Studies carried out by different scholars have shown that the social roles society assigns to women and men create differences in how the genders use language. However, there is little previous research in the domain of gender and topic shift or initiation. This essay aims to investigate possible gender differences in topic shift and initiation in multiparty conversation among second language learners of English in upper secondary school. The three group discussions were recorded in a classroom setting and the data collected was transcribed. The topical shifts in the transcripts were coded using the Topical Episode Analysis (TEA) and the episode shifts in each conversation were analyzed on the basis of gender distribution and type of shift. In addition, the findings of the three groups were compared and discussed. The main result of this study was that the boys initiated 100 percent more shifts than the girls. The boys took up more linguistic space and dominated the topical shifts in the conversation which indicates that gender differences in topic shift and initiation exists, a finding that is consistent with previous research within the field of gender and language. In conclusion, gender differences were found between how the girls and the boys participating in this study shifted and initiated topics. The boys initiated more shifts than the girls in the multiparty conversations.

This study is intended to unveil whether the culinary vocabulary of British English and American English are likely to converge or diverge in the future, as a way of contributing to understanding the evolution of the English language and its varieties. The topic itself was founded in travels to America which were paired with nearly fifteen years of interaction with British English, leading to understanding that some (food) words come to have different meanings even in similar languages, and possibly also within the same language.  Understanding this led to the thesis question: Are the culinary vocabularies of British English and American English likely to converge or diverge? This is an area of study which has seemingly been left untreated so far under the umbrella of Linguistics. As such, the research in this essay focuses on determining a future convergence or divergence between the language varieties from a language historical aspect as well as taking sociolinguistic aspects of language change into account. These aspects are fashion, foreign influence and social need. In addition to the research, a survey involving 15 British and 15 American students between the ages of 18 and 30 which helps determining the current interaction between the two language varieties. Through the research and analysis of these areas of interest, it is found that the culinary vocabularies of the two language varieties are unlikely to converge completely, but are in a state both of constant partial convergence and divergence.

I denna uppsats beskrivs en grupp hälsingeungdomars bruk av – och attityd till den egna dialekten. Uppsatsen baseras på en tidigare attitydundersökning genomförd på Gotland varpå analysen i denna undersökning tar spjärn i en enkätundersökning omfattande 70 informanter i åldrarna 15 till 18. Denna delas upp i tre delar: sociologiska bakgrundsfaktorer, bruk och attityd och syftar i huvudsak att ge en indikation på hur ungdomarna använder dialekten i vardagen och på hur deras attityd ser ut gentemot dialekter som fenomen i allmänhet, men hälsingemålet i synnerhet ser ut. Därtill jämförs frågorna som behandlar attitydbegreppet med tidigare undersökning. Det kanske viktigaste resultatet som framkommit av denna undersökning är att attityden till informanternas egen dialekt, hälsingemålet, är förvånansvärt positiv, att många identifierar sig som dialekttalare samt att hälsingeungdomarna i större utsträckning är mer positiva till sin dialekt än vad de jämnåriga gotlänningarna är.

The matched-guise test, which was originally developed by Lambert et al. (1960), has been useful in determining covert attitudes towards accents, dialects, or languages. In this paper, the author presents a fresh take on matched-guise tests in sociolinguistics utilizing modern technology to digitally manipulate a female voice into a male voice. This makes it possible to create recordings in which the tone, intonation, stress, and personality traits are the same, yet the apparent guise is different, thus allowing us to ascertain attitudes towards the sexes as well. Using this method on 169  respondents of mixed sex, the author has shown that there are statistical differences between how the male and female guises are interpreted. When all collaborative and competitive aspects are combined, the female guise is considered more collaborative, while the male is considered more competitive. Contradictory to old stereotypes it would also seem as though men are considered less knowledgeable than women. Less sexist people also rate the male and the female guise more unevenly than more sexist people do. A less sexist person favours the female guise on collaborative variables, while a more sexist person favours neither guise.

The lexical semantics of a language is an area of linguistics that has many important implications for the life of modern society. It is important to understand how language change works and why this change occurs. Thus the aim of the work described in the thesis was to examine how six Swedish words, fett, fräsch, fräck, grym, häftig, and tajt are used by five different age groups of Swedish people in Uppsala region. To accomplish the aim of the study an appropriate questionnaire was compiled and used by the author. The questionnaire asked for information about the respondents as well as about the usage of each studied word. Analogous previous studies of the ongoing semantic change are reported in literature, frequently in regard to the words from English language. My results show that most of the chosen words are used differently by different age groups. Some words change their usage only slightly while other words experience larger metamorphose. The investigated words do not change their meaning completely, however some meanings do become more or less frequent. The results also show that the usage of the words does not always correlate to their dictionary definitions. Overall it can be concluded that semantic change for the considered words is a gradual ongoing process. / Den lexikala semantiken i ett språk är ett område inom lingvistik som har många viktiga konsekvenser för livet i det moderna samhället. Det är viktigt att förstå hur språkförändring fungerar och varför denna förändring sker. Därför var syftet med det arbete som beskrivs i uppsatsen att undersöka hur sex svenska ord fett, fräsch, fräck, grym, häftig och tajt användes av fem olika åldersgrupper av infödda talare av svenska i Uppsalaregionen. För att uppnå syftet med studien sammanställdes en enkät. Enkäten innehöll frågor om respondenterna samt om användningen av vart och ett av de studerade orden. Liknande tidigare studier av pågående semantisk förändring rapporteras i litteraturen, ofta i fråga om orden från engelska. Resultaten visar att de flesta av de valda ord användes på olika sätt av olika åldersgrupper. Vissa ord har ändrat sin användning något medan andra ord har genomgått en större förändring. De undersökta orden ändrade inte sin betydelse helt och hållet, men vissa betydelser blev mer eller mindre frekventa. Resultaten visade också att användningen av orden inte alltid korrelerar med deras ordboksdefinitioner. Sammantaget kan man dra slutsatsen att semantisk förändring för dessa ord var en gradvis process.

This study focuses on the Catalan language of Catalonia, a region located in the east of Spain. There are many immigrants living in this region who decide to learn the Catalan language in hope of finding a job or to integrate in the Catalan society. The main aim of this study was to discover the types of language attitudes the beginners of Catalan show towards this language (general, instrumental and integrative attitudes). Language attitudes are of importance because it can indicate the “health” of a minority language, such as is usually considered Catalan. The method applied was direct, where the informants had to answer a written questionnaire. The results of the study show positive attitudes towards the Catalan language and its general use in Catalonia. The main conclusions of the study were that the informants showed positive and slightly more instrumental attitudes towards Catalan, indicating that the main motive of learning the language was more of practical use than integrative motives.

This essay is a theoretical qualitative study, which examines the possibility for a spelling reform into English. The history of orthographical changes into British English, as well as Brown’s categorisation of spelling reforms, is reviewed. Four spelling reform proposals are analysed and compared.  Additionally, the social discourses of Eira, which are relevant to a spelling reform, are analysed and discussed with regard to English. There is only speculation as to why no modern day spelling reform has been implemented in British English, but it is connected to its historical events, the social discourses and the implementation process. Spelling reform into English is theoretically feasible, but it depends on the implementation strategies and support from those who wish to perform such a change.

Les phases de construction des grands projets miniers qui se sont développés en Nouvelle-Calédonie au cours de la dernière décennie, en marge (pour le projet du Sud) ou dans le cadre (pour le projet du Nord) du processus mis en place par l’Accord de Nouméa, constituent un terrain d’étude exemplaire pour observer et analyser la complexité des phénomènes du plurilinguisme et des pratiques interculturelles en situation professionnelle. La thèse, menée parallèlement à une activité de prestataire de services au sein de ces espaces multiculturels, porte donc sur la question : comment les compétences langagières plurilingues des acteurs locaux contribuent-elles à la résolution des écarts constatés entre les langues et les cultures dans un monde du travail globalisé ? Les résultats de la recherche permettent de restituer toute l’importance des savoirs expérientiels et spécifiques des passeurs de langues, acteurs en fonction discrète à des postes administratifs et dont l’œuvre de parole est indispensable à l’organisation qui les emploie. Ce faisant la thèse cherche à mettre en évidence les enjeux sociolinguistiques liés aux transformations du monde du travail en ce début de XXIème siècle. / The construction phases of the big mining projects which developed in New Caledonia during the last decade, in margin (for the South project) or in the frame (for the North project) of the process set up by the “Accord de Nouméa”, constitute an exemplary field of study to observe and analyze the complexity of the phenomena of the plurilingualism and the intercultural practices in professional situation. The thesis led in a parallel to an activity of service provider within these multicultural spaces, deals with the question: how do the plurilingual linguistic skills of the local actors contribute to the resolution of the linguistic and cultural gaps when working in a globalized world? The results of the research enlighten the importance of the specific experimented knowledges of the languages go-between, actors in discreet function in administrative positions and their ability to act as a wordforce essential to the organization which employs them. It doing the thesis tries to highlight the sociolinguistic challenges bound to the transformations of the working world at this beginning of XXIth century.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished