The priority of temporal aspects in L2-Swedish prosody : Studies in perception and production

Foreign accent can be everything from hardly detectable to rendering the second language speech unintelligible. It is assumed that certain aspects of a specific target language contribute more to making the foreign accented speech intelligible and listener friendly, than others. The present thesis examines a teaching strategy for Swedish pronunciation in second language education. The teaching strategy “Basic prosody” or BP, gives priority to temporal aspects of Swedish prosody, which means the temporal phonological contrasts word stress and quantity, as well as the durational realizations of these contrasts. BP does not prescribe any specific tonal realizations. This standpoint is based on the great regional variety in realization and distribution of Swedish word accents. The teaching strategy consists virtually of three directives: · Stress the proper word in the sentence. · Stress proper syllables in stressed words and make them longer. · Lengthen the proper segment – vowel or subsequent consonant – in the stressed syllable. These directives reflect the view that all phonological length is stress-induced, and that vowel length and consonant length are equally important as learning goals. BP is examined in the light of existing findings in the field of second language pronunciation and with respect to the phonetic correlates of Swedish stress and quantity. Five studies examine the relation between segment durations and the categorization made by native Swedish listeners. The results indicate that the postvocalic consonant duration contributes to quantity categorization as well as giving the proper duration to stressed syllables. Furthermore, native Swedish speakers are shown to apply the complementary /V: C/ - /VC:/ pattern also when speaking English and German, by lengthening postvocalic consonants. The correctness of the priority is not directly addressed but important aspects of BP are supported by earlier findings as well as the results from the present studies.

When IKEA enters : Do local retailers win or lose?

IKEA is one of the world’s largest retailers, but little is known about how IKEA impact incumbent retailers when deciding to enter a local market. Previous studies on the effects of big-box entry on surrounding retailers have also generated inconclusive results, and mainly been focused towards entry of Wal-Mart in the United States. We contribute to this literature by investigating the effects of IKEA entry on revenues and employment for incumbent retail firms in three Swedish municipalities during 2000-2010. Our results indicate that a new IKEA store increases average revenues for incumbent retailers within the entry municipality by 11%, but also that the effect is highly heterogeneous within the municipality. Retailers that were located up to 1 km from IKEA experienced a 26% increase in revenues when IKEA entered the municipality. However, the positive spillover effect of a new IKEA store on retail revenues diminished with the distance to IKEA, and turned insignificant for retailers in the city centers and those that were located 5-10 km from IKEA. The effects on employment were much less pronounced, and in most cases statistically insignificant.

L'italiano in Svezia nel Seicento attraverso le testimonianze di viaggiatori italiani

Nell'articolo è illustrata la conoscenza della lingua italiana in Svezia nella prima età moderna, con particolare riguardo al Seicento. Gli studi pregressi su questo argomento mostrano che l'Italiano era in questo periodo una delle lingue di cultura più importanti in Svezia. Per verificare questi studi si sono utilizzate le notizie di prima mano contenute in alcuni testi odeporici (lettere, diari, relazioni ecc.) redatti da viaggiatori italiani recatisi in Svezia in questo secolo. Nei primi paragrafi del lavoro il lettore è introdotto alla comprensione dell'argomento grazie ad una esposizione contestualizzata sia della storia della Svezia sia di quella della lingua italiana tra Cinquecento e Seicento. Inoltre si offre anche una veloce introduzione ai contatti culturali tra l'Italia e la Svezia fino al Seicento. L'analisi dei testi odeporici seicenteschi conferma gli studi precedenti, basati su ricerche bibliografiche e d'archivio, dimostrando come l'Italiano, sebbene materia di studio accademico e di apprendimento privato, fosse in realtà conosciuto in Svezia solo da una piccola parte dei nobili, preferendosi ad esso il Francese, mentre il latino era conosciuto bene da tutti i rappresentanti del clero.

Gli studi italiani sulla regina Cristina di Svezia negli ultimi cinquant'anni

Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689)) is probably the most important individual to directly link the cultures of Sweden and Italy, and thus fascinate scholars over the last four centuries. In the last fifty years, research on and interest in this monarch has been particularly intense. This has led to current international scientific debate concerning all the different cultural expressions in which Queen Cristina was particularly involved. However, until now there has been lacking a comprehensive work to illustrate the development of scientific research in Italian on Queen Christina. This article, therefore, without claiming to be exhaustive, aims to fill this gap by identifying the main direction of current research. The article, after briefly introducing previous works (both Italian and Swedish), demonstrates how the first major renaissance of international studies on Queen Cristina took place in Sweden in the early 1960s. Even more important was the subsequent turning point in 1989, when the tercentenary of the death of Queen Christina was celebrated and the Azzolino Collection at the Biblioteca Comunale in Jesi was opened. The article focuses on the studies in Italian during this latter period. To make the exposition more organic and, importantly, more accessible to those readers interested in only one particular aspect of the scientific studies about Queen Christina, the studies in Italian since 1689 are divided into different subject areas.

Dissonant Voices : Philosophy, Children's Literature, and Perfectionist Education

Dissonant Voices has a twofold aspiration. First, it is a philosophical treatment of everyday pedagogical interactions between children and their elders, between teachers and pupils. More specifically it is an exploration of the possibilities to go on with dissonant voices that interrupt established practices – our attunement – in behaviour, practice and thinking. Voices that are incomprehensible or expressions that are unacceptable, morally or otherwise. The text works on a tension between two inclinations: an inclination to wave off, discourage, or change an expression that is unacceptable or unintelligible; and an inclination to be tolerant and accept the dissonant expression as doing something worthwhile, but different. The second aspiration is a philosophical engagement with children’s literature. Reading children’s literature becomes a form of philosophising, a way to explore the complexity of a range of philosophical issues. This turn to literature marks a dissatisfaction with what philosophy can accomplish through argumentation and what philosophy can do with a particular and limited set of concepts for a subject, such as ethics. It is a way to go beyond philosophising as the founding of theories that justify particular responses. The philosophy of dissonance and children’s literature becomes a way to destabilise justifications of our established practices and ways of interacting. The philosophical investigations of dissonance are meant to make manifest the possibilities and risks of engaging in interactions beyond established agreement or attunements. Thinking of the dissonant voice as an expression beyond established practices calls for improvisation. Such improvisations become a perfectionist education where both the child and the elder, the teacher and the student, search for as yet unattained forms of interaction and take responsibility for every word and action of the interaction. The investigation goes through a number of picture books and novels for children such as Harry Potter, Garmann’s Summer, and books by Shaun Tan, Astrid Lindgren and Dr. Seuss as well narratives by J.R.R. Tolkien, Henrik Ibsen, Jane Austen and Henry David Thoreau. These works of fiction are read in conversation with philosophical works of, and inspired by, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell, their moral perfectionism and ordinary language philosophy.

'In Charge of the Truffula Seeds' : On Children's Literature, Rationality and Children's Voices in Philosophy

In this paper I investigate how philosophy can speak for children and how children can have a voice in philosophy and speak for philosophy. I argue that we should understand children as responsible rational individuals who are involved in their own philosophical inquiries and who can be involved in our own philosophical investigations-not because of their rational abilities, but because we acknowledge them as conversational partners, acknowledge their reasons as reasons, and speak for them as well as let them speak for us and our rational community. In order to argue this I turn, first, to Gareth Matthews' philosophy of childhood and suggest a reconstruction of some of his concepts in line with the philosophy of Stanley Cavell. Second, in order to examine more closely our conceptions of rationality and our pictures of children, I consider the children's books, The Lorax and Where is My Sister? and Henrik Ibsen's play, The Wild Duck.

Den svenska nedskärningsmodellen

Målet med detta examensarbete är att skapa en modell för svenska förhållanden,vilken kan användas för att minimera de negativa konsekvenserna avnedskärningar men även lyfta fram de positiva effekterna som en nedskärningmedför.Utifrån modellen Realistic Downsizing Preview (RDP) (Appelbaum & Donia,2001) har vi arbetat fram en egen modell över hur en nedskärningsprocess börutföras för att få ett så lyckat resultat som möjligt. Vi vill med vår modell främjade positiva effekterna utav nedskärningar och hur organisationen skall arbeta föratt uppnå dessa, på detta sätt bör de samtidigt kunna förebygga de negativaeffekterna.Vår studie är en kvalitativ litteraturundersökning där stort fokus har lagts påinsamlandet av artiklar och arbeten som behandlar ämnet Survivor Syndrome ochhur organisation bör arbeta med nedskärningar. Det insamlade materialet har sedananalyserats källkritiskt för att sedermera kunna bli en bidragen faktor vidskapandet av vår modell ”Den Svenska Nedskärningsmodellen”(SNM). Vi utfördetvå intervjuer, den ena var på SSAB och den andra var på NCC Construction.Detta gjordes efter modellen var klar för att kunna prova den praktiskt samt för attfå synpunkter. I vår modell kommer störst fokus att läggas på tre nyckelfaktorer,dessa är arbetet med utförarna, överlevarna och offren.Arbetet riktar sig till ledningen på större svenska organisationer som står inför ennedskärning.

Pricing and competition in the Swedish retail market for electricity

Sweden, together with Norway, Finland and Denmark, have created a multi-national electricity market called NordPool. In this market, producers and retailers of electricity can buy and sell electricity, and the retailers then offers this electricity to end consumers such as households and industries. Previous studies have shown that pricing at the NordPool market is functioning quite well, but no other study has to my knowledge studied if pricing in the retail market to consumers in Sweden is well functioning. If the market is well functioning, with competition and low transaction costs when changing electricity retailer, we would expect that a homogeneous good such as electricity would be sold at the approximately same price, and that price changes would be highly correlated, in this market. Thus, the aim of this study is to test whether the price of Vattenfall, the largest energy firm in the Swedish market, is highly correlated to the price of other firms in the Swedish retail market for electricity. Descriptive statistics indicate that the price offered by Vattenfall is quite similar to the price of other firms in the market. In addition, regression analysis show that the correlation between the price of Vattenfall and other firms is as high as 0.98.

A Story of English Language Learning – How Can Children’s Literature be Used in Teaching Vocabulary to Young English Language Learners? : - A Literature Review

This study aims to find research relating to the use of children’s literature to promote vocabulary development in young children, particularly English language learners in Sweden. The main questions address how (methods) children’s literature can be used and why (reasons) children’s literature is often recommended for the teaching of vocabulary to young learners. The study also aims to explore reasons against the use of children’s literature in vocabulary teaching found in previous research. A systematic literature review was carried out, including results from five empirical studies. The studies involved native speakers, second language learners and foreign language learners from various backgrounds. The results suggest that while research has shown children’s literature to be a good tool to use with young learners, careful lesson planning needs to be carried out. Direct instruction and scaffolding using pictures, technology and gestures is recommended. Hence, the teacher plays an important part for the vocabulary development using children’s literature in the classroom.

Reading That Matters : A Literature Review on Meaningful Reading Experiences in the EFL Classroom

This thesis is a literature review on literature reading in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom, of mainly upper secondary schools. The underlying objective for this work is that meaningful reading experiences can have a positive impact on a developing young individual on his or her way into adulthood. The aim of this thesis is to explore what theories and methods are used when trying to create prerequisites for meaningful reading experiences, and how these experiences actually are realized. Qualitative methods are mainly used, except for a small section of the methodology of finding the sources, which is quantitative in nature. Since very little previous research has been done in the field, the six sources used in this review are internationally spread over five continents. They are mainly analyzed from a theoretical background of reader response and critical literacy perspectives. The main findings show that a number of theoretical approaches and methodologies can be useful in creating meaningful reading experiences. What may have proven most effective was addressing actual problems in the students’ everyday lives through applied critical literacy.

Growth, migration and unemployment across Swedish municipalities

Fundamental questions in economics are why some regions are richer than others, why their economic growth rates vary, whether their growth tends to converge and the key factors that contribute to the variations. These questions have not yet been fully addressed, but changes in the local tax base are clearly influenced by the average income growth rate, net migration rate, and changes in unemployment rates. Thus, the main aim of this paper is to explore in depth the interactive effects of these factors (and local policy variables) in Swedish municipalities, by estimating a proposed three-equation system. Our main finding is that increases in local public expenditures and income taxes have negative effects on subsequent local income growth. In addition, our results support the conditional convergence hypothesis, i.e. that average income tends to grow more rapidly in relatively poor local jurisdictions than in initially “richer” jurisdictions, conditional on the other explanatory variables.

What affects recognition most – wrong wordstress or wrong word accent?

In an attempt to find out which of the two Swedish prosodic contrasts of 1) wordstress pattern and 2) tonal word accent category has the greatest communicative weight, a lexical decision experiment was conducted: in one part word stress pattern was changed from trochaic to iambic, and in the other part trochaic accentII words were changed to accent I.Native Swedish listeners were asked to decide whether the distorted words werereal words or ‘non-words’. A clear tendency is that listeners preferred to give more‘non-word’ responses when the stress pattern was shifted, compared to when wordaccent category was shifted. This could have implications for priority of phonological features when teaching Swedish as a second language.

Psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the Fear of Complications Questionnaire

Objectives: To translate and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the Fear of Complications Questionnaire. Design: Cross-sectional study design and scale development. Settings: Totally, 469 adults (response rate 63.5%) with Type 1 diabetes completed the questionnaires. Participants were recruited from two university hospitals in Sweden. Participants: Eligible patients were those who met the following inclusion criteria: diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, diabetes duration of at least 1 year and aged at least 18 years. Methods: The Fear of Complications Questionnaire was translated using the forward-backward translation method. Factor analyses of the questionnaire were performed in two steps using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Convergent validity was examined using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Fear of Hypoglycaemia Fear Survey. Internal consistency was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha.Results: Exploratory factor analysis supported a two-factor solution. One factor contained three items having to do with fear of kidney-related complications and one factor included the rest of items concerning fear of other diabetes-related complications, as well as fear of complications in general. Internal consistency was high Cronbach’s alpha 0.96. The findings also gave support for convergent validity, with significant positive correlations between measures (r = 0.51 to 0.54). Conclusion: The clinical relevance of the identified two-factor model with a structure of one dominant subdomain may be considered. We suggest, however a one-factor model covering all the items as a relevant basis to assess fear of complications among people with Type 1 diabetes.

Humorforskning i svenska organisationer och arbetslivssammanhang : en litteraturöversikt

Research on humor in Swedish organizational and working life contexts: a literature review The objective of this study was to provide a more coherent picture of research on humor in Swedish organizational and working life contexts, where even non-strictly organizational studies were included due to their high relevance in the research area. A systematic review of the literature published during the last 15 years was used to summarize an obviously undeveloped research area in Sweden. Published peer-reviewed articles that primarily examine humor were analyzed. Seventeen representative articles have been found and systematically reviewed and compared focusing on four questions: purposes and contexts of the studies, theoretical approaches, methods and main results. The analysis identifies four focal points that describe current state of humor research in Sweden: 1) positive function of humor appears to be a predominant research issue while humor’s subversive function, power relations and negative functions are less represented, 2) limited comparative studies of different contexts 3) biased theoretical approaches and limited studies of theory developing approach 4) overrepresented qualitative research approach. The above issues were discussed in relation to relevant international humor research.