Verbal contents of repetitions in Swedish child-directed speech

Repetitions in child-directed speech (CDS) have been shown to vary over time, and are suggested to affect first language acquisition. Correlations between verbal contents of repetitions in CDS and children’s language development have been suggested. The verbal contents of repetitions in Swedish CDS have not yet been investigated. The aim of this study was to examine the verbal contents of repetitions in Swedish CDS during the child’s first 2 years and possible changes in proportions of repetitions during the same time span. Verbal contents of repetitions in parents’ speech in 10 parent-child dyads as the children were 3, 6, 9, 12 and 24 months old were investigated focusing on word classes, sentence types and whole-constituent change. The results were compared to the children’s productive vocabularies at the age of 30 months. Possible occurrences of item-based constructions and frequent frames in the repetitions were also examined. The overall results revealed patterns concerning change in verbal contents in repetitions over time and correlations between verbal contents in repetitions and child language development. Two proposals were made: parents adjust the complexity of their speech to linguistic developmental stages of their children, and linguistic variation in the input increases as the child grows older.

The effects of video games on the receptive vocabulary proficiency of Swedish ESL students

Playing video games is an activity that takes up an increasing amount of children’s and adolescent’s spare time. While some previous studies have highlighted the negative aspects of video games, little research has been carried out on the linguistic learning opportunities that video games present. This study primarily investigates if Swedish second language learners of English can increase their vocabulary proficiency in English with the use of video games. In order to answer the research questions, two quantitative data elicitation methods are used: a questionnaire which aims to gather attitudinal and behavioral data, and a Vocabulary Levels Test which elicits data about the participants’ receptive vocabulary proficiency. The participants consist of 25 students at an upper secondary school in Stockholm. The results show that participants who played video games scored higher on the Vocabulary Levels Test, indicating a higher receptive vocabulary proficiency. Furthermore, the results show that participants who played moderate to frequent amounts of time performed better in the Vocabulary Levels Test than infrequent players. The results also show that video games emphasizing co-operation and communication are preferable to use for vocabulary acquisition. Additionally, the study discusses if video games could be integrated into the Swedish upper secondary school system.

Frequency, Form, and Distribution of Illocutionary Speech Acts in Swedish Parent-Child Interaction

In this study, young children’s development of speech acts was examined. Interaction between six Swedish-speaking parents and their children was observed. The frequency, form and distribution of speech acts in the output from the parents were compared with the frequency, form and distribution of the children’s speech acts. The frequency was measured by occurrences per analysed session. The aim of the analysis was to examine if the parent’s behaviour could be treated as a baseline for the child’s development. Both the parents’ and the children’s illocutionary speech acts were classified. Each parent-child dyad was observed at four different occasions, when the children were 1;0, 1;6, 2;0, and 2;6 years of age. Similar studies have previously shown that parents keep a consistent frequency of speech acts within a given time span of interaction, though the distribution of different types of speech acts may shift, depending on contextual factors. The form, in terms of Mean Length of Speech Act in Words (MLSAw), were correlated with the longitudinal result of the children’s MLSAw. The distribution of the parents’ speech acts showed extensive individual differences. The result showed that the children’s MLSAw move significantly closer the MLSAw of their parents. Since the parent’s MLSAw showed a wide distribution, these results indicate that the parent’s speech acts can be treated as a baseline for certain aspects of the children’s development, though further studies are needed.

Swedish Match : En kvalitativ studie om butikskonceptet

Title: Swedish Match-En kvalitativ studie om butikskonceptet  Author: Adam Waernér/Erik Rehnberg  Supervisor: Jonas Jonasson  Key Words: Communication, Branding, Culture, PR, Advertisement  Purpose: The purpose of this research is to understand the background of the launch of Swedish Match´s stores. Because of the strict laws against marketing of tobacco products in Sweden, we believe that the stores are an interesting way of approaching a new branding and communication strategy in the tobacco industry.  Research questions: What´s the background to the launch of Swedish Match Stores? What´s the stores impact on Swedish Match image? How do Swedish Match Stores impact the cultural status of snus? In what ways do the cultural trends impact the snus market?  Theory: In this study we have applied theories concerning culture, communication, branding, PR and advertisement. Methodology: We have chosen to apply a qualitative method on this research. The method consists of three different methods: one focus group, one observation study which consists of two different observations both in the Gothenburg store and the store in Stockholm, the last method is an online interview with the public relations officer of Swedish Match in Sweden. Because of the chosen method´s we hope to bring three different perspectives to the  study: From the customers perspective, from our own perspective and finally from the company´s perspective.  Findings: Through this research we discovered that the stores do not only work as a communication strategy for Swedish Match. The store as a phenomenon also works in the aspect of branding, PR and also gives a higher cultural status to snus. Through our own observation and the focus group we came to the conclusion that the stores in terms of image of Swedish Match implements a cultural aspect of swedishness to the company, as well as a more modern and new take on snus. We also came to the conclusion that snus is a cultural phenomenon that is impacted of other contemporary trends, such as gastronomic trends and the increased popularity of small scale exclusivity.

Special Education Teachers’ Narratives on Literacy Support for Bilingual Students with Dyslexia in Swedish Compulsory Schools

The aim of the study is to investigate how special education teachers talk about their teaching in relation to bilingual students with dyslexia within Swedish compulsory schools. Data consist of transcripts from in-depth interviews with 15 special education teachers. According to the teacher narratives, the special education services appeared to be biased against bilingual students, as the support provided to bilingual students with dyslexia was revealed to be more or less the same as that provided to monolingual Swedish-speaking students with dyslexia. This bias is discussed in relation to the notion of difference blindness as well as in relation to practical constraints. Nevertheless, the teachers strongly advocated collaborative work with mother tongue teachers in order to facilitate dyslexia identification in bilingual students and to gain a more comprehensive picture of their language and literacy competencies, which is a desire that contrasts and contests a pedagogical monolingual master model within special education services.

The role of semantic context and attentional resource distribution in semantic comprehension in Swedish pre-schoolers

Research on semantic processing focused mainly on isolated units in language, which does not reflect the complexity of language. In order to understand how semantic information is processed in a wider context, the first goal of this thesis was to determine whether Swedish pre-school children are able to comprehend semantic context and if that context is semantically built up over time. The second goal was to investigate how the brain distributes attentional resources by means of brain activation amplitude and processing type. Swedish preschool children were tested in a dichotic listening task with longer children’s narratives. The development of event-related potential N400 component and its amplitude were used to investigate both goals. The decrease of the N400 in the attended and unattended channel indicated semantic comprehension and that semantic context was built up over time. The attended stimulus received more resources, processed the stimuli in more of a top-down manner and displayed prominent N400 amplitude in contrast to the unattended stimulus. The N400 and the late positivity were more complex than expected since endings of utterances longer than nine words were not accounted for. More research on wider linguistic context is needed in order to understand how the human brain comprehends natural language. 

Challenging From Within : Youth Associations and Female Leadership in Swedish Mosques

This chapter focuses on women members of the Sunnī-dominated national organization Sweden's Young Muslims (Sveriges Unga Muslimer, SUM) and some of its local youth associations in different Swedish towns, to argue that involvement with these associations is increasing Muslim women's engagement with mosques and other venues for acquisition of Islamic knowledge. Illuminating the continuous challenges to the women's presence in mosques and their wider public activism the chapter examines how these women defend their right to exercise religious authority while supporting the traditional sources of Muslim authority in the public sphere. It analyzes how the women reinterpret the Islamic texts to change their daily lives as well as their position within both the Muslim community and Swedish society as a whole. The chapter emphasizes that in more informal situations, backstage among peers, the women put gender on the agenda, initiate reflexive deliberations, and test alternative norms and practices.

Climate and causation in the Swedish Iron Age : Learning from the present to understand the past

The paper reassesses the role of climate as a factor shaping changes in settlement and landscape in the Swedish Iron Age (500 BC to AD 1050). Two reasons motivate this re-evaluation. First, high-resolution data based on climate proxies from the natural sciences are now increasingly available. Second, the climate-related social sciences have yielded conceptual and theoretical developments regarding vulnerability and adaptability in the present and recent past, creating new ways to analyse the effects of climatic versus societal factors on societies in the more distant past. Recent research in this field is evaluated and the explicitly climate deterministic standpoint of many recent natural science texts is criticized. Learning from recent approaches to climate change in the social sciences is crucial for understanding society–climate relationships in the past. The paper concludes that we are not yet in a position to fully evaluate the role of the new evidence of abrupt climate change in 850 BC, at the beginning of the Iron Age. Regarding the crisis in the mid first millennium AD, however, new climate data indicate that a dust veil in AD 536–537 might have aggravated the economic and societal crisis known from previous research.