Mottagaranpassning för nätmedborgaren : Några användares autentiska interaktion med kommuners webbplatser

Den här studien handlar om hur medborgare tillgodogör sig samhällsinformation på kommuners webbplatser. Syftet med studien är att visa hur tre småbarnsföräldrar lyckas finna och förstå kommunwebbplatsers information om regler och avgifter i förskolan. Fokus ligger på två nivåer: på språket och på strukturen. De tre informanter som deltar i studien bor i olika delar av Stockholm, och de testar tre mellanstora kommuners webbplatser. Kommunerna ligger i olika landsdelar. Testet går ut på att informanterna ska besvara faktafrågor med hjälp av information från webbplatserna. Med en videokamera dokumenteras dels en observation av informanternas sök- och lässtrategier, dels en intervju om informanternas upplevelser av webbplatsernas struktur och språk. Resultaten visar att webbplatserna behöver mottagaranpassas både till språk och till struktur för att fungera bättre. Användare hittar lättare informationen om webbplatserna följer den standard som finns för struktur, och därmed lever upp till deras förväntningar på kommuners webbplatser. Med ledtrådar i strukturen, stabila menyer och tydliga länknamn, hittar användare lättare rätt webbsida. Med många underrubriker hittar användare rätt information i webbtexterna. Med ett vårdat, enkelt och begripligt språk och ett mottagaranpassat innehåll begriper användarna informationen.Reviderad och publicerad på nytt 100427. Den första versionen finns arkiverad

Engelska eller svenska? : en kartläggning av språksituationen inom högre utbildning och forskning

I den här rapporten undersöks språkval och språkanvändning inom högre utbildning och forskning. Sökningar i databasen Libris visar att 87 procent av alla avhandlingar i Sverige skrivs på engelska. Ungefär så har det sett ut sedan mitten av 1990-talet. Engelskans dominans är dock inte något nytt fenomen; engelskan har varit det  största avhandlingsspråket ända sedan 1940-talet.

Languages and Linguistic Exchanges in Swedish Academia : Practices, Processes, and Globalizing Markets

Based on four separate studies, this thesis deals with Swedish academia and its dwellers, with an eye toward accounting for matters of languages and linguistic exchanges. The perspectives and thinking-tools of Pierre Bourdieu form the basis of the main leitmotif, albeit extended with insights from linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. Methods employed include historical analysis as well as ethnographic approaches. Study 1 analyzes the historical events and language ideological labor through which English has come to be seen as a sociolinguistic problem in Swedish language planning and policy (LPP). At the focus is the notion of ‘domain loss,’ which is interpreted as a resource in the struggle to safeguard the Swedish language. Study 2 deals with the increasing importance of English in academic publishing in two disciplinary fields of Swedish academia: history and psychology. In history, in particular, English and the transnational publishing markets it bargains currently seem to offer new ways of advancing in the competition of the field, which is encouraged by the will and ensuing managerial techniques of contemporary research policy. Study 3, however, shows that this fact does not entail that Swedish is not being used as a scientific language. In the research practices preceding finalized texts in English, Swedish-speaking researchers in physics and computer science use technical and discipline-specific Swedish both orally and in writing. The principle that upholds the logic of ‘Swedish among Swedish-speakers’ is crucial also with respect to the ability of Swedish researchers to write up scientific texts in Swedish. Exploring the writing practices of a computer scientist and his successful first-time performance of two scientific texts in Swedish, study 4 shows that texts in Swedish can be produced by assembling experiences from previous discursive encounters throughout a researcher’s biographically specific discursive history. In summary, the thesis argues that while English increasingly prevails in publishing, much knowledge previously produced and reproduced on these matters within the field of LPP has tended to overstate the dominance of English, and with that, the sociolinguistic implications of the current state of affairs. The thesis proposes that Bourdieu’s work offers some purchase in attempts to engender in-depth knowledge on the position of English vis-à-vis Swedish in the globalizing markets of Swedish academia, and that epistemic reflexivity, in particular, is a pivotal driver in such an agenda. At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript.</p

Skill, dwelling, and the education of attention: Probing the constraints of second language academic writing

This paper endeavours to take stock of academic writing not merely as an activity that precedes publishing but as an art and a craft in its own right. We also draw attention to some of the conditions that affect writing in academia today, notably second language userhood in the production of text. In order to do that, we invoke the reasoning of British social anthropologist Tim Ingold, particularly his perspective on dwelling, skill, and the education of attention. From this emerges a view of academic writing as a practice founded in skill, developed through the dweller’s practical involvement with his or her everyday tasks and influenced by different constraints. Because no one is born a skilled writer, attentive dwelling lies at the core of the writer’s education of attention as a situated mode of perceptual engagement with the environments in which he or she dwells, be it through reading, co-authorship or textual response

Boundary-work and social closure in academic recruitment : Insights from the transdisciplinary subject area Swedish as a Second Language

This article explores practices of evaluation in academic recruitment in Swedish as a Second Language (SSL), an expanding and transdisciplinary subject area. As is common elsewhere, Swedish academia relies on a tradition of external expert review intended to ensure a meritocratic process. Here, we present an analysis of 109 written expert reports concerning recruitment to 57 positions in SSL during 2000–20. Because SSL lacks institutional autonomy, and is spread across several sub-disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, the material encompasses experts with diverse academic backgrounds. The SSL reports are broadly characterized by qualitative assessment. In contrast to other fields, the SSL experts seldom use quantitative proxy measures. Instead, they mainly rely on received conceptions of the boundaries of SSL as a means of justifying their inclusion and exclusion of candidates. This dominant regularity consists of attempts to define and delimit SSL and its core research areas, to locate the candidates in a core-to-periphery scheme with respect to these boundaries, and to rank them accordingly. This mechanism of social closure serves to restrict access to SSL to candidates with qualifications that conform to the experts’ own conceptions of SSL. As we show, the experts’ internally ambiguous conceptions of SSL tend to be constructed in relation to their own scientific habitus and investments. Beyond evaluating applicants’ possession of scientific capital, their distinctive style of reasoning around research qualifications and skills thus involves power-laden boundary-work, which leaves ample room for individual, yet habitus-specific arbitrariness

A weave of symbolic violence : dominance and complicity in sociolinguistic research on multilingualism

This paper discusses symbolic violence in sociolinguistic research on multilingualism. It revisits an archived recording of a group discussion betweenfour boys about their chances of having sex with a female researcher. The data is rife with symbolic violence. Most obviously, the conversation enacted a heterosexist form of symbolic violence. This was, however, not the only direction in which violence was exerted. As argued by (Bourdieu &amp; Wacquant. 1992. An invitation to reflexive sociology. Cambridge: Polity), symbolic violence involves two fundamental elements – domination and complicity. In the case at hand, the boys’ sexist banter conformed to dominant expectations about their linguistic behavior, imbued in the research event. This is symbolic complicity of the kind that the Bourdieusian notion foresees. Yet another subordination to the dominant vision occurred when the researchers captured the conversation on tape, but decided to exempt it from publication. Here, we argue that giving deepened attention to sociolinguists’ own run-ins with symbolic violence during research is valuable, because it provides an opportunity to reflexively consider the social conditions of the research practices, in relation to the data produced and analyzed. Ultimately, this reflexive exercise may help sociolinguists sharpen their tools for understanding the give and take of dominance and complicity unfolding in their data

Sources of Policy : Knowledge Brokering in Governmental Reports

This chapter explores indirect, text-based knowledge brokering through a study of Swedish governmental reports, known as Statens offentliga utredningar (SOUs). To this end, we endeavor to gauge the impact of knowledge uptake in their sources as displayed in their reference lists. Because SOUs are the outcome of commissions, we seek to position this feature of Swedish policymaking culture as an overlooked yet vital enabling condition for productive science–policy interaction where scholars and their knowledge can matter. However, doing so effectively requires a better understanding of the characteristics of impactful knowledge objects and the dynamics required to make them effective. Our analysis shows that the lion’s share of the references cited in the SOUs studied can be classified as gray literature and are published in Swedish. This suggests that scholars wanting to matter in a policy context may consider other routes besides the predominating genre of the peer-reviewed journal article in an English-language journal. Further implications of these findings are discussed vis-à-vis recent conceptualizations of agency in knowledge brokering as a lens through which to view collaborative impact in the future

Två- och flerspråkighet : Ett samtal om forskningsinriktningens uppkomst och konsolidering i Sverige

This article presents an edited conversation between Kenneth Hyltenstam, Christopher Stroud, Linus Salö and David Karlander. Its main topic is the rise and consolidation of bilingualism research/multilingualism research as a demarcated subject area in Swedish academe. The article delves into this history via the professional, scholarly trajectories of Hyltenstam and Stroud. By mapping and discussing their involvement in the field of bilingualism/multilingualism, the article offers analytical perspectives on the formation of the field, and on the general atmosphere surrounding this process. The account focuses on past and current research themes, institutional settings and modes of knowledge exchange. The creation of the Centre for Research on Bilin- gualism at Stockholm University in the 1980s emerges as a significant event in the evolving account of the research area. The conversation also makes clear that the history of bi/multi- lingualism research encompasses a variety of agents and interests. The subject area maintains mutable connections to numerous other scientific disciplines and is susceptible to various forms of intellectual influence. It has likewise been shaped in relation to various scholarly and societal values and concerns. By clarifying some of these dynamics, the article contributes to the yet-to-be-written history of bi/multilingualism research. It also comments on conversation as a scholarly method, and clarifies the scope and strength of its claims.https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-434149</p