In this essay I investigate the role of civil society in relation to migrants in the municipality of Kalix, in a rural area in northern Sweden. The purpose is to discover which subject positions that leaders from the civil society describe as possible and which positions they see as possible for migrants. I also want to see which discourses the leaders from the civil associations are a part of and contribute to. The material comes from interviews completed with people involved in civil society and from meetings, organized by the municipality and with participants from civil associations, discussing the subject. The method used is discourse analysis, influenced by Laclau and Mouffes theory about discourses. Foucault´s theory of governmentality is used to examine how civil society and migrants are affected by state control. This control manifests in control mechanisms such as the Swedish government’s establishment program, legislation about migrants rights and economic grants. The analysis is supported by earlier research and theories about multiculturalism and rights. The leaders mainly moved within four discourses: ´multicultural´, ´repressive liberalism´, ´rural preservation´ and ´quality of life and humanity´. The multicultural discourse had a positive view of cultural and religious differences. This discourse made the subject positions of organizer of cultural activities possible for the leaders. Migrants were described as having the position of representatives of specific cultural groups and as group members in need of extra support. The repressive liberalism discourse viewed difference as something negative. The goal was for migrants to be assimilated into the local culture. The leaders adopted the role of tutors. Migrants were described as occupying the subject positions of employment oriented, able to assimilate, and as representatives of all immigrant people. In the discourse about ‘rural preservation’ activities were motivated by goals for a bright future for Kalix. The leaders’ subject positions were understood as coordinators, mentors and debaters. Migrants were understood as competent in particular professions and as desirable long term residents of Kalix. Governmental Control mechanics were considered to be something that limited migrants’ possibilities. The quality of life and humanity discourse has the goal that everyone shall have the possibility to live a good life. The leaders adopted the role as creators of safety and confidence and migrants were considered to be both victims of unfair regulation that limited their legitimacy, and as developers of civil associations. There were antagonisms between the discourses about rights/justice, integration and culture. Because of these conflicts the activities are striving towards different goals and consider different phenomena to be obstacles. Cooperation and the possibilities of getting along are therefore made difficult. Both these antagonisms and the governmental control mechanisms affect which activities can be performed and thereby which subjects positions that are made possible.

This study set out to investigate how students construct their identities. Throughout their socialisation into academia, students are confronted with the paradox of learning as they negotiate the opposing discourses of enslavement and mastery that construct higher education. Utilising a critical discursive psychology approach this research aimed to examine the implications this paradox holds for the development of students’ identities. In-depth interviews with five master’s degree students allowed for an examination of the linguistic resources available for students to draw on in constructing their accounts of student-hood. Analysis of the interpretive repertoires and ideological dilemmas in the text revealed the uptake of contradictory subject positions in participants’ navigation of academic discourse. In order to address the inconsistencies associated with these conflicting ways of being a student, participants ‘worked’ a face in their interactions with academic discourse. Their face-work served to address the paradox by integrating the contradictory positions evident in their accounts. It is in the agency displayed in the integration of these disparate positions that the emancipating student is revealed. / Psychology / M.A. (Research Consultation)

Diese Dissertation untersucht die Syntax nichtkanonischer Subjekte und Subjektpositionen - insbesondere zwei Phänomene: Lokativinversion (LI) in Englisch, Französisch, Italienisch und Hebräisch; und Verbdrittverletzungen der Verbzweitregel (V2) in Kiezdeutsch - eine urbane Kontaktvarietät des Deutschen. In LI besetzt eine Lokativ-XP die präverbale Stelle, aber das kanonische DP-Subjekt in Nominativ taucht postverbal auf. Sprachübergreifend vergleiche ich a) die Verteilung unterschiedlicher Null- und overten Argumente in LI und b) die Verfügbarkeit von LI in Matrix- und Nebensätzen. Die zweite Fallstudie befasst sich mit kiezdeutschen V2-Verletzungen, denn sie folgen einer regelmäßigen Reihenfolge: [Rahmensetzer > Subjekt > finites Verb]; dies ist bemerkenswert aufgrund der Verletzung der ansonsten strengen Verbzweitregel und auch, weil es auf die Innovation einer Art Subjektposition hindeutet, die im Standarddeutschen fehlt. Anhand einer Korpusstudie komme ich zu der Erkenntnis, dass die scheinbare Subjektvoraussetzung auch für resumptive V3-Dislozierungsphänomene gilt. Dennoch wird gezeigt, dass die Subjektvoraussetzung mit dem nominativischen DP-Subjekten verbundenen EPP nicht ganz übereinstimmt. Ich entwickele eine Theorie von Subjektvoraussetzungen, die sowohl die Breite der untersuchten Variation in LI als auch die An/Abwesenheit von Subjektvorausetzungen im Vorfeld bei V3-Sätzen im Standarddeutschen und Kiezdeutschen erklären kann. Schließlich lassen sich diese Phänomene durch unterschiedliche Verteilungen und Vererbungsoperationen von D-, ϕ- und informationsstrukturellen δ-Merkmalen (cf. Miyagawa 2017) zwischen dem Phasenkopf C und T erklären. Die Anwesenheit nichtkanonischer Subjekte in LI und kanonischer Subjekte in einer nichtkanonischen Subjektposition im Kiezdeutschen werden durch Variation in der Verteilung eines für das Prädikatssubjekt spezifizierten δ-Merkmal abgeleitet. Dieses Merkmal ist aber unabhänging von den üblichen EPP-Voraussetzungen. / This dissertation addresses syntactic structures involving non-canonical subjects and non-canonical subject positions, investigating two phenomena: Locative Inversion (LI) in English, French, Italian, and Hebrew; and verb-third violations of the verb-second (V2) rule in Kiezdeutsch, an urban contact variety of German. In LI a spatio-deictic XP appears in the preverbal canonical subject position, while the canonical nominative subject DP surfaces postverbally. I compare the distribution of different covert and overt arguments participating in LI and the availability of LI in embedded and matrix contexts crosslinguistically. The second case study concentrates on Kiezdeutsch V2 violations, as they follow a regular order of [frame-setting adverb > Subject > finite verb]; this is remarkable because it both violates an otherwise strict V2 requirement and also indicates the innovation of a subject position lacking in Standard German. I carry out a corpus study and find that an apparent subject requirement extends to other verb-third resumptive-dislocation phenomena, yet we cannot understand this requirement in the sense of an EPP position associated with nominative DP subjects. From a theoretical perspective, this dissertation develops a theory of subject requirements capable of accounting for the breadth of investigated crosslinguistic variation in LI and the presence or absence of a high clausal subject requirement in Kiezdeutsch V2-violations and more standard varieties of German. Ultimately, I make use of finite differences across C and T in the distribution of D, ϕ, and discourse-related δ-features (cf. Miyagawa 2017) via different inheritance options from the phase head. The presence of non-canonical subjects in LI and the presence of canonical subjects in a seemingly non-canonical subject position in Kiezdeutsch are both derivable via variation in the placement of a δ-feature with a specification for Subject of Predication orthogonal to typical EPP requirements.