<p>Society exhibits a wide variety of different languages with various prominent features. At the same time as we honour diversity, however our civilisation is coloured with prejudice and preconceptions. Even if there is a rather liberal view on language use today, dialects and accents still carry positive and negative connotations for a majority of citizens. Research shows, that we are prejudiced and that we have predetermined ideas when it comes to certain language varieties.</p><p>In this study, I take up four varieties of Standard English: American, English, Australian and Scottish. I focus on the associations Swedish students make when it comes to these four language varieties and how this transforms into attitudes towards the speakers. A language attitude study is carried out by using a modified Matched Guise Test. I explain the difference between dialect and accent, as well as societal attitudes to language varieties and present some prominent linguists and their methods. Finally, I draw some conclusions by comparing my results to previous findings.</p>

<p>The aim of this paper is to find out what variety of English pupils in upper secondary schools are using, British English or American English, but also to see if there are any difference between boys and girls and if they are aware of their usage. British English used to be the only variety allowed in school, but now other varieties are taught as well and American English is gaining ground in Swedish schools. According to the curriculum, it is a part of the subject of English in upper secondary schools to study the different varieties and be aware of them. This study took place in Swedish upper secondary schools in the Stockholm area where 108 pupils in university preparing programs translated sentences with words that differ in British and American English, filled in a questionnaire which tested spelling and were also recorded when reading sentences. The survey showed that the tendency among these pupils is that they use American English more than British English in both vocabulary and pronunciation. The study also indicated that many pupils tend to mix their usage between the varieties, especially the girls. It was also seen that boys seem to be more aware of what variety they use.</p>

<p>The purpose of this essay is to investigate pupils’ attitudes towards spoken English and towards speaking in front of their friends, and how these attitudes appear to be related to their oral communication and communicative behaviour in the classroom. The material was collected by video taping two classes, a questionnaire in these two classes and by interviewing their teacher.</p><p>The results show that motivation and anxiety are psychological factors that play a significant role in the learning process. Attitudes, both towards the target language and towards their own production affect pupils’ willingness to communicate, and consequently their oral production in different tasks. The larger the group is, the more anxious they become. In order to motivate pupils, a variety of exercises is needed, where the topic is of great importance to awaken their interest for communication. The teacher also needs to circulate in the classroom to avoid a situation where pupils switch to their first language. Otherwise, pupils appear to code-switch as soon as an opportunity presents itself, which was observed in the analyses of recorded lessons.</p>

<p>African American Vernacular English, AAVE, is a variant of English spoken mostly by lower-class black citizens in the US. Since the most popular music genre among African Americans today is rap, this paper will describe what characterizes AAVE and rap music, and explore the use of AAVE in rap lyrics of both black and white rappers.</p><p>AAVE is different from Standard English in several respects; grammatically, phonologically and lexically. Examples of grammatical features in AAVE are invariant be, double negations and the differing use of possessive pronouns.</p><p>The hip hop industry has been, and still is, largely dominated by black performers, and white artists make up only a minority of rappers in the line of business today. Rappers being part of a larger culture, the hip hop nation, they have a language in common, and that language is AAVE. In this paper, a number of lyrics performed both by black and white rap artists have been compared and analyzed, in search of linguistic features of AAVE. This study provides evidence that AAVE is indeed used in rap lyrics, although the use of its features is often inconsistent. It is also shown that AAVE-presence in white rappers’ lyrics exists, but is sparser than in the works of their black equivalents.</p>

<p>When we converse we constantly fail to observe the rules of conversation in order to simplify and make dialogues more effective. The scriptwriters who work with TV shows use non-observances of maxims in order to evoke different feelings from their viewers. The aim of this paper was to investigate how frequently non-observances of maxims occurred in the TV shows Desperate Housewives and That 70’s Show. I examined where and why they were used as well as how often flouting was used compared to violations. The base of the study was a drama and a comedy show.</p><p>Research has shown that the maxim of relevance is most frequently used to create different comical or dramatic situations. The scriptwriters have their characters ignore what is relevant to the situations in order to make them come off as flustered, odd and stupid in humorous situations and as mysterious, cowardly, respectful or bold in dramatic situations. Also research shows that flouting occurs more frequently than violations when it comes to breaking maxims. Violations occur most often with the maxim of quality when the characters lie to mislead in order to direct blame away from him/herself. In Conclusion, this investigation has shown that non-observances of maxims are important for scriptwriters in order to create humorous and dramatic situations in verbal interaction.</p>

<p>The aim of this paper was to investigate if students could become more proficient in their grammatical skills through feedback by underlining. The focus is on the problems students have with verbs when they learn English as a foreign language. 16 students from two different classes participated in the investigation. Eight of the students were interviewed on two occasions. They were shown essays they had written during the fall term of 2005. The teacher had underlined the errors they had made. During the interviews the students were asked to correct and explain the errors. The other eight students served as a control group since it could be suspected that the interviews might have an impact on the students’ performance.</p><p>The results of this paper show that the students who were interviewed were able to correct most of the errors that had been underlined. The students in this group also seemed to improve more than the control group, but the results of this investigation are inconclusive, since the total number of errors made was fairly small. Therefore, it is difficult to determine how much the students improved their proficiency in English grammar.</p>

<p>I vårt examensarbete har vi genusgranskat två läroböcker som används i gymnasieskolan. Den ena heter Escalade 1 och används i steg 1 i franska och den andra heter Give ’n’ Take: Reader och används i engelska kurs A på yrkesprogrammen. Frågan vi har ställt oss är hur bilden av mannen respektive kvinnan förmedlas i både bild och text i läroböckerna samt om böckerna lever upp till de krav som styrkdokumenten ställer på jämställdhet mellan könen.</p><p>Vi har kommit fram till att läroböckerna bevarar den traditionella begränsningen som finns på grund av kön där mannen framhålls på bekostnad av kvinnan vilket förmedlar en bild av att mannen och kvinnan inte är lika mycket värda och inte heller har samma möjligheter. Dessutom framställs kvinnan som mer emotionell än rationell och mannen saknar till stor del känsloregister. Det här resultatet gör att ovan nämnda läroböcker inte lever upp till de krav på jämställdhet som styrdokumenten ställer.</p> / <p>In our survey we have investigated gender roles in two textbooks used in upper secondary school: Escalade 1, used for beginners in French and Give ‘n’ Take: Reader, used in English A course in the vocational programs. The aim with the essay is to examine how men and women are depicted in the texts as well as in the pictures and find out if the textbooks correspond to the part of the curriculum dealing with equality between the sexes.</p><p>The result of our survey reveals that the textbooks preserve the traditional gender roles where the man is the norm. Consequently, focus is set on him at the expense of the woman. This result suggests that men and women do not have the same status, rights and opportunities. Furthermore, the woman is described as more emotional than rational and the man, more or less, lacks feelings. The outcome of our survey makes it clear that these textbooks do not respond to the equal rights and opportunities of the sexes that the curriculum demands.</p>

<p><p>The Internet is in many cases our primary source for communication. As more communicative options online are introduced and become a part of our life, the language of the Internet, so called Netspeak, becomes a part of our language. The aim of this paper was to find out whether there is a difference in the use of Netspeak between teenagers and adults. The investigation was based on two message boards, one where the majority is teenagers and one where the majority is adults. Four different features of Netspeak were studied: exaggerated use of punctuation; exaggerated use of capital letters; abbreviations; and emoticons. All features are substitutes for paralanguage.</p><p>The results show that teenagers are more likely to use features such as exaggerated use of punctuation and capitals, and abbreviations. Adults are, however, more likely to use emoticons than teenagers.</p></p>

<p>The method of peer response has become an important part in process oriented writing classes and is often used at universities, but not in upper secondary school. The aim of this paper is to investigate how students in upper secondary school react when introduced to peer response, and whether or not they find it a beneficial way of working when trying to improve their writing. The aim is also to find out if the students’ texts improve as a result of a peer response session.</p><p>The results of my investigation show that the majority of the students who participated had positive reactions when introduced to peer response. All students agreed that the method was beneficial to improving their texts. Furthermore, according to the teacher, who read both the first and final versions of the texts, many of the students improved their texts enough after peer response to raise their grades. This confirms that peer response is, in fact, a good method to use when trying to improve students’ writing. However, even though the majority of the participants were positive to the idea of using peer response again, there were some students who prefer that only the teacher reads their assignments. This could be due to a lack of confidence concerning their own abilities or the fact that some texts are perceived as too personal and private. There will often be students who do not like to share their writing but the method could be modified and adapted to the situation of each class. Peer response can be combined with teacher response, or the groups can be reduced to pairs of two persons.</p>

<p>It is important to think about how to correct an essay and what the students should learn from it. My aim in this paper, is to look into what different researchers have said about feedback on written assignments and carry out a study of the kind of feedback that is actually used in secondary school today – and of what students and teachers think about it.</p><p>The results show that underlining is the marking technique mostly used in the secondary school where I did my investigation. This technique was also mostly preferred amongst the students. Two teachers were interviewed and both said that they used underlining because experience has shown that this marking technique is the most effective one. Furthermore, the results from the essays differed when analyzing errors corrected with complete underlining, partial underlining, crossing out and giving the right answer. One marking technique got good results when dealing with one kind of error, and worse in others. My conclusion is that teachers need to vary their marking technique depending on the specific kind of error.</p><p>Also, the results from a questionnaire showed that most of the students would like to get feedback on every written assignment. Not many of them said that they were already getting it, although this was what both teachers claimed. To conclude, there are many different ways to deal with marking and feedback. The key-word seems to be variation. As long as teachers vary their ways of dealing with marking and giving feedback, they will eventually find one or two that are most effective. Involving the students in this decision can also be a good idea, if they are interested.</p>