Nya medier, nya utmaningar – om klarspråksarbete i e-förvaltningens tid

[Der findes ikke resumé til denne artikel.

För många texter kan skymma sikten. Om myndigheternas uppdrag, tidens ideal och policydokument vid svenska myndigheter

Under the influence of New Public Management, the text repertoires of public authorities in Sweden have changed. Today, public authorities produce a number of different policy texts, such as policies for communication, and for behavior within the workplace. The mere existence of such texts, not explicitly directed at addressees outside the authority, challenges the role of plain language. Is it worthwhile to establish plain language strategies for those texts, or do they call for a different kind of action? Are the advocates of plain language obligated, according to the language act, to make policy texts “cultivated, simple and comprehensible”? In this article, I argue that it might be more important for the language cultivation within the public authorities to discuss the amount of texts produced, and why texts are produced. Too many texts may be a plain language problem in itself; they tend to blur the view

Discourse and religion in educational practice

Despite the existence of long-held binaries between secular and sacred, private and public spaces, school and religious literacies in many contemporary societies, the significance of religion and its relationship to education and society more broadly has become increasingly topical. Yet, it is only recently that the investigation of the nexus of discourse and religion in educational practice has started to receive some scholarly attention. In this chapter, religion is understood as a cultural practice, historically situated and embedded in specific local and global contexts. This view of religion stresses the social alongside the subjective or experiential dimensions. It explores how through active participation and apprenticeship in culturally appropriate practices and behaviors often mediated intergenerationally and the mobilisation of linguistic and other semiotic resources but also affective, social and material resources, membership in religious communities is constructed and affirmed. The chapter reviews research strands that have explored different aspects of discourse and religion in educational practice as a growing interdisciplinary field. Research strands have examined the place and purpose of religion in general and evangelical Christianity in particular in English Language Teaching (ELT) programmes and the interplay of religion and teaching and learning in a wide range of religious and increasingly secular educational contexts. They provide useful insights for scholars of discourse studies to issues of identity, socialisation, pedagogy and language policy

Texts at work: The construction of an ideal workplace in 'platforms of values'

En ny genre och dess arkeologi. Svenska myndigheters värdegrunde

Rec. av Josephson, Olle: Språkpolitik. (Språkrådets skrifter 25.) 320 s. Morfem. Stockholm 2018. ISBN 978-91-88419-01-9.

https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-376243</p

Rec. av Lundin, Katarina: Att utbildas till svensklärare i teori och praktik. (Lundastudieri nordisk språkvetenskap A 78.) 162 s. Lunds universitet 2018. ISSN0347-8971, ISBN 978-91-88473-87-5.

https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-399814</p

Medborgare och myndigheter

Citizens and public authorities reports from a workshop held in Stockholm in October 2008, in connection with the national conference Svenskans beskrivning [Describing Swedish]. It contains seven of the papers presented at the workshop and an additional introductory chapter, written by Catharina Nyström Höög, which gives the background to the workshop and introduces the discussion of plain language practices and their relationship to linguistic research. Britt-Louise Gunnarsson then looks back on her own study of comprehensibility in legal language, and discusses the increasing access to legal texts that the internet has offered Swedish citizens and how this development challenges plain language practices. Starting from examples of geriatric care discourse, Henrik Rahm and Claes Ohlsson reveal how the voice of public authorities becomes increasingly similar to the voice of market forces and discuss the impact of this on citizens. Jaana Puskala studies to what extent local authorities use linguistic devices to disguise or reveal themselves as responsible for actions in agendas, while Merja Koskela looks at the way tax authorities strive to rewrite more comprehensible versions of texts as they are published on public websites. Anna-Lena Göransson and Per Ledin address the increasing use of texts in previously manual vocations; in this specific case they discuss a textbook for the fire brigade, and how it becomes accessible through mediation. Gunlög Sundberg takes on the question of multi-ethnicity in public workplaces and reports how students for whom Swedish is a second language experience public authorities. The volume concludes with Olle Josephson’s appraisal of the future for plain language practice, linguistic research and the interplay between them

Värdegrundstexter – ett nytt slags uppdrag för klarspråksarbetet?

Artikeln presenterar en ny och framväxande genre vid svenska myndigheter, nämligen värdegrunder. Värdegrundstexterna ses här som en del i en förändrad diskurs, där det blir allt viktigare att presentera den egna myndigheten positivt. I så måtto liknar värdegrunderna marknadsföringstexter, men de kan också betraktas som styrinstrument. Eftersom texterna artikulerar ett förväntat beteende, till exempel att myndigheten är effektiv och engagerad, erbjuder de ett subtilt sätt att reglera beteende hos de anställda. Artikelns fokus är värde-grundstexternas relation till klarspråksnormen. Analyser av tre värdegrundstexter visar att texterna knappast innebär begriplighetsproblem, även om de många abstrakta orden kan innebära problem. Andra problematiska aspekter med värdegrunderna är att de bidrar till att utöka myndigheternas textrepertoar, och därmed kostar arbetstid och pengar. De har också en tendens att vara kommunikativt oklara, och kan i värsta fall dölja problem, eftersom de är skrivna som påståenden (vi är effektiva) snarare än som uppmaningar (vi ska vara effektiva). Ur språkvårdsperspektiv innebär texterna en möjlighet att diskutera vilka texter som ska om-fattas av kravet på klarspråk, och kan på så sätt möjligen bidra till att begreppet klarspråk blir snävare och skarpare.Abstract:This article presents a relatively new and evolving genre at public authorities, the platform of values (värdegrund). The platform of values is presented as part of a changing discourse, where presenting the public authority in question in a positive manner is getting increasingly more important. In this respect, the platforms of values resemble marketing texts, but they are also regarded as tools for governing. Since the texts articulate an expected manner of behaviour, for example that the authority is efficient and committed, they offer a subtle way of imposing a code of conduct on employees. The main focus in the article is on the relation between plain language norms and the genre of platform of values. Textual analysis of three platforms of values reveals that there are not many problems of comprehensibility, but that the level of lexical abstraction might pose a problem for readers. There are also other problems related to the platforms of values. They increase the amount of texts and genres within the public authorities, which increases costs in time and money. They also tend to be unclear communicatively, and might gloss over problems of behaviour, since they are written in a declarative mode. From a language policy perspective, they offer an opportunity to discuss the boundaries of plain language, and possible sharpen the concept of plain language practice