This thesis concerns the nature and functioning of language ideologies in Sweden, principally as regards beliefs and attitudes of the majority group towards minority language issues. This includes a study of the history of Sweden's minority language policies towards the Saami and the Finnish-speaking Tornedalians. The historical changes in such policies and language ideologies - evolving from a state of pragmatism and 'indifferent tolerance', via a nationalistically motivated assimilationist ideology, to a contemporary state of official 'pluralism' as well as conflicting perspectives and policies - provide a background to studies of contemporary issues, especially the media debates on mother tongue instruction ('home language teaching') for minority children. Furthermore, the controversial question of language requirements for naturalization (citizenship acquisition) is approached, where the rationale behind such requirements as well as the problems of assessing language competence in this context are discussed. Such aspects were further studied in a large-scale questionnaire survey investigation among a randomly selected sample of the Swedish population. The primary purpose of the survey was to explore and correlate language attitudes (or ideological components) in order to investigate the structure of different language ideologies. For this reason, variables concerning both 'internal variation' (of the Swedish language) and 'external variation' (e.g. the status and allocation of minority languages) were included. In this context, the question of 'paradoxes' or inconsistencies in ideological systems is raised, which includes a discussion of possible contradictory components in majority-based, 'monolingualist' ideologies of language.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att belysa gymnasieelevers användning av de, dem och dom samt deras attityder till dessa. Syftet är även att belysa hur svensklärare ställer sig till användandet av de, dem och dom i elevers skoluppgifter samt om de väger in användningen av dessa vid bedömning och betygssättning. I undersökningen medverkar 87 elever i årskurs 3 på gymnasiet samt fyra undervisande svensklärare. Både en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ metod används i undersökningen. Den kvantitativa metoden består av enkäter som delats ut till eleverna och den kvalitativa metoden består av intervjuer med de fyra svensklärarna. Undersökningen visar att 87 % av eleverna anser att de och dem hör till ett korrekt språkbruk. Majoriteten av eleverna anser även att det är viktigt att veta hur man på ett korrekt sätt använder de och dem i skrift. I intervjuerna framkommer det att lärarna anser att eleverna har bristfällig kunskap i hur de och dem ska användas i skrift. Det framkommer även att samtliga lärare väger in användningen av dessa ord i bedömning och betygsättning.

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The purpose of this study is to examine in which way and to which extent textbooks/workbooks for teaching English as a foreign language support oral interaction. The study compares oral exercises in two sets of primary school textbooks/workbooks, Magic and Good Stuff Gold, and is performed with quantitative content analysis and a qualitative description of exercises. The results show that in both sets of books the main speech acts promoted in exercises are asking questions and giving information about oneself. Other speech acts, such as expressing opinions or feelings, demanding actions and using typical features of social interaction, are much less frequent, which might lead to a limited repertoire of how to use the language. The study also shows that even though the books offer a fair amount of oral interaction exercises, many of the exercises do not give the pupils an opportunity to speak English based on their own interests and experiences, or a need to express meaning, contrary to what is known to support pupils developing their language skills. Both sets of books, however, also offer exercises that provide this opportunity, the more recently published Good Stuff Gold to a greater extent.

Barn som är språkligt medvetet förstår inte bara vad som sägs utan även hur. Syftet med den föreliggande studie är att undersöka hur språkkunskaperna skiljer sig mellan fonologisk och morfologisk medvetenhet hos barn i femårsåldern. I studien behandlas den språkliga medvetenheten inom fonologisk och morfologisk medvetenhet hos fem utvalda barn i femårsåldern. Metoden i studien är kvalitativ och består av intervjufrågor. Resultatet visade bland annat att det förekommer slumpartade skillnader mellan barnens språkkunskaper i båda språknivåerna och även att barnen hade lättare för den fonologiska medvetenheten än den morfologiska.

The present thesis illustrates the German influence on the Swedish Romantic Movement around 1800 from a linguistic perspective, the method being contrastive analysis of how the central German and Swedish concepts Anschauung/åskådning, Einhildungskraft/inbillningskraft, Phantasie/fantasi, Enthusiasmus/entusiasm, Gemüt/gemyt and Genie/geni/snille are used in the programmatic journals Athenäum (1798-1800) and Phosphoros (1810-1813). In what contexts are these concepts used, what are their principal connotations, in what collocations do they appear and what semantic shifts can be established from the material? The major issue concerns the testing of key word criteria elaborated by German scholars, notably the so-called Düsseldorfer Gruppe. The analyses of the German and Swedish texts show that the above-mentioned concepts meet their criteria for key words, the exception being Swedish gemyt, which takes over semantic components from Gemian Gemüt but never achieves key word status. The investigation clearly shows that the German concepts in Athenäum had a considerable impact on those of the corresponding Swedish ones in Phosphoros, particularly at a connotative level. The present study provides linguistic evidence for the long-standing claims of literary and historical scholars about the influence of German Romanticism on its Swedish counterpart. The most significant quality of the analysed concepts proved to be their metalinguistic capacity of constantly giving rise to comments in actual discourse, explicitly or implicitly. Previous research has demonstrated that key word status is achieved when a new meaning is introduced. This view is corroborated in the analysed contexts, where the concepts either show a new denotative or connotative meaning or comment on an on-going conceptual discussion. A conspicuous feature is that the words at issue here share semantic components to a great extent, all of them being concerned with the creative process. Einbildungskraft, Phantasie and Enthusiasmus can all signify the divine inspiration that Genie is provided with by means of Gemüt and Anschauung. As a consequence, the investigated concepts tend to appear in clusters, illustrating their programmatic function as key words representing the ideas of the Romantic Movement.

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