This thesis explores the social construction of birth by analyzing the interaction between the participants present in the delivery room. The data is drawn from 79 video recordings of birth. Six are unedited research recordings and the remaining 73 were edited for pedagogical, documentary and entertaining purposes. The theoretical and analytical perspective is Conversation Analysis. With this microanalytic method, a detailed insight is given to the interaction in the delivery room which should be of linguistic, anthropologic and midwifery interest. The thesis demonstrates how different situations are shaped during labor and the first 15 minutes after birth. It reveals how the identities child, girl, boy, mother, father, woman and man are constructed and negotiated in the unfolding interaction between the participants. In this sense, the thesis uncovers the construction of family roles in the delivery room during a delicate interaction between the private persons and the institutional representatives. The latter are charged with the complex task of safeguarding the physical wellbeing of mother and child while also promoting the development of parental identities. The thesis highlights the existence of a social birth work; the institutional interactants make use of a range of linguistic resources to demarcate the progression from second stage labor to birth and to position the newborn as an endeared social creature. Birth is an important liminal situation and is therefore forcefully spoken forth, and, as the thesis shows, enhanced with more or less ritual utterances and actions. Birth is also a matter of bodies, the body in labor, the supporting body of the partner and the appearance of the body of the newborn. The thesis gives insight into how these bodies are managed and stylized in interaction. Further the thesis makes visible the midwife’s use of interactional resources to instill strength into the body of the woman in labor. The results are discussed in light of the socio-cultural circumstances for hospital birth in Sweden.

This study focuses primarily on the inflection of singular place-names belonging to strong declensions and how their inflection developed in the Old Swedish period. It is based mainly on sources from Södermanland. Examination of the dative inflections of masculine and neuter place-names suggests that by and large place-names underwent the same course of development as appellatives, the dative having almost completely disappeared as a formal category by the end of the Middle Ages. In some cases dative endings were, however, retained in place-names: for example, certain name elements tended to keep the ending when they occurred as simplexes, but lost it in compound names. The dative may then have become the general form of such names. A special study was made of iō-stem place-names. Even in the nominative, forms ending in -e and -a predominate. The -e ending derives from the dative/accusative form, which may have become a new basic form at an early date. Reinterpretation of the dative/accusative resulted in someplace-names passing into the weak declension. Via the dative/accusative singular ending, place-names also adopted the generalized -a form which developed in plural habitative names. In the Middle Ages a mode of inflection peculiar to place-names appeared. In Latin texts, Swedish place-names occur in a generalized form, used regardless of case. A suitable form was chosen, often an accusative which had converged with the nominative. Generalized forms of this kind are found in both Latin and Old Swedish texts. The Latin scribal tradition was a contributory factor in their introduction. The author discusses whether place-names can be shown to have changed paradigm earlier than appellatives. Secondary -s genitives in particular, which occur earlier in place-names than in appellatives, suggest that they did. The fact that place-names exhibit secondary -s genitives in early sources may be partly due to their naming function. / <p>Doktorsavhandling vid Uppsala universitet.</p>

The dissertation deals with the Överkalix dialect in three respects. Överkalix is the northernmost community of the country where Swedish dialect is spoken. It is surrounded on the east and the north by Finnish, and on the west by Finnish and Saami. The first section of the thesis is based on a questionnaire survey among all junior high school students (14-16 years old) in Överkalix and among their parents. It discusses the present-day position of the Överkalix dialect and the attitudes of the people of Överkalix toward the dialect. The results indicate that the people who consider themselves to be speakers of the local dialect have access to two language codes: local dialect and standard Swedish. Personal relationship is the deciding factor in language code choice. None of the parents considers himself/herself to be dialectally monolingual: 11% speak only standard Swedish, 75% keep the varieties apart and are thus bidialectal. 77% of the dialect-speaking students and 69% of those who do not speak dialect have a positive attitude toward the dialect, boys to a greater extent than girls among the dialect-speaking, and girls to a greater extent than boys among non-dialect speakers. The second section examines interference from the surrounding languages, Finnish and Saami, in the Överkalix dialect in general and in the Överkalix dialect of multilingual informantsin particular. These informants speak standard Swedish, dialect, Finnish and/or Saami. The main data of this section originates from recorded interviews performed as informal conversations. The author discusses some characteristic phonetic features in the dialect which seem to be the result of influence from Saami and/or Finnish. The material also shows a number of influences on the syntactic level. The third section describes how the genitive is expressed in the dialect of Överkalix. The author gives several examples of how the -s genitive is paraphrased—most commonly with a prepostion. / <p>Eftertryck av doktorsavhandling framlagd vid Uppsala universitet 1990.</p>

This thesis examines fragmentary Finnish in Late Old Swedish charters (c. 1350–1526) issued in the Finnish part of the Swedish realm, the diocese of Åbo. Consisting mostly of proper names, albeit occasionally displaying Finnish inflectional and derivational morphology, these fragments have previously not generally been regarded as representing actual written Finnish, but rather as onomastic loans or transcriptions of oral language by more or less monolingual Swedish scribes. This thesis attempts a description and analysis of the Swedish–Finnish language mixture, to see to what extent the embedding of Finnish segments in these Swedish-language charters can be said to reflect scribal proficiency in Finnish or a lack thereof. The thesis relies on theoretical and empirical findings in the fields of code-switching and historical sociolinguistics. To provide a socio-historical context for the linguistic analysis, sociolinguistic conditions in medieval Finland and the textual genre of medieval charters are outlined. The bilingual segments in the data are then described and compared with models of code-switching from modern studies, to see whether their form corresponds to patterns that could be expected of more or less balanced bilinguals. The choice between Swedish and Finnish linguistic variants is also considered in the light of textual and sociolinguistic factors, and a study is made of Finnish grammatical transfer in the scribal Swedish of medieval Finland. Although the scarcity of the medieval data does not allow definite conclusions, the tentative results reveal a language mixture that is mainly well formed, though limited in scope and with some instances of scribal errors that could be due to a lack of proficiency in Finnish. On the other hand, the insertion of Finnish segments shows a stylistic patterning that suggests a linguistic awareness on the part of the scribes, and the choice of Swedish prepositions in certain constructions differs quantitatively from the norm in non-Finnish parts of medieval Sweden, in a way that can partly be attributed to the influence of Finnish locative case semantics. While it is apparent that proficiency levels in Finnish must have varied somewhat among medieval scribes in Finland, the results point to a more or less bilingual proficiency, or at least extensive passive knowledge of Finnish.

<p>This thesis work involves a quantitative study concerning secondary school students' understanding of older Swedish words in the lyrics in the Lucia song written by Elmfors way back in 1919th. The text has some old words and phrases that today's high school students do not really understand. The study includes surveys of two different classes in high school, a theoretical and a practical program. In some cases students can understand words by the context, but previous research shows results in general weakness in students' existing vocabulary. According to previous research, this is due, inter alia, that young people read and write less today.</p><p>The results of all students are totally 38%, where the theoretical program has a slightly higher performance. Very few pupils on the Media Program have a somewhat understanding of what each word means and it is clear that many students in this class have little understanding of old words. The result shows that girls in the Media Program has a notably better word comprehension than boys in the Media Program, while boys in the Society is distinguished by markedly higher word comprehension of specific words.</p>

Following the death of Mao Zedong the new Chinese leadership attempted to avoid some of theproblems associated with the concentration of personal political power, and Deng Xiaoping,though still playing a paramount political role, sought to rule through a leadership collective.Starting with Jiang Zemin, it has become a new norm in Chinese politics that the General Secretaryof the Central Committee of the CCP also serves as President of the PRC.This reemergence of (official) leadership concentration around a single person leads to thequestion of how transitions of leadership are presented within Chinese politics, and to what extentthey are indicative of new directions of policy and ideology. An inaugural speech is designed toset the tone for new beginnings when a new officeholder assumes responsibilities. This thesis usesinaugural speeches and speeches given in connection with inaugurations to the two officesmentioned above as research material to address this question. Drawing inspiration from aMaster’s Thesis by Tawfic and Fattah (2015), perspectives from critical discourse analysis areemployed to examine the relationships between language, power and discourse in the speeches.Focus is placed on the use of two discourse strategies: group orientation and group representation.This thesis assesses to what extent Jiang, Hu and Xi differ in their employment of these discoursestrategies, and if differences or similarities can be explained by correlation with changes in policydirection or the sociopolitical background of the speeches.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the semantic and syntactic properties of the -­ee suffix in English. The -­ee suffix was borrowed from the French ‑­é suffix during the late Middle Ages, when French started to exert its linguistic influence on English. Previous research suggests that the -­ee suffix in English exhibits the semantic properties of sentience, episodicity and passivity. Syntactically, the function of the ­-ee suffix in English may suggest ergativity. Furthermore, it has been suggested that contextual anchoring is involved in the use of the -­ee suffix. I explored these characteristics of the ­-ee suffix by testing non‑­standardised ­-ee suffixed nouns with the mentioned semantic and syntactic properties. The process of differentiating non‑­standardised from standardised -­ee suffixed nouns was done with the help of a well­-established dictionary and the Internet. The results showed that sentience and episodicity applied to most -­ee suffixed nouns. In addition, passivity was an important feature in the -­ee nominalisation of transitive stem verbs. When the meaning of ­-ee suffixed nouns was complex, contextual anchoring served to facilitate the understanding of the meaning of the noun. Syntactically, the relationship between the ‑ee suffix and ergativity was weak. Thus, it can be concluded that the use of the ‑ee suffix is controlled by several semantic properties simultaneously, whereas the syntactic properties are relatively unimportant. / Den här uppsatsen undersöker -ee-suffixets semantiska och syntaktiska egenskaper i engelska. Suffixet lånades från det franska suffixet -é under senmedeltiden, när det franska språket började påverka engelska. Tidigare forskning hävdar att det engelska -ee-suffixet påvisar semantiska egenskaper såsom animacitet, episodicitet och passivitet. Syntaktiskt sett kan suffixet även tyda på ergativitet. Användning av suffixet är i viss mån förknippad med förankringen i kontexten. Ickestandardiserade -ee -avledda substantiv identifierades och deras semantiska och syntaktiska egenskaper undersöktes. Urvalet av icke-standardiserade och standiserade substantiv utfördes med hjälp av ett väletablerat lexikon och Internet. Resultatet visade att de flesta -ee-avledda substantiven uppvisar episodicitet och majoriteten även animacitet. Passivitet är ett viktigt kännetecken av suffixet när det gäller substantiveringen av transitiva verb. Betydelserna av vissa mer svårtydda eeavledda substantiv förankras ibland i kontexten med exempelvis förekomsten av er-/-or-avledda motsvarigheter. Syntaktiskt sett är ergativitet inte ett tydligt särdrag av -ee-suffixet. Sammanfattningsvis kan det hävdas att -ee-suffixets användning styrs framför allt av samverkan mellan flera olika semantiska aspekter, medan den syntaktiska egenskapen, ergativitet, är relativt oväsentlig.

This thesis work involves a quantitative study concerning secondary school students' understanding of older Swedish words in the lyrics in the Lucia song written by Elmfors way back in 1919th. The text has some old words and phrases that today's high school students do not really understand. The study includes surveys of two different classes in high school, a theoretical and a practical program. In some cases students can understand words by the context, but previous research shows results in general weakness in students' existing vocabulary. According to previous research, this is due, inter alia, that young people read and write less today. The results of all students are totally 38%, where the theoretical program has a slightly higher performance. Very few pupils on the Media Program have a somewhat understanding of what each word means and it is clear that many students in this class have little understanding of old words. The result shows that girls in the Media Program has a notably better word comprehension than boys in the Media Program, while boys in the Society is distinguished by markedly higher word comprehension of specific words.

I denna studie undersöks, med hjälp av en kvalitativ samtalsanalys, vad en lärare och fyra elever i andraspråksundervisningen för vuxna valde att behandla under individuella responssamtal om elevernas texter. Resultatet av undersökningen sammanfattas i ett antal tematiseringar, åtta kopplade till läraren och fem tillhörande eleverna. Lärarens tematiseringar var: redogörande för elevrespons, beröm, innehållsförbättringar, ytförbättringar, förståelsekontroll, återberättande, tilläggsförfrågan och utvärderingsfrågor. Elevernas tematiseringar var: ytfrågor, förståelsekontroll, tilläggsförfrågan, omdömesbegäran och andra uppgifter. Resultatet visar att läraren och eleverna behandlade sådant som berörde elevtexten och samtalet men också sådant som inte gick att relatera till elevtexten eller samtalet. När eleverna tog initiativ till att diskutera texten valde de att behandla elevtextens yta till skillnad från läraren som även behandlade textens innehållsliga aspekter. Detta tyder på att eleverna behöver utveckla sin textkunskap för att kunna diskutera textens innehåll.

I den här studien ska jag visa de orsakerna som högstadieelever ger för att byta eller övergesina studier i moderna språk. Studien har utgått från en kvalitativ metod bestående avsemistrukturerade intervjuer med sex grundskoleelever från årkurs 7, 8 och 9. Det teoretiskaförhållningssättet som använts har främst varit Albert Banduras sociokognitiva perspektivsom anger att individens interaktion med sin omgivning direkt påverkar deras kognitivaprocesser, bland annat beslutsfattande. Jag letar efter de faktorer som påverkar elevernasbeslut att ändra eller överge sina moderna språkstudier i den sociala omgivande miljön. Föranalysen av svaren som erhållits i intervjuerna har jag tagit hänsyn till några begrepp somintroducerats av Bandura som: självförmåga och sambandet mellan motivation och attityd.Men jag har också tagit hänsyn några viktiga begrepp relaterade till motivationsperspektivet(yttre och inre motivation) och begreppen relaterade till lärarkompetenser som den socialakompetensen. Ur intervjuerna framkommer resultat kopplade till det teoretiskaförhållningssättet, men resultaten visar också information som jag inte förväntade mig. Dessaresultat har att göra med det sättet lärarlaget samarbetar med varandra inom skolan. Det sättethur vissa lärare uttrycker för eleverna behovet av att prioritera ett ämne framför ett annat.Lärarna utövar en viss "makt" med de rekommendationer eller åsikter som dem ger till sinaelever. Utifrån de erhållna resultaten kan man dra slutsatsen att orsakerna som är kopplade tillsociokognitiva faktorer, en försämring av motivation eller en bristande social kompetens hosläraren, kan man korrigeras och få eleven att bestämma sig för att fortsätta med sina studier.Men om orsakerna är kopplade till rekommendationer från läraren för att eleven ska övergesina moderna språkstudier och prioritera i annat ämne, kan denna omständighet vara svår attvända, och kan vara avgörande för eleven att bestämma sig för att överge sina modernaspråkstudier. / n this study I will show the reasons given by secondary school students for changing orabandoning their studies in modern languages. The study has been based on a qualitativemethod consisting of semi-structured interviews with six Swedish primary school studentsfrom grades 7, 8 and 9. The theoretical approach that has been used has been mainly thesociocognitive perspective of Albert Bandura, which states that the interaction of theindividual with his environment directly affects his cognitive processes, among other thingsdecision making. I look for the factors that influence students' decisions to change or abandontheir modern language studies in the social environment that surrounds them. For the analysisof the answers obtained in the interviews, I have taken into account some concepts introducedby Bandura such as: self-efficacy and the connection between motivation and attitude. But Ihave also taken into account some important concepts related to the motivational perspective(extrinsic and intrinsic motivation) and concepts related to teaching skills such as socialcompetence. The interviews reveal results linked to the theoretical approach, but the resultsalso show information that I did not expect. These results have to do with the way in whichthe teaching team collaborates with each other within the school. The way in which someteachers express to students the need to prioritize one subject over another. Teachers exercisea certain "power" with the recommendations or opinions they give their students. Based onthe results obtained, it can be concluded that the reasons linked to socio-cognitive factors, adeterioration in motivation or lack of social competence on the part of the teacher, can becorrected and make the student decide to continue with their studies. However, if the reasonsare linked to the teacher's recommendations for the student to abandon their studies in modernlanguages and give priority to another subject, this circumstance may be difficult to reverse,and it may be decisive for the student to decide to abandon their studies in modern languages.