How do you read? Iranians’ reading in Swedish and Persian

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how people from Iran experience reading in their mother tongue, Persian, compared to how they experience reading in Swedish and if there was a difference. The questions to be answered in the thesis were: What is the dominant purpose when people read their mother tongue and when they read in Swedish. Do they read because they need information, because they want to relax or do they, when they read, reflect on their own lives? The method was qualitative, interviews were conducted with 8 Iranians living in Sweden. The theoretical background consists of a description of theories on reading and theories on language and identity. The answers from the interviews reveal that many of the individuals that were interviewed, were reading in an instrumental way, i.e. they read mainly to find information and especially so when reading in Swedish, but at the same time they do reflect on their own life when they read. The results were then compared with theories. Furhammar’s theory on reading habits with the categories ”impersonal instrumental reading”, ”impersonal experience reading”, ”personal experience reading” and ”personal instrumental reading” seem to correspond with the results of the study. The other theories on reading which were used, i.e. Appleyard’s theory that people seek some kind of truth when they read and Ross’ theory that people read to get emotional knowledge, did also in part correspond with the results, but not as well as Furhammar’s theory. The theories on language and identity also seemed to correspond well with the results.Uppsatsnivå: