Honour-related violence and oppression are based on strongly patriarchal notions and carried out collectively (e.g. by a family) to preserve or reinstate honour that has been questioned or insulted. The purpose of this study is to explore how youths who live in a community where honour norms are present but have not necessarily experienced honour-related violence and oppression themselves, negotiate the concept of honour. The article belongs to linguistic interaction studies focusing on negotiation of concepts and is based on focus group interviews with 14 youths. The conclusion is that youths agree upon certain commands (such as to defend one’s family) and constraints (such as to not have a boyfriend/girlfriend). However, the youths disagree about how honour is linked to gender (regarding how severely girls and boys are disciplined), religion, and tradition. It is argued that this new knowledge on how youths negotiate and understand the concept of honour provides a valuable key to understanding the rationalities and logics behind the community’s upholding or questioning traditions.

The political role of Sweden’s third sector is currently being renegotiated. Are services performed by the voluntary sector a necessary alternative to an inefficient welfare system, or do these services constitute a threat to the universal welfare state? This negotiation is the focus of the paper. My aim is to use linguistic theory, methods, and analysis of empirical data to capture how this negotiation took place within a voluntary non-profit organization. Based on a case study on Save the Children Sweden (where I was an embedded researcher for two years), I suggest that advocates in favour of third sector services gain advantages from certain linguistic features, such as by using ‘we’ in an inclusive, action-oriented way, by using metaphors grounded in activity, and by highlighting a specific version of the organization’s historical narrative.

Svensklärare förväntas länka språk och litteratur till varandra och även bidra till elevers identitets- och demokratiutveckling. I artikeln undersöks elevfrågor ställda vid ett författarbesök på en högstadieskola. Syftet är att ge en fördjupad förståelse av högstadieelevers kritiska läsande av skönlitteratur som behandlar temat heder under en temavecka, där svenskämnet var centralt i arbetet. Övergripande frågeställning rör hur elevers förhandling om heder framträder i mötet med Alis Vem har sagt något om kärlek? Teoretiskt utgår vi från en funktionell syn på språk. Frågeställningen operationaliseras genom två underfrågor vilka behandlar 1) den kritiska läsning elevfrågorna tyder på, vilken undersöks utifrån en analysmodell: läsa med texten – läsa mot texten utifrån aspekterna makt, tillgång, form, mångfald, 2) elevernas förgivettaganden i frågorna, vilka analyseras genom en presuppositionsanalys. Resultatet visar att de kritiska elevfrågorna tyder på en läsning som leder till att elever förstår Alis position som utsatt för hedersförtryck, men att de samtidigt ifrågasätter hennes maktförhandling när det gäller dels hur hon omförhandlade makten i hemmet men också utgivningen av boken, samt att det i frågorna framförallt finns presuppositioner som rör risker och möjligheter med bokens utgivning. Diskussionen rör hur svensklärare i arbetet med skönlitteratur och språk kan träna elever att läsa såväl med som mot texter och därigenom synliggöra förgivettaganden och normer om identitet och demokrati.

The aim of my study is to describe how a change within Save the Children Sweden (SCS), formerly working only with advocacy, but lately working also with welfare services, was legitimized. Secondly, I investigate how van Leeuwen’s (2008) framework for recontextualization may be used to highlight legitimation of social identity. I collected a one-million-word text corpus complemented by ethnographic field notes (240,000 words) and performed a legitimation analysis to investigate how social identity and practice were justified. For this purpose, intertextual and interdiscursive elements in the legitimation criteria were included. Results show that van Leeuwen’s framework may indeed be used for legitimation of social identity if intertextual and interdiscursive elements are added. In the corpus for this study, only the strategies of authorization and rationalization were used to legitimize identity. I attribute this finding to the close links between authority (tradition, habit etc.) and identity, and to the fact that the new identity of SCS seems rational in terms of attracting more funds and of finding new solutions to old problems.

L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables (1908) has received much academic interest. Drawing on related research on the novel and its Swedish editions, my article investigates how the variation in the Swedish versions influences the characterization of Anne 1909–2018. My study acknowledges the feminist view within translation studies as expressed by Sherry Simon, and uses Norman Fairclough’s linguistic model for contextualization. The primary material consists of Montgomery’s original text, the translations and adaptations by Karin Jensen, Aslög Davidson, Margareta Sjögren-Olsson, and Christina Westman as well as correspondence between the publishing houses and translators. Further, I have interviewed Westman and corresponded with her publisher. The texts are analysed regarding omissions and additions. On a micro-level, all active verbs where Anne is the grammatical subject are analysed. My results show that all editions give prominence to Anne’s academic ambition. A major finding is that the 1941 and 1962 versions increase Anne’s ambition by using more active verbs and stronger expressions. Westman’s 2018 edition, however, is a subtle revision of the first Swedish translation, with the result that Anne’s ambition is diminished again. Despite girls and women having gained more freedom over the last 100 years, the latest edition thereby interrupts the tendency to stress Anne’s ambition. This is understood as a result of clashing discursive and social norms. On the other hand, the emphasis on Anne’s ambition in the 1941 and 1962 editions comes with a cost of religious, moral, intellectual, and emotional aspects, creating a one-dimensional Anne.

För den som vill förändra normer i samhället är språket ett effektivt verktyg. Det är inte nödvändigtvis nya ord i sig som gör den stora skillnaden, utan de diskussioner som orden är en del av, där inövade tankar och mönster prövas mot andras sätt att tänka, skriver åtta språkforskare.

Corpus planning has attracted attention ever since Deborah Cameron's seminal Verbal Hygiene (1995). However, evaluations of corpus planning aimed at addressing linguistic discrimination have been surprisingly scarce. Because corpus planning costs energy, time and money, evaluations are important for future actions. This study discusses how an evaluation of corpus planning can be conducted by performing a detailed, critical and empirical analysis of a limited Swedish language policy action aimed at addressing linguistic discrimination. The results show that, although the policy action was successful in terms of lexical change, the change was superficial, since the desired shift in focus, from individual/group to environment, occurred to only a very limited extent in the selected texts. From this analysis, I argue that there are three significant matters to attend to when evaluating corpus planning for these situations. The first is that a meaningful corpus should be created, preferably one comprising symmetrical texts from both before and after implementation of the policy. Additionally, the research questions that are formulated should be narrow enough to be operational. Finally, quantitative and qualitative methods should be combined to ensure a broad understanding of the outcomes of the corpus planning.

A Critical Analysis of Metaphors on Läkare Utan Gränsers's (Swedish Médecins Sans Frontières') Website

The Nordic countries have a strong tradition of contributing to international development and humanitarian aid, but lately, aid has been subject to criticism. Research has called for studies that reveal conceptualizations and values tied to aid (Fretheim 2007; Hoeffler & Outram, 2011; Sogge, 2015). My focus is to study how the aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières conceptualize and value aid in their webpage texts. More specifically, I investigate how the organization’s texts make use of metaphors. Like Lakoff & Johnson (1980), I believe that metaphors disclose how one understands the world, and, in accordance with Charteris-Black (2004), that they are important to create convincing texts. Three news pieces from the Médecins Sans Frontières webpage are analyzed, first by using the MIPVU-method, developed by Steen et al. (2010), and then by evaluating the metaphors with the help of research literature (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1993; Mannsåker, 2017). The findings show that the metaphors in the news pieces express force, ownership and motion, and that they add to the idea that Médecins Sans Frontières accomplish respectable results; therefore, the webpage visitor may make an important contribution which will be for the migrants’ benefit and which in addition will counteract the negative influence of the EU. Through the metaphors, the migrants are depicted as needy, since they do not exert power, do not own much and are not in control. The conclusion is that the organization conveys a complex image where aid is described as meaningful, necessary and political. From a broader perspective, this instance of how linguistic strategies are used may serve as an example for other aid agents in their ambition to influence potential donators as well as decision-makers about the conditions and necessity of aid.

I Norden finns en stark tradition av internationellt bistånd, men bistånd ifrågasätts alltmer. Tidigare forskning har efterlyst studier som frilägger underliggande föreställningar och värderingar knutna till bistånd (Fretheim 2007; Hoeffler & Outram, 2011; Sogge, 2015). Mitt fokus ligger på hur den humanitära biståndsorganisationen Läkare Utan Gränser konceptualiserar och värderar bistånd i sina webbtexter. Mer specifikt studerar jag hur organisationen använder metaforer. Liksom Lakoff & Johnson (1980) antar jag att metaforer avslöjar hur man ser på världen, och jag menar också, i enlighet med Charteris-Black (2004) att metaforer spelar en särskilt stor roll i övertygande texter. Tre nyhetsberättelser från Läkare Utan Gränsers webbplats analyseras, först med hjälp MIPVU-metoden, vilken utvecklats av Steen et al. (2010), och därefter med hjälp av en värdering av metaforerna utifrån forskningslitteratur (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1993; Mannsåker, 2017). Resultaten visar att nyhetsberättelsernas metaforer, vilka främst utgår från kraft, ägande och rörelse, bidrar till föreställningen om att Läkare Utan Gränser gör ett gott arbete, där webbplatsbesökaren kan göra en viktig insats, vilken kommer migranterna till godo och dessutom motverkar EU:s negativa inflytande. Migranterna framställs via metaforerna som behövande, eftersom de inte utövar kraft, inte äger och inte har kontroll över sin situation. Slutsatsen blir att organisationen förmedlar en komplex bild av bistånd som meningsfullt, nödvändigt och politiskt. I ett större perspektiv kan detta exempel på hur språkliga medel används bli till nytta för andra biståndsaktörer, i deras arbete att övertyga såväl potentiella givare som beslutsfattare om biståndets villkor och nödvändighet.