan på vardagslivet samt hur orter som blir utan en direkt koppling till tågen påverkas, är mindre utforskat. Därmed skall denna uppsats fylla en identifierade kunskapslucka gällande vardagslivsperspektivet i samband med planeringen av höghastighetsjärnvägar. Uppsatsen avser utreda hur planerare och politiker ser på vardagslivet och hur diskursen är strukturerad. Inom en socialkonstruktivistisk ram och med en diskursteoretisk ansats analyseras diskursen kring vardagsliv bland planerare och politiker i Ljungby ur ett mobilitetsperspektiv. Studiens empiri utgörs av intervjuer och plandokument. Under analysen framgår det att diskursen kan uppfattas som spretig där flera mindre och ingående diskurser utgör mobilitets- och vardagslivsdiskursen i Ljungby. I stora drag kretsar den kring begreppen kollektivtrafik, mobilitet och infrastruktur. Olika teknologiska möjliggörare såsom bilen, E4:an eller höghastighetsbanan har en stor inverkan på vardagslivet i Ljungby med tanke på kommunens utmaningar med kollektivtrafik och geografiska förhållanden. Samtidigt är det inte möjligt att helt fastställa en konstant definition kring mobilitets- och vardagslivsdiskursen i kommunen. Detta beror på att perspektiv, åsikter och uppfattningar är i ständig förändring och så även diskurser. Därför är syftet med uppsatsen att kartlägga denna diskursiva kamp. / Since the start of Sverigeförhandlingen in 2014, the discussion about infrastructure investments in Sweden has been characterized by a high-speed railway with the purpose of connecting the country's three major cities. Sverigeförhandlingens final report (SOU 2017: 107) concludes that the time aspect has been a leading factor in potential rail routes, where a limited number of stops has been highlighted as the best solution to save time. As a result, the majority of Swedish municipalities will end up without a direct connection to the high-speed railway. Previous research has presented movement and mobility as a central part of people's everyday lives, to be able to take us to work, meet family and friends, and so on. The link between mobility and everyday life is interesting as previous research has traditionally looked at economic aspects, spatial justice, and climate issues regarding high-speed trains. The impact of high-speed trains on everyday life and how cities without a direct connection to the trains are affected are less explored. Thus, this thesis aims to fill this identified knowledge gap regarding the everyday life perspective in connection to the planning of high-speed railways. The thesis intends to investigate how planners and politicians view everyday life and how the discourse is structured. Within a social constructivist framework and with a discourse theoretical approach, the discourse on everyday life among planners and politicians in Ljungby is analyzed from a mobility perspective. The empirical study consists of interviews and planning documents. During the analysis, it appears that the discourse can be perceived as scattered, where several smaller and in-depth discourses constitute the discourse of mobility and everyday life in Ljungby. Broadly speaking, it revolves around the concepts of public transport, mobility, and infrastructure. Various technological enablers such as the car, the E4, or the high-speed railway have a major impact on everyday life in Ljungby, given the municipality's challenges with public transport and geographical conditions. At the same time, it is not possible to fully establish a constant definition of the discourse of mobility and everyday life in the municipality because perspectives, opinions, and perceptions are constantly changing and so are discourses. Therefore, the purpose of the thesis is to map out this discursive struggle.

Sweden is generally regarded as progressive in politics related to LGBTQI people, and the work for LGBTQI-rights is often described as a success story. Nevertheless, success and resistance have coincided throughout history with different discourses characterizing the political conversation. The study’s aim was to identify and deconstruct the subject positioning of LGBTQI people in Swedish politics. Furthermore, I analysed how LGBTQI people are constructed as a threat or as threatened in relation to the majority society. Using the AI-based topic modeling tool BERTopic, speeches from parliamentary debates from the period 2010–2023 were sampled for a qualitative discourse analysis. The theoretical framework consists of discourse theory, intersectionality, and concepts from queer- and postcolonial theory. The results show that the positioning of LGBTQI people is made in a hegemonic vulnerability discourse. The construction of LGBTQI people as vulnerable relates to an unwanted social development in which LGBTQI people are positioned as an already vulnerable group risking further vulnerability. Two competing discourses emerge, one that constructs threats to LGBTQI people as imported problems, and one that constructs LGBTQI people as threatened by right-wing nationalism. When LGBTQI people are constructed as a threat, it is primarily a threat to the prevailing gender order.