The aim with this essay has been to see how students use drinking-songs and what function they have. I have also wanted to see how the traditions are carried on between the students. In order to do this, I have been observing three parties organised by three different student associations at Växjö University: Västkustens nation, Föreningarnas Festeri and Isterbandet. I have interviewed five people that have been attending the dinners. I have used Alan Merriam’s theory of use/function and made interpretations of his theory. Another theory that has been important to the essay is Even Ruud’s theories of identity. The drinking-songs have an important position among the students. They sing at almost every social gathering and the gaterhings would not be the same without the songs. They are seen as entertainment and they help to elicit a party feeling. The main function of the songs is to bring out a feeling of fellowship among the students. By singing the songs, the students demonstrate to each other that they are proud to be students; that they belong to the same social group. They demonstrate it to people within the association, to other students at the school and to students at other universities.

<p>The aim with this essay has been to see how students use drinking-songs and what function they have. I have also wanted to see how the traditions are carried on between the students. In order to do this, I have been observing three parties organised by three different student associations at Växjö University: Västkustens nation, Föreningarnas Festeri and Isterbandet. I have interviewed five people that have been attending the dinners. I have used Alan Merriam’s theory of use/function and made interpretations of his theory. Another theory that has been important to the essay is Even Ruud’s theories of identity.</p><p>The drinking-songs have an important position among the students. They sing at almost every social gathering and the gaterhings would not be the same without the songs. They are seen as entertainment and they help to elicit a party feeling. The main function of the songs is to bring out a feeling of fellowship among the students. By singing the songs, the students demonstrate to each other that they are proud to be students; that they belong to the same social group. They demonstrate it to people within the association, to other students at the school and to students at other universities.</p>

Cette étude comparative porte sur les emplois interrogatif, percontatif, relatif (avec antécédent) et intégratif (sans antécédent) du pronom indéfini quoi en français et de ses équivalents mā et māḏā en langue arabe. Notre corpus est tiré de la littérature du XXe siècle, et plus particulièrement des romans et des pièces de théâtre de Margueritte Duras et de Marcel Pagnol pour le français, et de Naguib Mahfouz pour lʼarabe. Nous étudierons tout dʼabord les emplois de ces trois pronoms régis par leurs caractéristiques et leurs propriétés syntaxiques. Nous analysons le comportement syntaxique de mā et de māḏā dans leurs emplois interrogatifs en comparaison avec leur équivalent français quoi. Nous verrons notamment quʼil existe des points communs et des divergences entre les deux langues, plus particulièrement concernant leur autonomie syntaxique au niveau de leur position dans la phrase. Nous examinons également lʼemploi de quoi et de mā et māḏā dans la subordination, en tant que percontatifs, relatifs et intégratifs. Notre analyse montre que les différentes formes de la percontative sʼexpliquent par les caractéristiques propres aux trois pronoms. Pour les deux autres emplois, il existe des points de divergence entre mā et quoi, surtout au niveau de lʼantécédent utilisé pour le relatif. Quant à lʼemploi intégratif, mā, de par ses propriétés syntaxiques, admet plus de fonctions dans la phrase que son équivalent quoi. / This comparative study examines the interrogative, percontative, relative (with antecedent)and integrative (with no antecedent) uses of quoi the indefinite pronoun in French and itsequivalents mā and māḏā in Arabic. Our corpus is taken from twentieth century literature,especially novels and plays of Margueritte Duras and Marcel Pagnol for French, and NaguibMahfouz for Arabic. We first see how the uses of these three pronouns are governed by theircharacteristics and syntactic properties. We analyze the syntactic behavior of mā and māḏā intheir interrogative uses compared with their French equivalent quoi. We will see that there aresimilarities and differences between the two languages, especially regarding their syntacticautonomy in their position in the sentence. We also examine the use of quoi, mā and māḏā insubordination, as percontatifs, relatives and integratives. Our analysis shows that the differentforms of percontative are explained by the characteristics of the three pronouns. For the lasttwo uses, there are many points of divergence between mā and quoi, especially regarding thetype of antecedent being used. In terms of integrative use mā, through its syntactic properties,admits more functions in the sentence than its equivalent quoi.