Abstract
This paper explores how the anonymous authors of two Swedish handbooks for dog owners, published in 1823 and 1849 respectively, tried to communicate their knowledge about the treatment of dogs so that the readers of the handbooks could, hopefully, apply the information offered in their everyday life. The study clarifies how the authors organize the knowledge that they want their readers to take part of, how they show their readers opportunities to search for the desired knowledge and which reading paths within the handbooks that the readers are offered. The two handbooks are regarded as multimodal, dialogical, final and addressive texts, and the study reported is qualitative and comparative; the handbooks are compared with each other, with other studies of dog owner manuals in Swedish, and with studies of other types of practical handbooks in Swedish. The results show great similarities between the two handbooks regarding the investigated variables, but the handbook from 1849 is judged to be more well planned and easier to use for contemporary knowledge-seeking dog owners. Finally, further studies of the handbooks are suggested, including syntactic-focused studies of them, comparisons with contemporary veterinary medical literature and studies of a larger material of dog owners’ handbooks.
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