Phraseological patterns in a civic orientation textbook for immigrants to Sweden: How heterogeneous readers and a largely non-monolithic country are constructed

Abstract

Aiming to critically review texts that construct knowledge about social categories, this study analyses a textbook used in Sweden to introduce new immigrants to Swedish society. It is investigated, through the pronoun you, how the target reader and, through the noun Sweden and the adjective Swedish, how Sweden and what is Swedish are discursively constructed. These three word forms occur most frequently in their respective word classes in the textbook. The recurrent phraseological patterns that they are involved in form the starting-point for an analysis of their discourse functions. A critical perspective is adopted, by asking to what extent the textbook presents a uniform and essentialist picture of the newcomer and of Sweden. The findings show that the textbook exhibits a reader-oriented style through excessive you uses. The image of the newcomer is marked by heterogeneity: the reader is offered a variety of hypothetical identities through frequently used if-you-conditionals. By demonstrating relevance and linking information and advice directly to the reader, the you patterns realise a strategy of inclusion. However, the reader group is also presented as internally similar, in being seen as less knowledgeable and in need of the writer’s guidance. The writer and reader are not presented as sharing understandings and goals, hence distance is created rather than proximity. The construction of Sweden links mostly to meanings of the nation that involve institutions, while meanings to do with culture and traditions are rare and hedged. Attempts are made to avoid ethnification of Swedish people, even if some majority views and practices are still presented. Strategies of inclusion and non-ethnification have led to favouring expressions like [people] in Sweden and disfavouring words like Swede(s) and immigrant(s). It is through in Sweden-statements that readers are covertly told what they need to do to fit in with majority views.