Denna studie behandlar svenska som andraspråkslärarens val av skönlitteratur inom arbete med nyanlända på introduktionsprogrammen samt hur läraren motiverar dess val av densamma. Syftet är att undersöka vilka texter och teman som lärare anger att de föredrar eller undviker vid arbete med nyanlända och varför. Studien baseras på en surveyundersökning i form av ett frågeformulär, och genom att sammanställa de författare, böcker och teman som använts mest och av flest lärare undersöks huruvida lärarnas angivna val stämmer överens med de angivna teman som föredras eller undviks eller om det förekommer en diskrepans. Resultaten visar att lärarna ser valet av skönlitteratur som en utmaning men att de i slutändan gör liknande val. Detta visar att lärare och skolor redan har olika former av böcker som de alla anser bör läsas med nyanlända och att de på så sätt kanske redan har en form av litterär kanon. Vidare visar resultaten att det finns en diskrepans mellan lärarna och deras syn på val av temat flykt. Vissa lärare anser att det är gynnande för eleverna att diskutera temat flykt medan andra anser att det bara leder till elevernas lidande. I slutändan använder sig dock de flesta lärarna av detta tema vilket anses vara problematiskt då det riskerar att reproducera stereotyper.

On the basis of their review of studies, Mayberry and Kluender (2017) propose that the human language learning ability becomes severely compromised if it is not developed in tandem with brain development in early childhood, but that it functions more or less flawlessly, even in adulthood, if language acquisition had at one time proceeded according to the maturational timetable. Mayberry and Kluender therefore suggest that the critical period hypothesis (CPH) for language is unambiguously tied to the timing of L1 acquisition, but that its relevance to L2 acquisition is less clear, the implication being that the well-documented AoA effects in the SLA literature are due to non-maturational (i.e., psychological, experiential, cross-linguistic, etc.) causes.

This study deals with the development and recoverability of word-final codas in Chinese-Swedish interlanguage. The relation between consonant deletion and vowel epenthesis is investigated from both a developmental perspective and a grammatical-functional one. Longitudinal, conversational data from three Chinese beginner learners of Swedish were analyzed. First, it is shown that for these learners the acquisition of Swedish codas was U-shaped rather than linear such that they exhibited relatively high accuracy rates at early stages, lower accuracy rates at later stages, and again high accuracy rates at more advanced stages. It is also demonstrated that the epenthesis-deletion differential is closely related to second language proficiency in that the proportion of epenthesis to deletion errors increases over time. Furthermore, the data show that word-final codas that are relatively important for the retention of semantically relevant information generate lower overall frequencies of simplification and greater epenthesis-deletion proportions than codas containing information that is relatively recoverable from other segments or features in the context.

Den relativt nyvunna insikten att den slutliga behärskningsnivån i ett andraspråk (L2) hos tidiga inlärare inte alltid (eller ens särskilt ofta) är helt och hållet jämförbar med den hos infödda talare har lett till ett ifrågasättande av inlärningsålder som orsaken till denna "nästan" (snarare än helt) inföddlika L2-behärskning. En fullt möjlig och i dagsläget mycket omhuldad tolkning är att sådana skillnader i stället uppkommer naturligt som en artefakt av jämförelsen mellan enspråkiga och tvåspråkiga individer, och att blotta närvaron av två aktiva språksystem ger oundvikliga avtryck på den språkliga representationen och processningen – på båda språken och oavsett inlärningsålder. Till samma tankegods hör antagandet att den snabba och totala förlusten av förstaspråket (L1) hos internationellt adopterade barn möjliggör en så kallad "neural nollställning", så att enspråkig, inföddliknande inlärning av det nya språket blir det givna resultatet, medan ett bevarat, aktivt modersmål (hos t.ex. invandrarbarn) däremot utgör ett "filter" genom vilket andraspråket lärs in och färgas. Ett avgörande problem med dessa teorier är dock att de i princip helt saknar stöd i empiriska studier. Mot bakgrund av dessa nya (eller nygamla?) idétrender inom andraspråksforskningen presenterar vi därför i denna artikel en nyligen avslutad studie som på ett direkt sätt angriper frågan om ålderseffekter vs tvåspråkighetseffekter.

Research articles on language aptitude, both past and recent, nearly without exception start off with a summative definition of the construct itself, declaring that language aptitude is generally considered to be a largely innate and relatively fixed talent that is relatively independent of other internal and external factors. Strangely enough, and as recently pointed out by several researchers (e.g., Chalmers, 2017; Li, 2016; Wen, Biedroń, & Skehan, 2017), this characterization of the nature and origin of language aptitude has rarely been challenged theoretically, let alone investigated empirically. In their overview, Wen, Biedroń, and Skehan (2017) contended that even though research methods have changed significantly in recent years, our knowledge about language aptitude itself “has not developed much at all since it started some 50 years ago,” summarizing that “the concept has remained intact – a relatively fixed trait that is not subject to malleability by later learning experience” (p. 6.). In other words, while empirical research on language aptitude has shifted its focus tremendously during the past 20 years, from the four-componential (black box-like) Carrollian paradigm (e.g., Carroll, 1958, 1962, 1973, 1981; Carroll&Sapon, 1959) to the more open-ended (Pandora’s box-like) “aptitude complexes” framework (e.g., Doughty, 2019; Linck et al., 2013; Robinson, 1997; 2002; Snow, 1994; Sparks et al., 2011), the traditional branding of language aptitude as a largely innate and relatively stable trait has stubbornly persisted. Unfortunately, this persistence not only runs the risk of fueling the already next-to-mystical reputation of language aptitude, but it also seems to have turned the concepts of innateness and stability into an ever-growing elephant in the room. Chalmers (2017) was right in stating that these issues have been grossly neglected, especially in the light of other developments in the field, and we agree with his conclusion that “with new ways of understanding L2 aptitude more holistically [. . .] and some researchers questioning Carroll’s original thinking [. . .], now seems an appropriate time to revisit the issues of stability and untrainability in L2 aptitude” (p. 93).

In this contribution, we explore the question of whether there is reason to maintain the traditional view of language aptitude as a relatively fixed trait that is resistant to experience, or if it should instead be seen as a rather flexible and acquirable skill. We compare the relative experiential effects of (1) having learned an L2 and having been a long-term functional and fluent bilingual in adulthood with (2) having lived with total visual deprivation for a significant period of life. Both bilingualism and visual loss have been reported to have enhancing effects on language-related as well as non-linguistic cognition, but few studies have focused on their effects on language aptitude specifically, especially in the case of blindness. The chapter closes with a discussion on what it would mean for current views on the role of age of L2 acquisition and critical period(s) if the above-average language aptitude hitherto robustly associated with adult near-native L2 learning should turn out to be nothing but an effect of L2 learning itself.

This dissertation investigates the effect of experience and language direction on cognitive load in dialogue interpreting. The general objective of the study is to contribute to a better understanding of cognitive processes involved in dialogue interpreting. The present inquiry employs a multi- and mixed- method design and seeks to investigate disfluency measures as indicators of cognitive load in dialogue interpreting. Furthermore, the study aims to explore whether blink-based measures are sensitive to changes in cognitive load of dialogue interpreters. The present study is positioned within cognitive translation and interpreting studies (CTIS) and employs cognitive translatology as a framework, encompassing both cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches to translation and interpreting. Chen’s multidimensional theoretical construct of cognitive load in interpreting is explored in the study and remodeled to fit the context of dialogue interpreting and the assumptions of cognitive translatology. The data were collected from 17 dialogue interpreters during simulated interpreted encounters that recreated a situation commonly arising in a public service context in Sweden. The 10 inexperienced and 7 experienced interpreters all had Swedish as their working language, and the other working languages were French, Polish, and Spanish. Following the revised cognitive load model, the analyses of cognitive load focus on interpreter characteristics (interpreting experience) and on task and environmental characteristics (directionality). The results of analyses show that, in line with previous research, both interpreting experience and directionality modulate cognitive load of dialogue interpreters. Specifically, interpreting experience is demonstrated to attenuate cognitive load. In terms of directionality, interpreting into L2 is shown to be more cognitively demanding than interpreting into L1. Moreover, blink rate and blink rate variability (BRV) are explored as possible indicators of cognitive load. The analyses of blink measures suggest that no meaningful relationship can be found between blink measures and cognitive load.Finally, the complementary analyses of disfluency types in the utterances of the Polish interpreters (n=4) point to multifunctionality of disfluency in dialogue interpreting and to the multiple origins of cognitive load in interpreting dialogues. The analysis is performed from the perspective of the functional-cognitive view of disfluency proposed in the dissertation, whereby three disfluency context categories are identified and applied (cognitive-monitoring, cognitive-pragmatic, and cognitive-processing). Lexical access and rendition planning are identified as recurrent causes of cognitive load in dialogue interpreting. The study also makes theoretical and methodological contributions, primarily by revising the theoretical model of cognitive load in interpreting, which allows for operationalization of cognitive load with additional measures, in both experimental and naturalistic settings. Practical implications are a contribution to the understanding of the challenges interpreting into L2, and the impact of interpreters’ experience on interpreting. Overall, the study contributes to the emerging cognitive profile of dialogue interpreters.

The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of interpreter experience and interpreting direction on cognitive load of dialogue interpreters. The study was conducted on two groups of interpreters (experienced and inexperienced) during a simulated interpreter-mediated encounter and cognitive load was operationalized with disfluency durations, and disfluency counts. The data suggest that both experience and directionality modulate cognitive load in dialogue interpreters. All participants manifested an increase in cognitive load while interpreting into their weaker language (L2), which suggest that directionality had an effect on cognitive load of dialogue interpreters. The results also suggest that inexperienced interpreters are likely to exhibit higher cognitive load compared to experienced interpreters. The study underscores the significance of experience and directionality in understanding the cognitive demands faced by dialogue interpreters, contributing valuable insights to research on interpreting and cognitive load.

The following product–oriented study deals with translational norms operating in indirect translation of Hebrew literature into Swedish. The research was conducted as a contrastive study of Extra–linguistic Cultural References (ECR) based on Toury’s (1995/2012) coupled pairs and supplemented with Pedersen’s typology (2011). The material consisted of 3 x 136 coupled pairs excerpted from a collection of short stories written by an Israeli high–prestige writer Amos Oz and translated into Swedish through English. Both translations were carried out by high–prestige translators. The results suggest that indirect literary translation follows the adequacy norm in accordance with the hypothesis on high–prestige translation (Lindqvist 2002). The hypothesis on acceptancy norms operating in indirect translation is rejected. 

This article aims to explore continuity and change in adult migrants’ experiences of Swedish for immigrants (SFI), a state-subsidised language programme for basic Swedish. The study has a longitudinal and comparative design, drawing on discourse analysis of qualitative interviews conducted with language learners in 2001/2002 and 2015/2016. This period was characterized by important societal shifts, defined by increased migration, growing tension between discourses on rights and obligations of adult migrants living in Sweden, and an intensified marketisation of the Swedish education system derived from neoliberal principles. The study describes how these changes affected SFI as well as the conceivable impact that restructuring the language programme had on the learners. Ultimately, the study highlights tensions between various state initiatives that impacted the language programme and the SFI participants’ experiences of being adult language learners.

I uppsatsen undersöks hur en arbetslöshetskassas organisation och de olika roller som förekommer i verksamheten ser ut, samt hur organisationen och de olika rollerna påverkar en utvald del av kommunikationen. Med begrepp och metoder från dialogismen och socialkonstruktionismen undersöker jag om det finns problem i kommunikationen. För att sätta in kommunikationen i ett sammanhang använder jag en modell över ett verksamhetssystem och när resultaten sedan diskuteras tas några begrepp in från sociolingvistiken.

Mina resultat visar att arbetslöshetskassan är en verksamhet som är kluven mellan att vara medlemsförening och myndighetsutövare och att det innebär att det finns två skilda normsystem som påverkar de texter som produceras. Vidare visar resultaten att det saknas information riktad till den studerade arbetslöshetskassans arbetande medlemmar om vad ett medlemskap innebär, hur avtalet mellan kassan och dess medlemmar ser ut, hur lagstiftning och föreskrifter påverkar avtalet, samt om vad som krävs för att få ersättning vid arbetslöshet. En analys av några centrala texter visar att en arbetande medlem får positiva roller i arbetslöshetskassans texter medan en medlem som blir arbetslös får mer negativa roller.

Recently, in the wake of the Bologna Declaration and similar international initiatives, there has been a rapid increase in the number of university courses and programmes taught through the medium of English. Surveys have consistently shown the Nordic countries to be at the forefront of this trend towards English-medium instruction (EMI). In this paper, we discuss the introduction of EMI in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). We present the educational setting and the EMI debate in each of these countries and summarize relevant research findings. We then make some tentative suggestions for the introduction of EMI in higher education in other countries. In particular, we are interested in university language policies and their relevance for the day-to-day work of faculty. We problematize one-size-fits-all university language policies, suggesting that in order for policies to be seen as relevant they need to be flexible enough to take into account disciplinary differences. In this respect, we make some specific suggestions about the content of university language policies and EMI course syllabuses. Here we recommend that university language policies should encourage the discussion of disciplinary literacy goals and require course syllabuses to detail disciplinaryspecific language-learning outcomes.

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of language dominance in loanword phonology. It is investigated how onset clusters in loanwords are integrated into Turkish by two groups: English-Turkish bilinguals in Turkey and Swedish-Turkish bilinguals in Sweden. It is hypothesised that the bilinguals in Sweden will display significantly higher rates of cluster adoption because Turkish is not the dominant language there.

The data were collected through an oral loanword elicitation task, a text recitation task in the second languages and a questionnaire on language proficiency and use.

The study had 53 participants (24 in Turkey and 29 in Sweden). The material consisted of 29 loanwords from English and French, and of 50 structurally comparable words in the bilinguals’ second languages. The data were analysed auditively by the author and subjected to an interrater reliability test.

The results confirmed the hypothesis as the bilinguals in Sweden displayed significantly higher cluster adoption rates. The difference between the groups’ medians was 36.5 percentage points. Furthermore, it was shown that in individual speakers the combination of accurate second-language pronunciation, and clearly higher proficiency in the second language (corresponding to the donor language) compared to the L1 (i.e. the recipient language) guaranteed very high cluster adoption rates.

This paper provides the first rigorous quantitative proof for the theoretical assumption that accurate pronunciation is not sufficient for structural adoption in loanword phonology but needs to be complemented with sociolinguistic variables. Furthermore, it demonstrates in greater detail than before how societal and individual dominance are connected and through which channels they impact loanword integration.

Self-reported relative proficiency in the donor language was shown to be a powerful predictor of the sociolinguistic incentive to adopt and could therefore be used as a quick and reliable alternative to elaborate and time-consuming attitude investigations in loanword phonology.

This paper investigates how linguistic competence and sociolinguistic incentive contribute to the preference for adopting illicit onset clusters in established loanwords in Turkish. The participants are English-Turkish bilinguals in Turkey and Swedish-Turkish bilinguals in Sweden. Competence is measured through second-language pronunciation and incentive is operationalised through second-language dominance and degree of Turkish use. The data comprise French and English loanwords that are embedded in an oral fill-in-the-blanks test and that have phonetically similar counterparts in English and Swedish. The results show that the bilinguals in Sweden have significantly higher cluster adoption rates than the bilinguals in Turkey due to an overlap of high competence and high incentive in the Swedish context where Turkish is a minority language. Statistical analyses show that incentive has greater impact than competence in this sample.

Denna artikel ger en översikt över den språkliga mångfalden i Konstantinopel mellan åren 330 och 1930 samt belyser de faktorer som har påverkat flerspråkigheten i staden.

This paper investigates how good the Swedish integration context has been at promoting balanced bilingualism among adult children of Turkish immigrants. Balanced bilingualism has been one of the goals of Sweden’s multicultural language policy. An extensive comparison with corresponding groups in Rotterdam and Berlin is also presented. The data come from 430 participants in the project The Integration of the European Second Generation, of whom 133 resided in Stockholm. Balanced bilingualism is defined on the basis of the participants’ self-assessed speaking and writing skills in Turkish and their respective second languages. The results show that only a minority of the second-generation Turks were balanced bilinguals in Stockholm, which constituted the lowest rate among the cities. At the same time, the Stockholm group displayed the highest skill levels in the second language among the three cities. The analysis points out that the inclusive multi-ethnic context in Stockholm had a positive effect on second-language skills, while the Turkish group’s relatively small size and concentration coupled with the deficient implementation of mother-tongue instruction had a negative effect on Turkish skills. The other cities’ more segregated and enclavelike integration contexts seem instead to better promote Turkish skills and thereby to lead to a higher occurrence of balanced bilingualism. 

In the phonological integration of loanwords, the original structures of the donor language can either be adopted as innovations or adapted to the recipient language. This dissertation investigates how structural (i.e. phonetic, phonological, morpho-phonological) and non-structural (i.e. sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic) factors interact in determining which of these two integration strategies is preferred. Factors that affect the accuracy of the structure’s perception and production in the donor language as a result of its acquisition as a second language are given special consideration. The three studies in the dissertation examine how the same phonological structure from different donor languages is integrated into the same recipient language Turkish by two different types of initial borrowers: elite bilinguals in Turkey and heritage bilinguals in Sweden. The three investigated structures are word-final [l] after back vowels, long segments in word-final closed syllables, and word-initial onset clusters. The main hypothesis is that adoption will be more prevalent in heritage bilinguals than in elite bilinguals. Four necessary conditions for adoption are identified in the analysis. Firstly, the donor-language structure must have high perceptual salience. Secondly, the borrowers must have acquired the linguistic competence to produce a structure accurately. Thirdly, the borrowers must have sufficient sociolinguistic incentive to adopt a structure as an innovation. Fourthly, prosodic structures require higher incentive to be adopted than segments and clusters of segments. The main hypothesis is partially confirmed. The counterexamples involve either cases where the salience of the structure was high in the elite bilinguals’ borrowing but low in the heritage bilinguals’ borrowing, or cases where the structure’s degree of acquisition difficulty was low. Therefore, it is concluded that structural factors have the final say in the choice of integration strategy.

This paper investigates how bilingual borrowers integrate originally long vowels and consonants in loanwords from Arabic and Swedish into Turkish in illicit positions. Both historical corpus data and data from an elicitation task are used. The main focus is on the role of perceptual salience and the choice between adaptation and adoption as different integration strategies. The results show that length is accurately perceived in both cases of borrowing due to the particular linguistic and extra-linguistic contexts of second language acquisition. Phonologically long Arabic vowels and consonants as well as not phonologically but phonetically long Swedish vowels with high salience are adopted as innovations by the bilingual borrowers. The latter adoption confirms that the input to loanword integration is not phonological but phonetic in nature, i.e. the surface form. Phonologically long Swedish consonants with low salience due to short duration are, instead, adapted through shortening. This adaptation is done in production through a process called filtering in with the help of feedback from perception. The paper proposes that perceptual salience plays an important role not only in monolingual but also in bilingual borrowing by concluding that high perceptual salience is necessary but not sufficient for adoption in bilingual borrowing.

The Routledge Handbook of Conference Interpreting is designed as a comprehensive reference work for researchers and practitioners as well as trainers and students. Why a handbook on conference interpreting readers may ask, when the trend in research has been to bring settings together (Mikkelson & Jourdenais 2015; Pöchhacker 2015), to cross modes and stress their hybridity and to accentuate the unifying elements of interpreting and translation (Baker & Saldhana 2020). Conference interpreting still has a certain ring to it and is associated with the rise of international organisations and multinational enterprises, having assumed an instrumental role as the twentieth century took shape. Moreover, despite having always been and still being a major focus from a research perspective, to date conference interpreting has not been addressed in its own dedicated volume. Works focusing solely on conference interpreting tend to be textbooks (see Gillies 2013, 2019; Jones 2002; Setton & Dawrant 2016a; 2016b), although the recent proceedings of the conference celebrating 100 years of conference interpreting and its “collection of scholarly articles and opinion pieces illustrating what different stakeholders make of this profession” (Seeber 2021: xiii) covers more ground. Thus, our aim has been to produce a state-of-the-art compilation on the body of conference interpreting knowledge, with a systematised approach to all the different facets of its foundations, its different geographical bases, its professional issues, its applied research, and its current developments.

Providing comprehensive coverage of both current research and practice in conference interpreting, The Routledge Handbook of Conference Interpreting covers core areas and cutting-edge developments, which have sprung up due to the spread of modern technologies and global English.

Consisting of 40 chapters divided into seven parts—Fundamentals, Settings, Regions, Professional issues, Training and education, Research perspectives and Recent developments—the Handbook focuses on the key areas of conference interpreting. This volume is unique in its approach to the field of conference interpreting as it covers not only research and teaching practice but also practical issues of the profession on all continents.

Bringing together over 70 researchers in the field from all over the world and with an introduction by the editors, this is essential reading for all researchers, ​trainers, students and professionals of conference interpreting.

We used event-related potentials to investigate morphosyntactic development in 78 adult English-speaking learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) across the proficiency spectrum. We examined how development is modulated by the similarity between the native language (L1) and the L2, by comparing number (a feature present in English) and gender agreement (novel feature). We also investigated how development is impacted by structural distance, manipulating the distance between the agreeing elements by probing both within-phrase (fruta muy jugosafruit(-FEM-SG) very juicy(-FEM-SG)) and across-phrase agreement (fresa es acida strawberry(-FEM-SG) is tart(-FEM-SG)). Regression analyses revealed that the learners' overall proficiency, as measured by a standardized test, predicted their accuracy with the target properties in the grammaticality judgment task (GJT), but did not predict P600 magnitude to the violations. However, a relationship emerged between immersion in Spanish-speaking countries and P600 magnitude for gender. Our results also revealed a correlation between accuracy in the GJT and P600 magnitude, suggesting that behavioral sensitivity to the target property predicts neurophysiological sensitivity. Subsequent group analyses revealed that the highest-proficiency learners showed equally robust P600 effects for number and gender. This group also elicited more positive waveforms for within- than across-phrase agreement overall, similar to the native controls. The lowest-proficiency learners showed a P600 for number overall, but no effects for gender. Unlike the highest-proficiency learners, they also showed no sensitivity to structural distance, suggesting that sensitivity to such linguistic factors develops over time. Overall, these results suggest an important role for proficiency in morphosyntactic development, although differences emerged between behavioral and electrophysiological measures. While L2 proficiency predicted behavioral sensitivity to agreement, development with respect to the neurocognitive mechanisms recruited in processing only emerged when comparing the two extremes of the proficiency spectrum. Importantly, while both L1-L2 similarity and hierarchical structure impact development, they do not constrain it.

The present study uses event-related potentials to investigate the role of prediction in the processing of information structure, a domain of language that belongs to the level of the discourse. Twenty-three native speakers of English read short contexts including three Noun Phrases (NPs) (e.g., Either an adviser or an agent can be helpful to a banker), followed by a wh-question that established the discourse role of each referent (In your opinion, which of the two should a banker hire?). The NP that the question was about (banker) was the Topic, and the two NPs that could fill the slot opened by the wh-question (adviser, agent) were the Focus NPs. The participants’ brain activity was recorded with EEG while they read the responses to the wh-questions, which differed along two dimensions: (1) the availability of the it-cleft construction (In my opinion, [it is] an agent…), a Focus-devoted device that makes Focus assignment predictable in the response; and (2) the discourse role of the target noun (Focus, Topic), which corresponds to the first referent in the response (In my opinion, [it is] an agent/a banker…). Crucially, we manipulated the phonological properties of the Focus and Topic nouns such that, if the Topic noun began with a consonant (e.g., a banker), both nouns that could fill the slot opened by the wh-question began with a vowel (e.g., an agent, an adviser) (counterbalanced in the overall design). This allowed us to measure effects of prediction at the prenominal article, before the integration of semantic and discourse information took place. The analyses on prenominal articles revealed an N400 effect for articles that were unexpected based on the phonological properties of the Focus nouns, but only in the conditions with the it-cleft. This effect emerged between 250 and 400 ms, with a frontal bias. The analyses on the noun revealed that violations of information structure (i.e., cases where the it-cleft was followed by the Topic noun) yielded a broadly distributed P600 effect, relative to appropriately clefted (i.e., focused) nouns. A similar (but numerically less robust) effect emerged for Topic relative to Focus NPs in the conditions without the it-cleft, suggesting that, in the absence of a constraining cue, comprehenders still assigned Focus to the first referent in the response. Overall, these results suggest that, when reading answers to wh-questions, comprehenders use information structure constraints (i.e., prior context + the it-cleft) to anticipate the form that the response should take (i.e., how information should be packaged).

The present study uses event-related potentials to investigate how crosslinguistic (dis)similarities modulate anticipatory processing in the second language (L2). Participants read predictive stories in English that made a genitive construction consisting of a third-person singular possessive pronoun and a kinship noun (e.g., his mother) likely in an upcoming continuation. The possessive pronoun?s form depended on the antecedent?s natural gender, which had been previously established in the stories. The continuation included either the expected genitive construction or an unexpected one with a possessive pronoun of the opposite gender. We manipulated crosslinguistic (dis)similarity by comparing advanced English learners with either Swedish or Spanish as their L1. While Swedish has equivalent possessive pronouns that mark the antecedent?s natural gender (i.e., hans/hennes ?his/her?), Spanish does not. In fact, Spanish possessive pronouns mark the syntactic features (number, gender) of the possessed noun (e.g., nosotros queremos a nuestra madre ?we-MASC love our-FEM mother-FEM). Twenty-four native speakers of English elicited an N400 effect for prenominal possessives that were unexpected based on the possessor noun?s natural gender, consistent with the possibility that they activated the pronoun?s form or its semantic features (natural gender). Thirty-two Swedish-speaking learners yielded a qualitatively and quantitatively native-like N400 for unexpected prenominal possessives. In contrast, twenty-five Spanish-speaking learners showed a P600 effect for unexpected possessives, consistent with the possibility that they experienced difficulty integrating a pronoun that mismatched the expected gender. Results suggest that differences with respect to the features encoded in the activated representation result in different predictive mechanisms among adult L2 learners.

The present study uses event‑related potentials (ERP) to investigate lexicosemantic prediction in native speakers (L1) of English and advanced second language (L2) learners of English with Swedish as their L1. The main goal of the study is to examine whether learners recruit predictive mechanisms to the same extent as L1 speakers when a change in the linguistic environment renders prediction a useful strategy to pursue. The study, which uses a relatedness proportion paradigm adapted from Lau et al. (2013), focuses on the N400, an ERP component that is sensitive to the ease of lexical access/retrieval, including lexical prediction. Participants read 800 prime‑target pairs, presented word by word and divided into two blocks, while they searched for animal words. Unknown to them, some of the pairs were semantically associated, which is known to reduce the amplitude of the N400 via spreading semantic activation. Most importantly, the proportion of semantically related pairs increased in the second experimental block (via fillers), thereby increasing the reliability of the primes as predictive cues and encouraging prediction. Results from 36 L1‑English speakers and 53 L2 learners showed an N400 reduction for related (remain-stay) relative to unrelated targets (silver-stay) across blocks. Crucially, this N400 reduction for related targets was significantly larger in the block that encouraged prediction, in both L1 and L2 speakers, consistent with the possibility that both groups recruited similar predictive mechanisms when the context encouraged prediction. These results suggest that, at high levels of proficiency, L2 speakers engage similar predictive strategies to L1 speakers.

We used event‑related potentials to investigate how markedness impacts person agreement in English‑speaking learners of L2‑Spanish. Markedness was examined by probing agreement with both first‑person (marked) and third‑person (unmarked) subjects. Agreement was manipulated by crossing first‑person subjects with third‑person verbs and vice‑versa. Native speakers showed a P600 for both errors, larger for “first‑person subject + third‑person verb” violations. This aligns with claims that, when the first element in the dependency is marked (first‑person), the parser generates stronger predictions regarding upcoming agreeing elements via feature activation. Twenty‑two upper‑intermediate/advanced learners elicited a P600 across both errors. Learners were equally accurate detecting both errors, but the P600 was marginally reduced for “first‑person subject + third‑person verb” violations, suggesting that learners overused unmarked forms (third‑person) online. However, this asymmetry mainly characterized lower‑proficiency learners. Results suggest that markedness impacts L2 agreement without constraining it, although learners are less likely to use marked features top‑down.

We examined potential sources of morphological variability in adult L1‑English L2‑Spanish learners, with a focus on L1‑L2 similarity, morphological markedness, and knowledge type (receptive vs. expressive). Experiment 1 uses event‑related potentials to examine noun‑adjective number (present in L1) and gender agreement (absent in L1) in online sentence comprehension (receptive knowledge). For each feature, markedness was manipulated, such that half of the critical noun‑adjective combinations were feminine (marked) and the other half, masculine; half were used in the plural (marked) and the other half in the singular. With this set‑up, we examined learners’ potential overreliance on unmarked forms or “defaults” (singular/masculine). Experiment 2 examines similar dependencies in spoken sentence production (expressive knowledge). Results showed that learners (n=22) performed better with number than gender overall, but their brain responses to both features were qualitatively native‑like (i.e., P600), even though gender was probed with nouns that do not provide strong distributional cues to gender. In addition, variability with gender agreement was better accounted for by lexical (as opposed to syntactic) aspects. Learners showed no advantage for comprehension over production. They also showed no systematic evidence of reliance on morphological defaults, although their online processing was sensitive to markedness in a native‑like manner. Overall, these results suggest that there is facilitation for properties of the L2 that exist in the L1 and that markedness impacts L2 processing, but in a native‑like manner. These results also speak against proposals arguing that adult L2ers have deficits at the level of the morphology or the syntax.

The present study uses event-related potentials to examine subject-verb person agreement in Spanish, with a focus on how markedness with respect to the speech participant status of the subject modulates processing. Morphological theory proposes a markedness distinction between first and second person, on the one hand, and third person on the other. The claim is that both the first and second persons are participants in the speech act, since they play the speaker and addressee roles, respectively. In contrast, third person refers to whomever is neither the speaker nor the addressee (i.e., it is unmarked for person). We manipulated speech participant by probing person agreement with both first-person singular subjects (e.g., yo...lloro *I...cry-1ST PERSON-SG") and third-person singular ones (e.g., la viuda...llora "the widow...cry-3RD PERSON-SG"). We also manipulated agreement by crossing first-person singular subjects with third-person singular verbs (e.g., yo...*llora "I...cry-(3RD PERSON-SG)") and vice versa (e.g., la viuda...*lloro "the widow...cry-1ST PERSON-SG"). Results from 28 native speakers of Spanish revealed robust positivities for both types of person violations, relative to their grammatical counterparts between 500 and 1000 ms, an effect that shows a central-posterior distribution, with a right hemisphere bias. This positivity is consistent with the P600, a component associated with a number of morphosyntactic operations (and reanalysis processes more generally). No negativities emerged before the P600 (between 250 and 450 ms), although both error types yielded an anterior negativity in the P600 time window, an effect that has been argued to reflect the memory costs associated with keeping the errors in working memory to provide a sentence-final judgment. Crucially, person violations with a marked subject (e.g., yo...*llora*I...cry-3RD PERSON SG") yielded a larger P600 than the opposite error type between 700 and 900 ms. This effect is consistent with the possibility that, upon encountering a subject with marked features, feature activation allows the parser to generate a stronger prediction regarding the upcoming verb. The larger P600 for person violations with a marked subject might index the reanalysis process that the parser initiates when there is a conflict between a highly expected verbal form (i.e., more so than in the conditions with an unmarked subject) and the form that is actually encountered.

This article sheds light on translated children’s literature in Sweden during the period 2015-2020. A relatively large portion of children’s literature in Sweden (36% according to 2020 data published by The Swedish Institute for Children's Books), from toddler books to young adult literature, comes from translations. It has been shown in polysystem research in particular (see Even-Zohar 1979; 1990), that countries such as Sweden, so-called ‘semi-peripheral’ (Heilbron 2000) or with a so-called ‘dominated language’ (Casanova 2002, 9), are known to import a lot of literature because, for example, their internal production is rather limited, which a priori is not the case in Sweden.

We first present a panorama of what kinds of books are translated to Swedish and from which languages. We focus then on the particular position of French speaking (broadly defined) children’s literature in Sweden, the global phenomena of the series and the emerging wimmelbooks in which French illustrators. We observe that even if Sweden has a larger national production, there is still an important number of translated picturebooks, in which French illustrators may fill a vacuum.

This chapter examines the translation and reception of two Swedish young adult novels – Spelar död [Play Dead] and När tågen går förbi [When the Trains Pass By] – published in France in the 2000s. Both books use unprovoked violence in a realistic genre for adolescents, something no French author had dared to do previously. The two novels ignited a moral panic in France that led to heated debates in the French literary field. This chapter retraces the stormy reception of these novels in France and analyzes the constraints to which translations of unprovoked violence are often subject, especially when translated from a source culture whose norms are more liberal than the target culture. Linking translation strategies with reception, this chapter uses Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory to determine how the two novels became ‘innovative’ (in Even-Zohar’s sense of the term) in the French literary field in the 2000s.

Despite that English book market is closed, in this meaning that translations are less numerous than the national production (Even-Zohar 1990), this presentation aims to show that Swedish literature for children’s and young adults succeed in finding its place – even small – in this well-known hermetic market. It means that there is a circulation of books from a semi-peripheral language (as defined by Heilbron 2000) and a consecrator country as Sweden is, to a hypercentral language and dominating global market. Since the thesis of Broomé (2014) which examined the role and function of Swedish fiction in English translation on the British book market at the beginning of 2000s, there are no specific studies and collected data in both United-Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) especially on translated children’s and young adult’s literature and even less from Sweden. This presentation feels this gap by mapping Swedish children’s and young adult literature translated into English. It presents as well data on which actors publish this literature in the aim to further understand how and what kind of Swedish children’s and young adult’s literature circulate and which actors may have an impact on their circulation. Mapping those translations flows is a way to determine how intensive the exchanges are but above all it is a way to find patterns in the translated production from Sweden to the English-speaking market and to understand what is circulating between those countries. A hypothesis is that books that fit certain stereotype or representations about Scandinavia are more easily published in these two English-speaking countries. 

Presentationen tar upp Kitty Crowthers reception i Sverige som visar sig vara mångfasetterad. Den belyser vidare Alma-prisets roll i konsekrationen av författaren men också ett svenskt barn- och ungdomslitterär fält som är i sökande av självständighet i fältet av världslitteraturen och hur receptionen av Crowther förstärker konsekrations instansen.