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كانت الدلالة موضوعاً خصباً وحقلاً مثيراً للاهتمام في دراسات اللغويين والفلاسفة، وصارت هدفاً لكل تلك الدراسات لارتباطها بنظريات الإدراك والمعرفة. لقد ارتبطت الدلالة في الدراسات اللسانية الحديثة بنظريات عديدة، وسوف يركز بحثي على النظرية السياقية كما وضع جذورها قديماً، اللغويون والبلاغيون العرب كعبد القاهر الجرجاني، وكما أرسى مبادئها في العصر الحديث العالم البريطاني فيرث بنظرية أطلق عليها: النظرية السياقية، والتي أخرجت الدلالة من مجالها النحوي التركيبي إلى مجالات أكثر سعة من ذلك التركيب على الرغم من أهميته التي لن نتغافل عنها بالتأكيد. سأتناول في هذا البحث السياق بأنواعه المختلفة التي حددها اللغويون مثل: أحمد مختار عمر وتمّام حسّان وأحمد محمد قدور: السياق اللغوي، والسياق العاطفي، والسياق الثقافي، وسياق الموقف، والوظيفة التي تؤديها هذه السياقات لتشكيل دلالة الكلام، وسوف أقوم بفحص تلك المستويات السياقية من خلال تمثلاتها في البناء اللساني لقصيدة: النائمة في الشارع، لنازك الملائكة.

In metadiscourse work, what may be called a ‘marker’ approach vastly outnumbers a ‘move’ approach. This has led to a research focus on small units of analysis, typically word based, classifying for example the pronoun I as Self-mention. This paper argues that we also need to develop a ‘move’ approach in metadiscourse studies, involving a more contextualised analysis of the discourse functions that speakers/writers use metadiscourse to perform. To support such a development, an overview is given of existing functional taxonomies for academic discourse and a specific taxonomy is presented of metadiscursive functions. The taxonomy was originally developed based on academic lectures and student essays, but is further developed as applied to spoken student presentations. The second main contribution of the article is the analysis of student presentations. The material is culled from an MA-level English-language online teaching context and compiled into a corpus of 13 presentations (20,000 words and 169 min of presentation time). The qualitative focus of the study is on the taxonomy for how metadiscourse is performed. Quantitative findings regarding the distribution of different types of metadiscourse functions are also included. Despite the widespread practice of student presentations, they have received very little research attention, but the present study maps their key discourse functions.

I denna artikel undersöks möjligheter och utmaningar vad gäller att utveckla kritisk litteracitet för vuxna som deltar i sfi, studieväg 1. Artikeln bygger på intervjuer av fyra sfi-lärare och observationer av deras undervisning, inom ramen för ett aktionsforskningsprojekt där fokus var på kritisk litteracitet. Luke och Freebodys skriftspråkliga praktiker och Janks ramverk för dimensioner av kritisk litteracitet användes för analys. Studien visar både på möjligheter och utmaningar. Även om de fyra olika praktikerna pågick samtidigt är det tydligt att den kritiska uppfattas som mer utmanande för lärarna. Samtidigt framträdde en spänning mellan skolans demokratiuppdrag och lärarnas beredvillighet att låta elever ha direkt inflytande över exempelvis vilka frågor som väljs ut för kritisk analys. Ur ett maktperspektiv befinner sig eleverna på studieväg 1 i ett läge av underordning, såväl vad gäller möjligheter att utöva sina medborgerliga rättigheter som möjligheter att påverka rådande diskurser. Vi konstaterar att lärarnas villighet att inkludera kontroversiella frågor även behöver balanseras mot aspekter som klassrumsklimat och skydd av enskilda elevers välbefinnande

Sweden is often commended for the inclusion of home languages in the formal education system: both mother tongue instruction (where a pupil’s home language is taught as an optional school subject) and study guidance (where a pupil is given content support in their home language or prior language of schooling) are offered. Still, while many national educational policies are supportive of multilingualism, their enactment on the ground is often problematic. The attitudes and beliefs of teacher educators, in-service teachers, and pre-service teachers are crucial here, yet few studies have investigated how these key actors in Sweden perceive their encounters with linguistic diversity. Furthermore, an understanding of the similarities and differences in the perspectives across these three cohorts is lacking. We have analysed interviews with five teacher educators, five in-service teachers, and eight pre-service teachers concerning their attitudes and beliefs on multilingualism. These interviews reveal orientations towards language and language use in teacher education and primary schools. Specifically, language is seen both as a problem and as a resource. Our results uncover tensions in the expressed attitudes and beliefs about multilingualism, as well as about multilingual pre-service teachers in teacher education and multilingual pupils in the Swedish school.

The aim of this article is to study the space for multilingualism and multiliteracy in the development of literacy skills through critical literacy in Swedish for Immigrants. The focus is on adult second language learners (L2 learners) with low education and Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy is used for the analysis of material from classroom observations. The observed teaching included space for multiliteracies and students were explicitly stimulated to bring their own experiences and express their own views. Thus, this linguistic ethnographic study supports earlier claims that all points on the continua are important in literacy education for adults. However, it also shows that conflicting perceptions may exist in class regarding what is happening and what should happen. Topics that are commonly used in critical literacy may further add to such risks. Developing literacy skills in an L2 means hard work, especially developing such skills from basic levels in adulthood. Thus, creating engagement is an important task for teachers, while teachers may hesitate in raising sensitive topics if they fear it may lead to conflict.  

Som en följd av Covid-19-pandemin har behov av mer kunskaper om undervisning och digitalisering i den svenska skolan uppmärksammats. Syftet med presentationen är att med fokus på ämneslitteracitet (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008, 2012) synliggöra hur gymnasielärare i samhällskunskap genom digitala breakout-rum, som mötesplatser, skapar möjligheter till handledning av elever i språk- och kunskapsutveckling (Gibbon, 2006). Studien är en del av det pågående och praktiknära projektet Digitala resurser i undervisningen där 13 lärare och en forskare samarbetar kring utvecklande av nya kunskaper om multimodalitet, literacy och lärande i klassrummet (Jewitt, 2002; Bezemer, Kress & O´Halloran, 2016; Jewitt & Kress, 2003; Nordmark, 2023). I denna delpresentation består materialet av sju klassrumsobservationer vid grupparbete i digital undervisning, en klass under pandemin och en klass efter pandemin, samt 10 videoinspelade intervjuer med elever. För denna delstudie har videoinspelade undervisningssekvenser valts ut för fördjupad analys med fokus på ämnesord och samhällsvetenskapliga tankeredskap (Sandahl, 2015). Särskilt intresse läggs på hur lärarens språkutvecklande handledning kan bidra till elevernas kunskapsutveckling i ämnet. De preliminära resultaten visar att när läraren börjar använda breakout-rum i undervisningen uppmärksammas didaktiska värden i elevers gemensamma skrivande samt integreras läsande, samtalande, lyssnande och skrivande med olika modaliteter. Breakout-rummen främjar mångfald genom att läraren ges möjlighet att uppmärksamma och ge feed forward till både enskilda elever och samtliga grupper under en och samma lektion. Användningen av breakout-rum uppfattas av lärare och elever som främjande för literacy engagement och literacy achievement (Cummins, 2015).

Nyckelord: breakout-rum, ämneslitteracitet, språk- och kunskapsutvecklande arbetssätt, multimodalitet, lärande

Referenser

Cummins, J. (2015). Language Differences that Influence Reading Development. I P. Afflerbach Handbook of Individual Differences in Reading, Reader, Text, and Context, (s. 223–244). Routledge.

Gibbons, P. (2006). Stärk språket, stärk lärandet. Språk- och kunskapsutvecklande arbetssätt för och med andraspråkselever i klassrummet. Hallgren & Fallgren. 

Jewitt, C. (2006). Technology, Literacy, Learning. A Multimodal Approach. Routledge.

Jewitt, C. & Kress, G. (2003). Multimodal literacy. Peter Lang. 

Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J. & O´Halloran, K. (2016). Introducing Multimodality. Routledge. 

Nordmark, M. (2023). Legitimation of digitalisation in education. A case study of vocational student teachers´lesson plans. Utbildning & Lärande, 17(1), 65–83. https://doi.org/10.58714/ul.v17i1.12757

Sandahl, J. (2015). Medborgarbildning i gymnasiet. Ämneskunnande och medborgarbildning i gymnasieskolans samhälls- och historieundervisning. [Doktorsavhandling, Stockholms universitet]

Shanahan, C. & Shanahan, T. (2008). Teaching Disciplinary Literacy to Adolescents: Rethinking Content Area Literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40­–59. 

Shanahan, T. & Shanahan, C. (2012). What is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Does it Matter? Topics in Language Disorders, 32(1), 7-18.

Begreppet bromance (från engelskans brother och romance) har under de senaste tio åren använts flitigt inom filmvetenskap och mediestudier (se exempelvis Alberti, 2013; Boyle & Berridge, 2014; Brook, 2015; Becker & Weiner, 2016; Tait, 2016; Oh, 2018), för att undersöka dataspel och internetfenomen (mem) (Green, 2019; Erlichman & Pluretti, 2021) och inom psykologiskt och sociologiskt inriktade maskulinitetsstudier (Hammarén & Johansson, 2014; Robinson et al., 2018 ; Poost, 2018; Robinson et al., 2019). Begreppet har dock sällan använts för att studera sångtexter – och såvitt jag vet aldrig tidigare applicerats på fransk sånglyrik – trots att manlig vänskap inte är något ovanligt tema inom denna textgenre. Föreliggande undersökning fokuserar på tre franskspråkiga sånger från olika epoker: Jacques Brels ”Jef” (1964), Renauds ”Manu” (1981) och ”Mon chum Rémi” (2002) av den franskkanadensiska folkrockgruppen Les Cowboys fringants. Sångtexterna utgör variationer på ett gemensamt grundtema där en manlig berättarröst försöker trösta en djupt förtvivlad manlig vän. 

Enligt ovannämnda forskning kännetecknas bromance-förhållanden av en stark vänskap mellan heterosexuella män. Känslomässig intimitet är av stor vikt för relationen och fysisk intimitet kan också förekomma – men den utgör inte något obligatoriskt inslag i förhållandet. Flera film- och medieforskare poängterar att framställningar av bromance-relationer inom populärkulturen erbjuder möjligheter att problematisera frågor som rör maskulinitet och manlig identitet, men att de ofta resulterar i motsatsen: heteronormativiteten och den hegemoniska maskuliniteten tenderar snarare att förstärkas än ifrågasättas i dessa verk. Man har också påtalat att bromance-relationer ofta växer fram i homosociala miljöer där misogyna och patriarkala attityder riskerar att cementeras (Hill Nettleton, 2016; Lam & Raphael, 2018). I mitt paper undersöker jag i vilken mån dessa karaktäristika återfinns i de tre franska sångtexterna.

Cats are and have always been a constant presence in the Arabic culture: from Ancient Egypt to the pre-Islamic era, in the Islamic tradition and even in proverbs, cats have always played a conspicuous role. The traditional Arabic significance of cats is also clearly reflected in contemporary Arabic children’s literature, and a large number of tales for children are featuring cats in a variety of roles. However, how are cats portrayed and what do they stand for in these stories? Scope of this paper is the representation of cats and their symbolism in contemporary Arabic children’s literature. A brief introduction covers the role of cats in the Arabic culture in very general terms, followed by an overview of the genre of contemporary Arabic children’s literature that accounts for its mostly educational, didactic character and its latest trends. The central part of this paper presents and analyses a number of Arabic picture books, authored by Arabic writers and illustrated by Arabic artists, where cats are protagonists, either as embodiments of human traits or as companions of human beings. The stories are discussed in terms of their symbolism and their themes.

Climate change has been attracting increasing attention as one of the most significant consequences of the anthropogenic global warming and fictional narratives have increasingly been involved in engaging human imagination on the topic of climate change. Climate fiction, or cli-fi, is the umbrella term that designates fiction with climate change as its main theme. Climate fiction has been primarily published in English so far and narratives specifically problematising anthropogenic climate change are still quite rare in the Arabic literary landscape. In this regard, the novel 2022 by the Lebanese author Ghassān Shibārū constitutes an interesting case, given that it is authored in Arabic but displays several of the characteristics typical of the cli-fi genre. This paper aims at providing an analysis of Shibārū’s novel 2022 as representative of Arabic climate fiction. The main features of the climate fiction genre and its relationship to the scholarship of ecocriticism are first outlined. An overview of the environment as a theme in Arabic literature and Arabic literary studies then follows. The paper subsequently presents the concept of ecological literacy, which constitutes the theoretical framework for the analysis of the characters in the novel. After a synopsis of the plot, the characters are analysed and discussed and the novel itself is examined as instance of climate fiction as intended by the Anglophone definition of the genre. The authors argue that the purpose of the novel is didactic, since, rather than narrating a fictional story, the novel exploits a fictional story in order to spread awareness of global warming and climate change.

Contemporary workplaces are characterized by diversity, involving participants from multiple linguistic and cultural traditions. In such settings, translanguaging is considered a common practice in which multilinguals “create an apparently seamless flow between languages and language varieties and to transcend the boundaries between named languages and/or language varieties as well as the boundaries between language and other semiotic systems” (Hua et al., 2022, p. 315). Little research, however, exists on such practices in multilingual workplaces (Du & Zhou, 2022), and even less on the linguistically diverse Swedish workplace. To gain greater insight into the seamlessness, transcendence, and boundaries such language users create and perceive, we explore the communication practices of employees in different Swedish workplaces. As an initial departure point, five employees in managerial positions were interviewed in the pilot study. We adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing “culture” as a dynamic concept, which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. Findings show that categorisations of languages are prevalent, with participants applying a scale of linguistic sophistication or complexity and ranking formality conventions on a strong-to-weak scale. When categorising people and groups, participants foreground identity and face, and group dynamics is a recurring theme, with distinctions made between groups and orientations. This presentation focuses on participants’ descriptions of L1 and L2 identities and their perceived effects on workplace communication. Findings suggest that translanguaging has yet to be commonplace in the workplaces we investigated and shed light on lay perspectives on (trans)languaging in the workplace.

References

Du, J., & Zhou, X. (2022). Translanguaging practices in Chinese/English bilingual engineers’ communications in the workplace. Applied Linguistics Review, 13(3), 389-402.

Hua, Z., Jones, R.H. & Jaworska, S. (2022). Acts of distinction at times of crisis: An epistemological challenge to intercultural communication research. Language and Intercultural Communication, 22(3), 312-323.

This paper reports a cross linguistic study thatcompares the coarticulation patterns betweenconsonant and vowel (CV) in Mandarin Chinese andSouthern Swedish. Kinematic data were collectedusing the Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) forboth languages and were subjected to three types ofCV time lag measurement, based on more or lessequivalent landmarks on lips and tongue, andpartially adopted in previous studies [1, 2, 3]. Wefound rather consistent CV coordination patterns inthese two typologically different languages with boththe velocity-based and the acceleration-basedmeasurements on the lips and the tongue body. Themost striking result to emerge from the data is thesame effect of gender on the variation of CVcoarticulation in both languages, which has not beenreported previously. In addition, only when genderwas added as a factor, did we find the languagedifferences on the CV time lags.

This paper discusses the development and implementation of a locally-sourced corpus to address the specific needs of an ESL writing program. The paper begins with a description of the motivation and development of the Corpus of Ohio Learner and Teacher English (COLTE), a large in-house corpus consisting of assessed ESL student writing and teacher feedback from first-year writing courses. The paper illustrates research conducted within the local context using the COLTE and discusses how the program's corpus-based approach influenced curricular revisions and instructional practice. It addresses the evaluation of these efforts, challenges encountered, and considerations for building and using corpora at the program level. The paper concludes by arguing that stakeholders within programs can work collaboratively to build and use locally-sourced corpora grounded in their specific setting to explore local practices and address the English language learning and teaching needs of their own particular context.

In this talk, we present a research project that we plan to launch in late 2023. The aim of the project is to investigate professional communication in video meetings, which is justified given their growing importance in the modern and post-pandemic workplace. The setting is workplaces in Sweden where English is used as a lingua franca, due to the increasing societal impact of multilingual workplaces. In the specific context of study, communication is embedded in several layers of complexity: It takes place in an institutional setting; it is digital and takes place in video mode; it is done across cultures and marked by diversity; and it is done partly in English as a lingua franca. The project focuses on internal communication within the workplace and does not consider external communication, for example involving customers. The overarching research question is: What factors contribute to (un)successful digital intercultural interactions in multilingual workplaces, specifically in video meetings? To map the characteristics of video meetings, we compare them to in-person meetings. We thus ask: (a) What (perceived and actual) differences and similarities are there between digital and in-person workplace meetings? To map the video meeting as a genre, we ask: (b) What are the key structural, linguistic, and interactional patterns of the video meeting? Given the central role of English as a lingua franca in these workplaces, we ask: (c) To what extent and how does English language proficiency—including participants’ beliefs about and attitudes to English language proficiency—affect workplace communication in digital intercultural interactions? Finally, we adopt a critical intercultural communication approach, seeing ‘culture’ as a dynamic concept (e.g., Hua et al., 2022), which employees may attribute to self and others, and (dis-)align with in different ways. We ask: (d) To what extent and how is culture seen as relevant in multilingual workplaces? Participants will be interviewed about communication practices in the workplace both individually and in focus groups. We will also record and analyze samples of (i) video and (ii) in-person meetings, to enable triangulation of different types of data. We conclude by discussing how the project's findings can be used as a basis for best practices and for developing workplace communication training materials.

Research topic/aim

Digitalisation in education has been studied in terms of how it affects multimodality, literacy, and learning in the classroom (Jewitt, 2002; Bezemer & Kress, 2016; Jewitt & Kress, 2003).

The Covid 19 pandemic highlighted the need for greater knowledge about digitalisation in education in Swedish schools. The change from face-to-face teaching to virtual teaching put a critical spotlight on teacher’s knowledge of didactic choices (Hodges et al., 2020).

Here are presented preliminary results from ongoing practice-based research project ‘Digital resources in teaching’. 13 teachers at upper secondary school, together with a researcher, collaborated to make use of teacher knowledge of digital resources acquired during the pandemic. Challenges and opportunities were identified for scaffold language and scaffold learning (Gibbons, 2006). This presentation aims at discussing the use of digital breakout rooms in teaching, its implications for teachers and their pupils, with special focus on participation and engagement.

Theoretical framework

This study takes a multimodal approach to learning as its theoretical point of departure. Based on the notion of multimodal literacy (Jewitt & Kress, 2003), the study analyses how digital resources in a range of modes contribute to the shaping of knowledge and what it means to be a teacher in the virtual classroom. In accordance with Jewitt and Kress (2003), four aspects for representing meaning are considered: materiality, framing, design, and production.

Methodology/research design

Data were collected in 2020-2022 and consist of five videorecorded interviews with the same focus group involving three teachers. Additionally, audio-recorded observations of 16 lessons in virtual classrooms involving three different classes were collected. 

Expected results/findings

Preliminary findings show virtual teaching corresponds to a big change for both pupils and teachers, despite previous exposure to working with digital screens. The virtual group rooms, ‘breakout rooms’, were valuable in teaching, learning and interaction. Teachers noted breakout rooms contributed to more pupil engagement and participation. The usage of breakout rooms meant teachers started looking for ways to integrate reading, conversation and writing of different modalities. Teachers emphasise how virtual teaching put importance on language use and written text in meaning making. Written text and text composition becomes prioritised when teaching becomes virtual.

Relevance to Nordic educational research

This novel data contributes to greater understanding of how virtual teaching caused by the global pandemic has impacted teaching in Swedish upper secondary schools.

In the novel Severance, the protagonist is Candace, who was born in China and who emigrated with her Chinese parents to the U.S. At the start of the novel, she is living in New York City, where she works in the Bible section of a publishing house. She is about to work her way up to the fashion department when there is an outbreak of Shen Fever, which causes those infected to turn into mindless zombie-like creatures – the “fevered”. To survive, she joins a group and takes refuge with them in a shopping mall. It would seem that the outbreak prevents Candace from achieving her dream. I, however, would prefer to argue that it actually offers her – a Chinese immigrant woman trying to succeed under the constraints of societal law and order – a chance to break free.  

In this paper, I analyze this novel from the point of view of the law to see how Candace, in her pursuit of freedom, breaks the laws of the old world. The white male antagonist, Bob, is the embodiment of the law, leading the group into refuge and using the law to control Candace. The zombie-apocalypse represents the second chance for Candace to find utopia in dystopia.

Malory’s text contain numerous women who either rule a castle and lands in their own right, or who appear to do so as we never see a man controlling their rulership. It is, nevertheless, not the normal position for a woman: overall, these women are expected to desire a knight who can take over rulership, or at least become co-ruler. This desire is considered appropriate: by and large, only women of very doubtful reputations (Morgan being a case in point) retain full control over their lands for an extended period of time. Categorically rejecting an obviously suitable knight is also inappropriate for a female ruler: it is not so much that she should accept a knight she does not desire, as that she should desire any knight of prowess and chivalric behaviour who loves her. The lack of desire is, in itself, a flaw in a female ruler.

A prominent example of inappropriate reaction to knightly desire is Ettarde, ruler of her own castle and believing she is entitled to make her own choice in matters of love. in the text she is held up as the bad example, portraying Nyneve – a woman who, if not ruler of a castle, is certainly a person with power – as the good example. In this paper, I will discuss this and other examples of female rulers and their (in)appropriate desires.

Syftet med detta kapitel är att bidra till en dialog gällande forskningsetik utifrånsåväl juridiska som humanistiska aspekter. Exempel hämtas från dilemman somuppstått i etnografiskt inriktade studier där deltagarna är andraspråksanvändareav svenska och där många har begränsad erfarenhet av formell utbildning ochanvändning av skrift. Det kan vara svårt att ge forskningsinformation på ett sättsom elever med olika bakgrund förstår, särskilt vad gäller konsekvenserna avinformationen, av att delta i forskningen och vad det betyder att vara anonym.En utgångspunkt för kapitlet tas i begrepp som rör etisk omtanke samt i begreppsom rör samtycke och som utvecklats inom forskning om och med barn: inlärtsamtycke och samtycke som pågående process. Samtliga begrepp behandlar på ett ellerannat sätt den makt forskaren har i relation till deltagarna. Vidare diskuteras hurdeltagares eventuella utsatthet eller sårbarhet behöver ses i relation till denaktuella kontexten snarare än utifrån på förhand definierade kategorier.Avslutningsvis belyses forskares ansvar för att hela tiden göra etiskaöverväganden i sin profession och att dessa innebär en ständig och systematiskreflektion och en mängd val. Vi ser ett samhällsintresse i att etnografisk forskninggenomförs i andraspråkssammanhang där deltagarna i olika avseenden kanbetraktas som i en utsatt position. Detta ställer krav på utveckling av nu användaformer för samtyckesförfarande.

Studien behandlar Georges Brassens och Jacques Brels vislyrik i svensk översättning. Undersökningsmaterialet består av tio översättningar av Brassens sånglyrik och tio översättningar av Brels sånger, med tillhörande källtexter. Artikeln vill besvara följande forskningsfrågor: Vilka översättningsmetoder har använts när Brels och Brassens vislyrik har överförts till svenska? Går det att identifiera någon förändring över tid? Om en sådan förändring går att identifiera, vad kan den i så fall bero på? Som klassifikationssystem används Johan Franzons modell för typologisering av sångöversättningar. Resultatet visar att en knapp majoritet av måltexterna tillhör den mest källtexttrogna översättningsmetoden, som Franzon kallar ”Nära-nog-översättning”. Därutöver hittades även exempel på varianterna ”Perspektivbytesöversättning”, ”Poängtransponering” och ”Helt ny textskrivning”. Inga texter av kategorierna ”Enstaka-ord-bygge” och ”Fonetisk kalkering” kunde hittas i materialet. Utvecklingen har gått från relativt fria måltexter till mer källtexttrogna översättningar och en tydlig brytpunkt kan identifieras i början av 1980-talet. Den ökade källtexttrogenhet som då inträdde förklaras dels av ändrade förutsättningar på den svenska marknaden för översättning av sånglyrik, dels av den konsekrationsprocess som de båda franskspråkiga vispoeterna då var föremål för i målspråkslandet.

Risk communication is widely researched in the social sciences, but in linguistics the study of how risk is communicated has not yet formed a coherent field of its own. In this chapter, we approach risk from a discourse perspective, aiming to promote the establishment of risk discourse as a field of study with its own characteristics. We approach the question “What is “risk”?” through a discourse-linguistic analysis that crucially involves the concept of responsibility. We show that there is a body of previous research in linguistics that has dealt with some aspect of risk, but typically without foregrounding risk or using risk as an analytical tool. We show how this state of affairs also applies to responsibility. We argue that an understanding of discourse about risk and risk scenarios needs to be informed by an understanding of the concept of responsibility. The theoretical point of this chapter is therefore to conceive of and establish this type of responsibility-embedded Risk Discourse. Throughout the chapter, we discuss ways in which risk and responsibility can serve as analytical tools in risk discourse studies. This is illustrated by reference not only to previous research, but also to the chapters included in the current volume.

Theoretically positioned at the intersections between human geography, ethnography of space and place, and Linguistic Landscape Studies (LLS), this ethnographically grounded study mediates a dialogue between LLS and Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology and shows how the intersubjective dimension of the habitus provides a powerful lens with which to explore the people-place relation, central to disentangling the political economy of language and place. Inspired by existing ethnographically and people-centered LLS, the study is set in Maputo city, well-known for its enduring social and spatial division from colonial to postcolonial times. The analyses foreground the people-place relation in different sites across the material and non-material urban geographies. By relocating LLS, the study challenges modernist notions of divides, foregrounding the often-neglected invisible embodied dynamics of conflicting schemata - fundamental to the understanding of the reciprocal people-in-place relationship and the spatialization of inequalities, thus offering a rich and thick LLS. © 2023 John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Human, This Ever-changing Creature: Oshiko’s Default Standard by Yukiko Motoya

As seen in the classical SF anime film Galaxy Express 999 (1979), relations between human and AIenhanced transhuman, and an AI-controlled dystopian society have always been popular in Japanese imagination. These relations can be confrontational, or alternatively, affectionate as sometimes depicted in shōjo manga. In the novel Oshiko’s Default Standard (Oshiko no deforuto in Japanese original) (2021) by Yukiko Motoya (1979-), however, there is no human-transhuman relations as such, as the story depicts the process of human rapidly transforming into AI-enhanced transhuman – in a seemingly dystopian society. Set in the post-crisis Japan, the novel focuses on an everyday-life sphere - child-rearing and nursery school - in a society in which co-prosperity with the AI had become the main national policy. The lessons at the nursery school aim to raise children with outstanding ”abilities to become homogenous”, as individual differences are now considered vulnerability rather than strength. Many professions have been taken over by white cube-shaped robots produced by a single company, and although there is no description of these robots actively controlling the society, people – especially children and youths - start idealizing them and imitating their functions through implanting devices in all body parts. Oshiko, the protagonist, is a mother of two and has adapted well to this society, in which everyone is connected to internet for 24hours/day and endlessly consume digitized content. The nature, including natural human feelings, has been tamed and trivialized to become mere ”undigitized” or ”raw” content for her. Through the close reading, the present paper analyses some of the issues this controversial novel raises, focusing on the possible changes AI-dominated society make on humans, including borders between normal and abnormal, connection with others and loss of individuality, shifting bodily senses, as well as the human essence which can only exist in the constant state of changes.

This article focuses on students’ oral production in two classrooms in Swedish for immigrants (SFI). The study takes its theoretical ground in sociocultural a sociocultural view on language and education and an understanding of language as multiple and changing resources. Data was obtained through observations, field notes, and audio- and video-recordings. The examples presented here demonstrate that students were involved in the negotiation of meaning and had space to try different speaker roles and speech actions, such as (among others) initiating, agreeing, dissenting, arguing, interrupting, and taking the floor. These examples only constituted a restricted part of class time, and most of the teaching was of a type where little oral or written interaction took place. Overall, we think that SFI education could be improved by developing teaching that stimulates and allows for negotiations of meaning and language production, and also allows for use of different types of digital media, both for oral and written interaction.

2018 reviderades läroplanerna och ämnesplanerna i Sverige med syfte att stärka elevernas digitala kompetenser. Syftet med denna artikel är att undersöka hur yrkeslärarstudenter i gymnasieskolan legitimerar användning av digitala verktyg i lektionsplaneringar för att stödja elevers lärande. I artikeln analyseras vilken kunskap, vilka möjligheter och utmaningar som yrkeslärarstudenter konstruerar som legitima i sina lektionsplaneringar i relation till digitaliseringsreformen. Detta ger ett kunskapsbidrag om vad yrkeslärarstudenterna motiverar som centralt i undervisningspraktiken. Utifrån Theo van Leeuwens legitimeringsanalys analyseras 25 yrkeslärarstudenters lektionsplaneringar samt åtta etnografiska intervjuer. Legitimeringsanalysen illustrerar yrkeslärarstudentens argumentering med referenser eller med handlingar som behöver utföras, eller inte utföras. Argumenten har till uppgift att rättfärdiga språkande eller handlingar så de blir accepterade av andra. Legitimeringen synliggör även relationer och ansvar mellan parter. Resultaten visar att yrkeslärarstudenterna legitimerar sina val till auktoritet. Lektionsplaneringarna utgår från yrkeslärarstudenternas förhållande till sitt eget handlande i undervisningen. Hur eleverna ska utveckla sitt lärande och digitala kompetenser berörs dock inte. De digitala verktygen som resurser i undervisningen legitimeras med referenser till snabbhet, smidighet, kontroll och överblick. Användande av digitala verktyg är starkt kopplat till skrivande vilket inverkar på studie- och arbetsliv.

he Declaration of a Nordic Language Policy stipulates that all Nordic residents have the right to preserve and develop their mother tongue and their national minority languages. Hence, this article investigates the question of mother tongue education for linguistic minority students. Through four ‘telling cases’, the article explores how four Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, orient towards mother tongues, Indigenous and national minority languages in their educational policies. Drawing on Ruíz’ (1984) framework of orientations in language planning, we investigate the following question: In what ways are mother tongues framed as rights, resources, or problems in four telling cases of educational policy in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden? The analysis of the telling cases shows that although all four countries provide various forms of mother tongue education, thus apparently aligning with the intentions in the Declaration of a Nordic Language Policy, there are important differences between the provisions. Nevertheless, across the four countries, the official national languages are placed at the top of a language ideological hierarchy. The official national languages are followed by national minority languages as mother tongues. These languages are awarded rights but are not considered resources for the whole population (e.g., Ruíz, 1984). The Danish telling case inserts a supranational layer in the hierarchy, namely mother tongues with status as official languages in the European Union. The hierarchy of mother tongues thus reflects how some types of mother tongues are more readily granted rights and considered to be resources than others.