Swedish Language Research Articles

Swedish parallels of Belarusian proverbs: Structural-semantic modeling

The article is devoted to the identification and differentiation of Swedish parallels of the most common Belarusian proverbs according to the nature of interlingual correlation. The goal involves the use of interlingual structural-semantic modeling of proverbs to identify complete proverbial analogues in different languages, identical structural models of proverbs, identical proverbial images and concepts. The material for the study was 320 Swedish proverbs, which are interlingual correlates of Belarusian proverbs. Proverbs-analogues in the Swedish and Belarusian languages are differentiated according to the nature of the interlingual community into two typologically significant groups: universal proverbs and international proverbs. Interlingual correlates of Swedish and Belarusian proverbs, which have the same structural models, are differentiated into several typologically significant groups depending on the nature of the variability of the lexical composition, due to the difference in the conceptual and figurative plan of proverbs. As a result of the study, the authors come to the conclusion that in the Swedish language there are a significant number of proverbs that are full or partial correspondences of the most commonly used Belarusian proverbs. A comparative analysis based on the structural-semantic modeling of proverbs made it possible to differentiate Swedish and Belarusian proverbial parallels into three typologically significant groups of units: similar proverbs, proverbs with identical structural models, proverbs with identical images and concepts. Swedish proverbs containing images and concepts identical to Belarusian proverbs are characterized by partial ethnocultural marking of their content, as well as the absence of a strict connection between the correlation in the content of proverbs in different languages and the presence of identical images and concepts in proverbs. The absence of such a connection indicates the typological similarity of the figurative-conceptual spaces of the Swedish and Belarusian proverbial pictures of the world, in which manifestations of interlingual community and national specificity are deeply mutually determined.

Materiały cyfrowe w nauce języka rzadko nauczanego na przykładzie języka szwedzkiego

Swedish is a less commonly taught language, which entails a lack of qualified teachers of the language and a lack of a diverse range of learning materials adapted to different groups of students. Recently, there has been a significant increase in interest in learning Swedish, with the result that traditional textbooks are unable to meet students’ learning needs. However, there are many digital materials available, both dedicated to language learning and potentially useful for this purpose. These materials can be broadly categorized into two groups: materials written in the so-called ‘easy language’, (Sw. lättlästa texter), and those directly or indirectly intended for Swedish language teaching: digital textbooks, computer applications, as well as radio and television programmes that support Swedish language learning.

Práticas translinguísticas na educação de imigrantes adultos surdos

ABSTRACT In the last decade, Sweden has received many deaf migrants with very diverse linguistic and educational backgrounds. When arriving in Sweden, they are expected to learn Swedish Sign Language (STS) and Swedish. For this study, we have used data from project Mulder, a four-year research project that aims to generate knowledge about deaf migrants’ multilingual situation in Sweden. The focus is on two folk high schools with programmes designated for deaf migrants. In this article, we describe how adult education for deaf migrants is organised in Sweden and examine how translanguaging practices are formed there. We found that translanguaging is a natural and common part of the multilingual classrooms, but also that the opportunities to translanguage depend highly on the individual’s repertoires and whether particular individuals have one or more languages in common or have a lingua franca. We also found that translanguaging is not always helpful in learning contexts if the teachers are not conscious and insightful when they mix languages.

Second language acquisition of depicting signs

AbstractThis paper concerns the acquisition of the sign lexicon in L2 learners of Swedish Sign Language. Sampled data (conversation and narrative retelling) from a longitudinal learner corpus with 16 adult L2 signers was analyzed and compared with data from nine L1 signers. The use of three broad types of signs was analyzed: lexical signs, partly-lexical signs (i.e. depicting signs) and non-lexical signs. The results revealed some differences between L1 and L2 signers, especially with regard to depicting signs. The number of depicting signs used by L2 learners increased over time, approaching the target language use. Qualitatively, we observed differences between L1 and L2 signers in their use of depicting signs, related to handshape choice and sign constructions. We discuss these findings in light of previous research linked to L2 vocabulary as well as the role of gestural knowledge in sign L2 acquisition.

Violence capital: On the framing and construction of a policy problem

Criminal law is directed at distinct individual actions and is therefore less suited for combating patterned, repeated, and collective actions. In an attempt to overcome such problems, the concept of violence capital was introduced in an amendment to the Swedish Criminal Code in 2016. The current study aims at initiating an academic debate and theory development regarding violence capital, through critical engagement with the empirical case of how the concept of violence capital was constructed when it was introduced in Swedish criminal policy and criminal law. The legal reform seems to mainly rest on the work of a specific group within the Swedish Council of Crime Prevention. Furthermore, violence capital comes across as a somewhat “slippery” concept without links to wider academic debates. The study highlights the fact that such a fundamental form of social action as violence has been absent in the academic line of thought regarding different forms of capital. Also, there is a gap between common sense ways of understanding patterns of violence and their cumulative effects and researcher models. As the concept seems to be largely unknown outside of the Swedish language media and policy debates, to be relevant to wider academic debates, the concept needs to be more clearly defined and theorized. Further developed, the concept of violence capital has the potential to shed light upon the process whereby individual acts may accumulate collective, transferable resources.

Writing Development in DHH Students: A Bimodal Bilingual Approach.

This article describes the lexical and syntactic development of written narratives in 24 deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students aged between 8 and 18 and takes into account how their varying linguistic backgrounds may predict their written performance. All participants use spoken Swedish, but the study also considers their proficiency in Swedish Sign language, which ranged from zero to fluent. Their narrative texts were analyzed in regard to syntax and lexicon, which demonstrated a strong developmental trend in which increased age predicted more complex texts. Age of acquisition did not predict any writing outcome, which is suggested to occur because all participants were exposed to language early, that is, within the critical time window for language acquisition. Sign language proficiency showed a tendency to predict adjective density and number of clauses, which encourages future research in this area, especially since this connection argues for the benefits of early access to a language and the positive relationship between sign language proficiency and writing.

Residents’ experiences of encounters with staff and communication in nursing homes during the Covid-19 pandemic: a qualitative interview study

BackgroundThe Covid-19 pandemic and associated visiting restrictions have challenged communication with others for older people residing in nursing homes.AimThe aim of this study was to explore residents’ experiences of encounters and communication with staff and relatives and friends during the Covid-19 pandemic.DesignAn exploratory study with an inductive approach.MethodsSemi-structured telephone interviews with 16 Swedish nursing home residents were conducted. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis; the study reports according to the COREQ checklist.ResultsThree main categories emerged: (1) Mixed feelings and experiences of encounters with nursing staff, (2) Adapting to hampered communication and finding strategies to overcome language barriers, and (3) Facing pandemic restrictions and living an adjusted life. Nine subcategories are reported within these categories. Residents mainly reported good encounters with staff and receiving the care they needed, but unhelpful encounters were also reported. To manage communication with staff with limited Swedish language skills, residents developed several strategies. During the visiting ban, residents felt secure but also lonely. Staying connected with the outside world required residents to use the phone and handle other digital aids, such as video calls, but lack of technical skills among staff hindered frequent use of video calls.ConclusionThis study highlights how residents can feel safe in extreme situations, but increased competence, including digital literacy and language skills, among staff is required. Care providers should provide relevant information to residents and staff and employ competent staff. Findings indicate that communication plans need to include enabling communication for residents both within and outside nursing homes, taking staff language skills into consideration.

Graphical models for narrative texts: Reflecting and reshaping curriculum demands for Swedish primary school

This study explores how graphical models, teaching resources and language arts curricula for primary school in Sweden represent features of narrative genre. Furthermore, it provides a conceptual and methodological approach for studying the recontextualization of genre knowledge in different educational contexts. We selected two particular models (the Story Face and the Obstacle Chart) because they are promoted by the Swedish National Agency of Education. We analyzed the models, curricula, and related teaching resources through Bernstein's concept of recontextualization fields, Martin's genre theory, and Kress and van Leeuwen's visual grammar. The results show that both graphical models use metaphors to evoke students’ everyday experience and break down a narrative text to key story elements. Aligning with Swedish language arts curricula, the models de-emphasize the need to manage tension in narratives. Finally, the results show that the models’ different ways of representing key story elements may be difficult for teachers and students to decode.

Divorce among exogamous couples: The role of language convergence

This is the first study to use longitudinal population register data to illustrate that marital stability may relate to the adoption of the spouse's language. The paper draws on theories of boundary shifting and boundary crossing to examine two main ancestral groups in Finland, Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers, between whom intermarriage is common. Administrative changes in how the question about language/ethnicity was registered between the censuses of 1975 and 1980 make it possible to distinguish between persons who are concordant or discordant on the main language used and ethnic affiliation. Using data on the entire married population, and adjusting for several individuals and couple characteristics, we estimate the couples’ divorce risk as a function of language convergence with Cox regressions. Discordance in terms of adopting the Finnish language used by the partner is associated with a higher divorce risk, as compared with couples who are exogamous in terms of both language use and ethnic affiliation. Adopting the Swedish language, on the other hand, is associated with a slightly reduced divorce risk. Thus, these data provide some evidence that marital stability may relate to language convergence.

Investigating pathways for predisposing, enabling and need factors in predicting the use of STI/HIV-testing services among Syrian and Iraqi migrants in Scania, Sweden – a cross-sectional study with directed acyclic graphs for modelling pathways to testing

BackgroundSome groups of migrants have increased vulnerability to Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) transmission partly due to a lower uptake of disease preventive activities targeting the general population in receiving country. Limited access to economic and social resources and poor language skills may exacerbate exposure to sexual risks and utilization of health services.AimTo explore general and migrant specific predictors for STI/HIV-testing among Syrian and Iraqi migrants in Sweden and to investigate potential pathways that link predisposing, enabling and need- factors to STI/HIV-testing.MethodCross-sectional study design based on a migration specific framework for health care utilization. Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) were used to model assumptions about factors associated with the uptake of STI/HIV-testing services. Bi-variable and multivariable logistic regression analyses assessed individual predictors while adjusting for covariates. The magnitude of the indirect effect of mediating variables were estimated with bootstrap analyses and a method for decomposing the total effect.ResultThe pathways between younger age, unmarried, and self-identifying as bi- or homosexual and testing were mainly indirect, mediated by experiences of sexual coercion and other risk behaviours. One third of the indirect mediating effect of the pathway between higher education and testing could be attributed to Swedish language skills.ConclusionUtilization of STI/HIV-testing services among Syrian and Iraqi migrants seemed to be motivated by sexual risk exposure and risk awareness. Interventions should focus on language-adapted information about available screening services and where to go for advice on sexual wellbeing and sexual rights. Such activities should be implemented within an integration promoting framework, addressing structures that increase STI/HIV risk exposure, specifically targeting vulnerable subgroups of migrants.

Turkish Mother Tongue Instruction in Sweden

Home language education has a long tradition in Sweden and includes the teaching of Turkish to children who grow up bilingually with Swedish as their societal language and Turkish as their home and heritage language. The present paper characterises Turkish mother tongue instruction (MTI) and discusses its current status in the light of Swedish language policy, as it is reflected in official documents (legislation, policy papers and curricula) vis-a-vis its practical implementation by the municipalities. The paper also presents findings from a research project on Turkish-speaking preschool and primary school children and their families, concerning MTI attendance and attitudes towards Turkish, as well as on the experiences of Turkish MTI teachers in a Swedish setting.

"They have no language"

This article is based on data from an empirical research project on the multilingual situation of deaf migrants in Sweden. Deaf migrants attending folk high schools are a heterogeneous group with various language and educational backgrounds. Some of them have grown up with limited or no access to a spoken or signed language while others have grown up learning multiple languages. In those schools, the migrants learn Swedish Sign Language (STS) and Swedish as well as about Swedish society. The study uses an ethnographic approach, and data has been created through participant observations and interviews with teachers and migrants in three folk high schools in different municipalities in Sweden. The analysis reveals that language ideologies are present in these schools, such as what constitutes a language and what status different languages and other repertoires have. In addition, STS appears to be the only acceptable language for communication within the schools. Another finding is that the Eurocentric perspective on ‘language’ among researchers and teachers often collides with the migrants who have different experiences of language use. Furthermore, the study reveals that some migrants, after some time in school, begin to view their previous repertoires used for communication as inferior to STS. It also emerges that the teachers lack the knowledge necessary to understand what it means to learn a language formally for the first time as an adult. In order to develop teachers’ knowledge to ensure social justice, research on adult deaf migrants’ language acquisition within school contexts is essential.

Bringing order to chaos: Research on Easy Swedish

AbstractDespite the early establishment of Easy Language in Sweden in the 1960s and a growing interest in producing Easy Language materials, linguistic research on Easy Swedish remains scarce. This literature review aims to describe how Easy Swedish has been understood in previous research, bringing together a wide range of perspectives and approaches. Applying a meta-narrative method, we investigate terms and definitions, descriptions of the target group, and ideologies, discourses, and values that justify Easy Language. Our results show an exclusive focus on written language and use of the term lättläst (Easy to Read), and a lack of a universal definition of the term. The results also show general agreement on the heterogeneity of the target group. Controversy arises from different perspectives on reading as well as the breadth of the concept, and the conceptualisation of Easy Swedish varies depending on the aims, discipline, and studied material.

Topikaliserade rums- och tidsadverbial i fornsvenskt lagspråk – texttypiska och informationsstrukturella drag

Topicalization is a common means of bringing about syntactic variation in Old Swedish. In topicalization, a sentence element for which the usual place is in the middle or final field is instead placed in the initial field. In Early Old Swedish and up to the mid-15th century, adverbials were more common than subjects in sentence-initial position. This study analyzes factors connected to genre and information structure that contribute to topicalization of adverbials in Early Old Swedish legal language. These factors are analyzed in relation to the structure of the text.The data consist of the Uppland law (UL) and are restricted to topicalized spatial and temporal adverbs (n=77). Three research questions are posed: 1) what features connected to genre contribute to topicalization in UL; 2) what functions topicalized spatial and temporal adverbials serve in information structure; and 3) whether there is a relationship between genre features and information structure in Early Old Swedish legal language.Topicalized spatial and temporal adverbials are significantly more common in main clauses (n=57) than in subordinate clauses (n=20) in UL. Clauses with a topicalized spatial or temporal adverb usually belong to legal declarations; topicalization occurs in both first and second clauses. Two central genre-related motivations for topicalization are textual binding and framing, which means that spatial and temporal adverbs can be used to refer backward and forward in the text. Factors connected with genre also include emphasis and contrast, which in old laws is not just a stylistic technique, but has a further function in shaping the text. The information structure functions of the adverbs studied are background and rheme, with the background function being the most common. The function of theme does not occur in the data. The analysis shows clearly that the genre features are connected with the information structure functions; together they contribute to topicalization in Old Swedish legal language.

Språkliga landskap i Åbo förr och nu

Linguistic landscapes have in recent years been studied from several angles and in many different language communities. However, very few studies in the field have applied a diachronic perspective. This study aims at examining commercial linguistic landscapes in Turku, the oldest city in Finland, by focusing on how the same places in the centre of Turku are linguistically shaped a hundred years apart. Turku is an officially bilingual city, which implies that national and municipal signs need to be in the two national languages (Finnish and Swedish), in accordance with Finland’s language legislation. Commercial signs, on the other hand, are not subject to the same legal framework, which makes them an interesting object of study. The study is theoretically inspired by a view of language as social practice, as well as by ethnographic principles (e.g. Heller 2007, 2008; Blommaert 2007, 2013). Its results illustrate that the linguistic landscape of a hundred years ago shows a systematic parallel bilingualism, in which messages in Finnish and Swedish stand side by side and the same information is consistently mediated in both languages, i.e. a bilingualism that is primarily directed at monolingual recipients. The newer linguistic landscape, however, shows a more heterogeneous linguistic profile. The Swedish language has almost disappeared from the cityscape, but the importance of Finnish has also declined. Instead, English has gained an increasingly salient role, alongside a multilingualism that combines resources from different languages in a more arbitrary way, and these elements hardly ever convey the same contents. This kind of multilingualism can be characterised as postmodern and rhizomatic (Deleuze & Quattari 2015), and it is also linked to superdiversity (e.g. Blommaert 2013), but represents a multilingualism of an elite rather than a migration-based one, as the area under study offers goods and services for tastes of luxury rather than tastes of necessity (Bourdieu 1984).

Harder Than You Think – Immigrant Labor Market Integration in Agricultural Sector

The recent forced migration to Europe has created more challenges for the labor market integration. However, the Swedish government encourages unemployed immigrants to seek employment in the farming, gardening, and forestry industries. Thus, this article focuses on the matching process in the Swedish agricultural sector by using an exploratory, qualitative, in-depth interview with representatives involved in the matching process. Immigrants experience challenges of Swedish language proficiency, lacking a driving license and adapting to new cultures in the workplace, while employers attribute challenges of effective hiring process and the absence of evidence of immigrants’ work experience. Furthermore, the employment service offices struggle with scant knowledge of agricultural employment that needs to be combined with limited contact with employers and the bureaucratic delays caused by requirements of qualifications validation. The paper concludes with a Labour Market Matching Model, which focuses on critical aspects before, during, and after the matching process.

Translation and cultural adaptation of the fundamentals of care framework: Are we there yet?

This paper aims to explore and describe the translation and cultural adaptation of the Fundamentals of Care framework to a Swedish context, and highlight the need for a translated version. An exploratory, descriptive approach was adopted. A structured forward-backward translation process and cultural adaptation were used, considering situation and recipient as recommended for such process. Data such as literature and documents were collected during 2019-2021. The authors took systematic steps in collaboration with a strategic sample of experts: professional language service providers, clinicians, educators and a linguist. The framework was mainly translated verbatim. A few fundamental care elements were adjusted to the Swedish language, context and clinical practice. Also, this work clarified the relational elements to be coherently seen as nursing actions. Addressing the need for a translated version was illustrated in activities in research, education and clinical practice. This paper highlights the importance of translating the Fundamentals of Care framework into a country's native language to gain acceptance and application there. Sharing the framework's translated version impacts nursing science, generating a consistent language in the development and conducting of research for the comparison and transferability or generalizability of findings. Together with a cultural adaptation, the translated framework can support and guide researchers, educators and nursing leaders in articulating fundamental nursing care for enacting change. By disseminating the first Swedish version of the framework we encourage a global discussion and sharing of examples of translation and cultural adaptation by others. The framework's English version has limitations in various context. This paper shows a systematic translation and cultural adaptation process of the framework. We proclaim that this is necessary for nursing leaders and nurses to be able to apply it in guiding nursing practice and leading change.

A cross-linguistic comparison of reference across five signed languages

Abstract Do signers of different signed languages establish and maintain reference the same way? Here we compare how signers of five Western deaf signed languages coordinate fully conventionalized forms with more richly improvised semiotics to identify and talk about referents of varying agency. The five languages (based on a convenience sample) are Auslan, Irish Sign Language, Finnish Sign Language, Norwegian Sign Language, and Swedish Sign Language. Using ten retellings of Frog, Where Are You? from each language, we analyze tokens of referring expressions with respect to: (a) activation status (new vs. maintained vs. re-introduced); (b) semiotic strategy (e.g., pointing sign, fingerspelling, enactment); and (c) animacy (human vs. animal vs. inanimate object). Statistical analysis reveals many similarities and some differences across the languages. For example, signers of each language typically used conventionalized forms to identify new referents, and less conventional strategies to maintain and reintroduce referents. Differences were mainly observed in relation to the patterning across animacy and activation categories and in the use of fingerspelled words from ambient spoken/written languages. We suggest that doing reference in these signed languages involves both signed language-specific and ecology-specific strategies. The latter may be attributed to the different social and historical trajectories of each language.

L2M1 and L2M2 Acquisition of Sign Lexicon: The Impact of Multimodality on the Sign Second Language Acquisition.

In second language research, the concept of cross-linguistic influence or transfer has frequently been used to describe the interaction between the first language (L1) and second language (L2) in the L2 acquisition process. However, less is known about the L2 acquisition of a sign language in general and specifically the differences in the acquisition process of L2M2 learners (learners learning a sign language for the first time) and L2M1 learners (signers learning another sign language) from a multimodal perspective. Our study explores the influence of modality knowledge on learning Swedish Sign Language through a descriptive analysis of the sign lexicon in narratives produced by L2M1 and L2M2 learners, respectively. A descriptive mixed-methods framework was used to analyze narratives of adult L2M1 (n = 9) and L2M2 learners (n = 15), with a focus on sign lexicon, i.e., use and distribution of the sign types such as lexical signs, depicting signs (classifier predicates), fingerspelling, pointing, and gestures. The number and distribution of the signs are later compared between the groups. In addition, a comparison with a control group consisting of L1 signers (n = 9) is provided. The results suggest that L2M2 learners exhibit cross-modal cross-linguistic transfer from Swedish (through higher usage of lexical signs and fingerspelling). L2M1 learners exhibits same-modal cross-linguistic transfer from L1 sign languages (through higher usage of depicting signs and use of signs from L1 sign language and international signs). The study suggests that it is harder for L2M2 learners to acquire the modality-specific lexicon, despite possible underlying gestural knowledge. Furthermore, the study suggests that L2M1 learners’ access to modality-specific knowledge, overlapping access to gestural knowledge and iconicity, facilitates faster L2 lexical acquisition, which is discussed from the perspective of linguistic relativity (including modality) and its role in sign L2 acquisition.

Comprehending L2 Comprehension: A study of Arabic-Swedish bilingual preschoolers’ performance on a Swedish proficiency test

About a fifth of all children in Sweden learn the societal language Swedish outside of the home, i.e., they have Swedish as a second language (L2). Many of these children have lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, which predicts lower language proficiency. The aim of the present study is twofold: to contribute to a greater understanding of L2-Swedish proficiency in preschoolers with lower SES backgrounds, and to find out how proficiency tests should be adapted for bilingual children such that the tests are valid, i.e., unbiased to the language status (L1 or L2). We investigate test performance on a Swedish receptive language proficiency test (the Comprehension scale of The New Reynell Developmental Language Scales, NRDLS) which has a monolingual norming sample. The participants are 51 bilingual children (3-5-years of age) with Arabic as their L1, and who attend preschools in Swedish neighborhoods with lower SES. Results indicate that in contrast to the norming sample, bilingual children’s raw scores for subsections of the test are not progressively more difficult. Thus, we need to be aware that bilingual children’s high proficiency in a particular aspect of the language does not necessarily imply that they are proficient in aspects that would be considered easier from a monolingual perspective. In addition, there are indications that unfamiliarity with L2 lexical items, that are typically acquired early in L1, causes bilingual children to fail on tasks aimed at assessing syntactic skills, even though they appear to understand the syntactic pattern. We conclude with suggestions for special considerations and adaptations to assess individual L2-comprehension in preschoolers more accurately, such that practitioners in turn can support the children’s language development.