The aim of this essay is to analyze how media constructs strategic positional statements in debates of great immediate interest in order to stress ideological standpoints. Two questions are derived on the basis of this aim. - How is Russia positioned in Svenska Dagbladet's and Dagens Nyheter's editorials in the debate on the Swedish defence during 09-01-13 - 09-01-31? - Are there differences in the positional statements between the newspapers? In the study a Critical Discourse Analytical (CDA) approach is applied, and more specifically that of Teun A. van Dijk. Both the theoretical basis and the methodological tools are based on van Dijks CDA. As the theoretical basis regards focus lies on van Dijks rather specific concept of ideology. The methodological tools applied in the study are lexicalization, implications and analysis of how actors are described as agent or patient in the propositional structure. Besides these micro oriented tools an analysis of the thematic structure is also applied. The analysis is based on a schema that is composed with regard to the aim, the theoretical basis and the methodological tools. In the study a total of eight editorials are analyzed; six from Svenska Dagbladet and two from Dagens Nyheter. The result points out to a difference between the two newspapers positioning of Russia. Svenska Dagbladet polarizes Russia and this positional statement can be understood as both nationalistic discourse and, partly, as Russophobia. Dagens Nyheter doesn’t position Russia as a potential threat and Russia doesn’t play a significant role in Dagens Nyheter’s discourse. Dagens Nyheter is mainly focusing on the debate itself. Svenska Dagbladet’s opinion making might possibly be more effective, but at the expense of reproducing a negative construction of Russia.

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In this paper theories regarding the effect of ideology and government type on public budget deficits are put to a test. Following the least likely-method I construct panel data on Swedish municipalities between 1998 and 2014. The data includes four political variables: the local government’s ideology, majority rule, coalition rule and number of parties in the coalition, and several control variables. The results using a fixed effects-model show that there are no effects of neither ideology, majority rule, coalition rule nor the coalition’s number of parties on Swedish municipalities’ budget deficits.

This thesis deals with the image of the Vikings. I wish to investigate how this image came to being during the 19th and early 20th century and give examples of how the Viking age was approached archaeologically during this time period. In addition to this, I discuss the image of the Vikings in relation to concepts such as nationalism, Scandinavian identity and how we use history. The aim is to contribute to the discourse about ideology in relation to history. I wish to raise awareness about how we use history and how our evaluation of the past, in this case the Viking age, affects our perception of the past and the present. I have chosen three archaeological sites in order to exemplify how archaeologists have approached the Viking age, and how archaeology can be linked to ideology. These sites are Old Uppsala and Birka in Sweden, and Hedeby in present-day Germany. In addition to this, I also discuss what role the Viking age played in the 19th century world of ideas. I read and analyse publications on the topic from different time periods and contexts. The theories used are those of Stefan Bohman, Benedict Anderson and Lise Nordenborg Myhre on nationalism and its symbolism. The discussion is also based on Evert Baudou’s theories on archaeological interpretations, as well as the theoretical framework characteristic of the 19th century, culture-historical archaeology. The Viking age played an important part in shaping a Scandinavian identity, particularly in Sweden. The loss of Finland to Russia in 1809 created a need of a new identity. In the wake of this, as well as deepened relations to Norwegians and Danes, a new ideology called scandinavism was formed with the Viking age at centre. Later, the Iron Age was of significance when the German Nazi regime needed to legitimise their policies and ideology. The excavations at Hedeby mirror the Nazi ideology, but the Swedish sites have also proven to have connections to nationalism, both at the time of excavation but also in the form of interpretation. I base my analysis on the phenomena explanation, consolidation and rejection in order to establish how the past can be used in defining the present in relation to the past. I discuss how the past is used to define the present, ourselves and our society and how it is can be used in a nationalistic setting.

I denna kandidatuppsats har ett utdrag ur Hanya Yanagiharas roman The People in the Trees analyserats och översatts från engelska till svenska utifrån ett såväl postkolonialt som sociolingvistiskt perspektiv. Översättningen är huvudsakligen interventionistisk och experimentell till sin natur, och är utförd i enlighet med Lawrence Venutis främmandegörande strategi samt med utgångspunkt från Tejaswini Niranjanas poststrukturalistiska syn på översättning i en postkolonial kontext. Översättningen har även kommenterats utförligt med särskilt fokus på hur olika slags asymmetriska maktrelationer kommer till uttryck rent språkligt, och i detta avseende har bl.a. Norman Faircloughs version av kritisk diskursanalys varit behjälplig. Kandidatuppsatsen avslutas med en ansats till syntes i vilken några av de slutsatser som kan dras av innehållet i föreliggande arbete redogörs för kortfattat. / This thesis contains both an analysis and a translation into Swedish of an excerpt from Hanya Yanagihara’s novel The People in the Trees. Both analysis and translation have been conducted using a postcolonial and sociolinguistic theoretical framework. The translation is of a predominantly interventionistic and experimental nature, and has been done with Lawrence Venuti’s foreignizing method in mind, as well as with Tejaswini Niranjana’s poststructuralist view of postcolonial translation. The translation has also been extensively commented upon with an emphasis on how different kinds of asymmetrical power relations are manifested in terms of language use. To this end, Norman Fairclough’s version of critical discourse analysis has been especially helpful. The thesis concludes with a brief summarizing chapter in which certain conclusions are drawn from the present study.

This thesis is an attempt to have a critical look at the very craft of teaching within the social sciences. The scope of my study is teachers own accounts of their teaching practices within the Swedish secondary education (gymnasieskolan). This is done through interviews which I have performed with two teachers, whose answers I have analyzed textually. My aim is to explore their motivations for their practices with the theory and method of Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis to discover how different discourses emerge, compete and work together. Among my results is that the teachers motivations express a variety of discourses covering topics as: preparations for university studies, civic responsibility, critical thinking, objectivity and secularism, among other things. This is then compared and discussed in relation to some of the Swedish curriculum studies.

The purpose of this study is to determine the role of the history subject in achieving the overall mission of the swedish upper secondary school. This line of inquiry required a mapping of the swedish upper secondary schools mission, followed by determining what goals and missions were expressed in the history subject itself. This was achieved by studying the curriculum of 2011, as well as the documents detailing the purpose and contents of the history subject, including commentary material for said subject. The study utilizes discourse analysis and four structuring themes, democratic-ideological education, democratic-political education, working life preperation and personal development, to study the missions expressed in the curriculum. The results show that while the portions of the curriculum that detail the overall missions and goals of the upper secondary school thoroughly represent all four themes, as well as three additional ones, environmental awareness, historical and geographical contextuality and identity and cultural education, the history subject only covers a total of five themes, excluding the working life preperation and environmental awareness themes. These findings show that while the history subject to a large extent is engaged and immersed in the overall goals of the upper secondary school, it does not carry with it all of them.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the politics and activities of the Social Democratic students´ association Spartakus. Their relationships and political and ideological differences towards the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) and the remaining parts of the Social Democratic youth organisation (SSU) in Linköping during 1969-1971 are examined. To fulfil this aim I have studied relevant literature and interviewed people who were active in Spartakus, as well as people from SSU and SAP in the municipal during the period. I have also studied written material produced by the students´ association itself during the period. The theoretical frame of reference consists of Dahl´s theory on a democratic political order, and party theories like the mass party theory of Duverger, theories from Sjöblom, Panebianco, Lipset and Tingsten and also Gidlund&Möller´s theory about different kinds of party members. The results of the thesis shows that Spartakus originally was a traditional Social Democratic students´ association whose relations towards its party and SSU were working well. However new active members who were very much inspired by the left-wing views that were spreading during that period. They changed Spartakus into a club that was very active, radical and critical towards the party, with a goal to bring the social democratic party politically further to the left. Spartakus acted during a couple of intense years, but when they used communist rhetoric to try to take control over SSU in the region and with governmental critics bid defiance towards the democratic order of the party, these organisations had had enough. The most left-wing part of Spartakus was made to leave the party and their positions on the boards of SSU.

Den här studien undersöker skillnaderna i de sätt på vilka Junilistan respektive Socialdemokraterna officiellt talar om demokrati, samt tillskriver begreppet värde. Med en kombination av diskurs- och ideologianalys, med tyngdpunkten på diskursanalys, granskas det sätt på vilket de båda organisationerna, i idéprogram samt debattartiklar, använder demokratibegreppet vid diskussioner om EU som institution, samt vid resonemang om hur det svenska partiväsendet representerar de svenska väljarnas åsikter i unionen. Tanken bakom studiens fokus är att demokratibegreppet, med sin legitimitet och positiva värdeladdning, blir oerhört viktigt att knyta till sin verksamhet för att kunna visa på grundläggande demokratisk förankring i sina resonemang och därigenom vinna väljarnas bifall. En av studiens centralaste slutsatser är att de båda organisationerna i stor utsträckning talar om varandra. Det vill säga att när Junilistan talar i negativa formuleringar så talar Socialdemokraterna i positiva, utan att argumentationen på allvar möts i detaljfrågor.

This thesis examines the treatment of ideological matters in Andrej Platonov’s 1930 novel Kotlovan. The examination is based on Ol’ga Meerson’s theory of non-estrangement, which is applied to the depiction of ideology in Kotlovan. The specific themes examined are collectivism and materialism, which were viewed in the early Soviet period as important aspects of Marxist-Leninist ideology. The findings suggest that both collectivism and materialism are core issues in Kotlovan. Contrary to what one might suppose, however, these themes are not treated primarily in the famously dissonant and often ideologically coloured language of the surface of the text. Rather, the treatment of ideology seems to be conducted on a deeper level, where these issues are veiled by means of non-estrangement. By hiding away these core issues, the text requires the reader to accept them as given premises of the reality described in the text, in order to be able to proceed with the reading process. / Объектом исследования предлагаемой работы выступает повесть А.П. Платонова Котлован. Предметом же исследования является трактовка в тексте Котлована вопросов идеологической тематики, а более точно – коллективизма и материализма, воспринимаемых в качестве важнейших составляющих марксизма-ленинизма. В представленной работе применительно к идеологической тематике исследуемой повести использована разработанная Ольгой Меерсон теория неостранения. Результаты исследования указывают на центральную роль коллективизма и материализма в повести Котлован, которые при этом обсуждаются не столько на уровне платоновского специфического, нередко идеологически подкрашенного языка, сколько в более глубинном пласте текста, скрытые методом неостранения. Именно эта скрытость центральных тем в тексте заставляет читателя принимать их за данность изображаемой в Котловане действительности.