Studiens syfte är att analysera hur texter skrivna av studenter i svenska som andraspråk på B-nivå förändras kvantitativt och kvalitativt över tid under sina studier vid Korta vägen, en uppdragsutbildningpå universitet och studieförbund beställd av Arbetsförmedlingen. Nio deltagare producerade en text i början av utbildningen och en i slutet av utbildningen och dessa texter analyserades med avseende på totalt antal ord, medellängd på meningarna (ord/mening = MLM), kvotbisatser vs huvudsatser samt andel felaktiga och svårbedömda satser. Resultatet visar att förändringen av antalet ord bedöms som signifikant på gruppnivå med en effektstorlek på mediumnivå (>0,5) (Cohen’s d = 0,511) mellan den första och andra texten. Vad gäller förändringen av medellängd på meningar över tid bedöms denna som signifikant på lägsta nivå (<0,2) (Cohen’s d =0,367). Den största förändringen som visar sig i studien är dock andelen bisatser vs huvudsatser där effektstorlek bedöms som stor (>0,8) och högst signifikant (Cohen’s d = 1,677). De kvalitativa lingvistiska fel som studenterna gjort har klassificerats i nio kategorier: 1. felaktig interpunktion, 2. problem med svensk ordföljd, 3. adverb uppfattas felaktigt som bisatsinledare, 4. bisats står ensam, 5. bisatsinledaren behärskas inte så studenten gör två huvudsatser, 6. behövlig satsdel saknas, 7. fasta uttryck behärskas inte grammatiskt, 8. inskjutning av ord som inte följer svensk syntax, 9. betydelsen av satsen är svårtolkad. I diskussionen anknyts till Bulté och Housens (2012) modell över språklig komplexitet samt processbarhetsteorin (Pienemann & Håkansson, 1999). Slutsatsen är att både längd och bisatser är en viktig del av progressionen i studenters andraspråkstexter men att kvalitativa felanalyser fortfarande krävs för att bedöma förändringens kvalitet.

This thesis explores the relationship between inhalation amplitude and turn-taking in spontaneous multiparty conversations held in Estonian. Respiratory activity is recorded with Respiratory Inductance Plethysmography. The main focus is on how inhalation amplitude varies between the inhalations produced directly before turn onset compared to the following inhalations within the same speaking turn. The results indicate a significant difference in amplitude, realised mainly by an increase in inhalation end lung volume values. One of the possible functions of this pattern is to signal an intention of taking the conversational turn. Another could be a phrasing or grouping function connected to lower inhalation amplitudes within turns.

Creakiness is a well-known turn-taking cue and has been observed to systematically accompany phrase and turn ends in several languages. In Estonian, creaky voice is frequently used by all speakers without any obvious evidence for its systematic use as a turn-taking cue. Rather, it signals a lack of prominence and is favored by lengthening and later timing in phrases. In this paper, we analyze the occurrence of creak with respect to properties of the respiratory cycle. We show that creak is more likely to accompany longer exhalations. Furthermore, the results suggest there is little difference in lung volume values regardless of the presence of creak, indicating that creaky voice might be employed to preserve air over the course of longer utterances. We discuss the results in connection to processes of speech planning in spontaneous speech.

The present study investigated the timing of backchannel onsets within speaker’s own and dialogue partner’s breathing cycle in two spontaneous conversations in Estonian. Results indicate that backchannels are mainly produced near the beginning, but also in the second half of the speaker’s exhalation phase. A similar tendency was observed in short non-backchannel utterances, indicating that timing of backchannels might be determined by their duration rather than their pragmatic function. By contrast, longer non-backchannel utterances were initiated almost exclusively right at the beginning of the exhalation. As expected, backchannels in the conversation partner’s breathing cycle occurred predominantly towards the end of the exhalation or at the beginning of the inhalation. 

This article provides a first quantitative overview of the timing and volume-related properties of breath holds in spontaneous conversations. Firstly, we investigate breath holds based on their position within the coinciding respiratory interval amplitude. Secondly, we investigate breath holds based on their timing within the respiratory intervals and in relation to communicative activity following breath holds. We hypothesise that breath holds occur in different regions of the lung capacity range and at different times during the respiratory phase, depending on the conversational and physiological activity following breath holds. The results suggest there is not only considerable variation in both the time and lung capacity scales, but detectable differences are also present in breath holding characteristics involving laughter and speech preparation, while breath holds coinciding with swallowing are difficult to separate from the rest of the data based on temporal and volume information alone.

This study explores the relationship between inhalation amplitude and turn management in four approximately 20 minute long spontaneous multiparty conversations in Estonian. The main focus of interest is whether inhalation amplitude is greater before turn onset than in the following inhalations within the same speaking turn. The results show that inhalations directly before turn onset are greater in amplitude than those later in the turn. The difference seems to be realized by ending the inhalation at a greater lung volume value, whereas the initial lung volume before inhalation onset remains roughly the same across a single turn. The findings suggest that the increased inhalation amplitude could function as a cue for claiming the conversational floor.

This paper explores the linguistic construction of the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyj, in Swedish newspapers in 2019 and 2022. Using the framework of Critical Discourse Studies along with Cognitive Linguistics the aim of the study is to gain an understanding of what constructs a heroism discourse surrounding Zelensky. Utilizing the Discourse-Historical Approach as the main method allows for a certain qualitative analysis of news texts which illuminate discursive strategies and possible conceptual metaphors. Findings suggest there has been a shift in the discourse concerning Zelensky, and that he in march 2022 is part of a heroism discourse in which he symbolizes change.

The present project investigates the impact of the grammaticalised progressive on event conceptualisation in English and Persian. It applies the Heidelberg–Paris framework using single event descriptions for analysis at the sentence level and story re-narrations at the discourse level. The empirical data test the hypothesis that the progressive has an impact on information selection and discourse structuring in event conceptualisation in terms of infrequent endpoint encodings and language-specific patterns of perspective-taking in structuring discourse. Languages lacking the grammaticalised progressive clearly show different effects.

There are system-based similarities/differences in aspect between English and Persian. They have the progressive in common but differ with respect to the imperfective–perfective distinction. This difference is manifested as an increase in the use of the progressive in English. In contrast, the Persian system with two aspectual non-past forms which are possible for expressions of ongoingness leads to decreased use of the particular dāštan-progressive.

The key finding for the single, motion event descriptions is that the dāštan-progressive in Persian shows less frequent endpoint encodings, like in English, as compared to languages lacking the progressive. However, the imperfective bare mi-form is associated with frequent endpoints while English shows no such association because the progressive must always be used.

In narratives, differences emerge again due to the different typology. When the uses of the progressives in re-narrations are differentiated for clause type, the progressive in English is used equally in main and sub-clauses, though more dominantly in sub-clauses in Persian. These sub-results speak about differences in perspective-taking between these L1s.

The analysis of the complexities involved in aspect establishes that the bare mi-form in Persian can denote ongoingness in cases where the progressive is obligatory in English as it has no optional verb form. Consequently, the typological difference of the absence/presence of the imperfective–perfective categories leads to a significant increase in the use of the progressive in English, which results in a cross-linguistically different, and L1-specific, patterns of perspective-taking in the narrative discourse in English and Persian. Thus, despite the fact that the L1s have the progressive aspect, their principles of use differ as they are dependent on the relevant aspectual system.

Relating the results to linguistic relativity and cross-linguistic influence, the study shows that owing to the grammatical category of the progressive in common, event conceptualisation is similar in English and Persian in terms of infrequent endpoint encodings in single motion event descriptions, despite the overall typological difference. However, L1-related influence on the principles of use of the progressive in L2 English is considerable in the narrative discourse of the advanced L2 users of English as they seemingly proceed from the principles of use in L1 Persian towards those in L1 English.

The present study investigates L1 influence on the structuring of events in adult second language acquisition, focusing on temporal perspectivation in film re-tellings by very advanced L2 speakers of English with L1 Persian. The analysis focuses on contrasts in perspectivation with regard to the role of grammaticalised temporal structures of the speaker’s L1, which provides specific means of temporal perspectivation in event representations that differ from English. When organising information for expression in a story-telling task in the L2, grammaticalised L1 features can result in L1-influenced, temporal relations between events that advance the story line, showing transfer as well as possible L2-specific patterns (Carroll, von Stutterheim and Nüse, 2004). Such L1 influence has been established in cross-linguistic analyses of the verbalisation of perceptual input in Germanic, Romance, Semitic, and Slavic languages by the Heidelberg group. The current investigation replicates an analysis of retellings of a film clip by von Stutterheim and Lambert (2005) and Carroll and Lambert (2006), involving an Iranian language, Persian, as L1.

While progressivity is a prominent feature of the temporal frame in film retellings in English, language change in Persian has led to the following changes for this grammatical category: the conventional mi-prefixed imperfective retains progressivity, while a new periphrastic progressive presents an alternative to this form, along with progressive constructions with verbal nouns.

The critical results will be retrieved from a quantitative analysis of the L1 Persian data indicating how much the periphrastic progressive is grammaticalised in contrast to the conventional imperfective. Also, a qualitative analysis of the Persian L2 English data identifies the temporal frame used in sequencing events, and compares this with L1 speakers of Persian and English. All three groups of speakers (N=30, in each) were asked to carry out the same task, i.e. retelling of a silent film lasting approximately ten minutes. Finally, the relative distances between the frames of temporal representation in the retellings of Persian advanced learners of L2 English and the two groups of L1 speakers shed light on the way the learners deal with aspectual distinctions in systems that differ typologically and the complexity for the learner. The study thus identifies the role of L1-influenced preferences in the expression of temporal relations in this advanced L2 English learner language with its implications for second language acquisition.

Gender representation is a core part of a democratic society. Gender has evolved past the heteronormative construction and is more of a continuum (Fausto-Sterling, 2000 in Motschenbacher, 2011). Educational materials are therefore an important tool where the school system can ensure inclusivity of the non-binary and LGBTQIA+ community. Previous research on English as a second language (ESL) textbooks used in secondary and upper secondary schools around the world have shown a gender imbalance with the male gender being dominant (Bahman and Rahimi, 2010; Barton and Sakwa, 2012: Brusokaitė and Verikaite-Gaigalienė, 2015). The present study is investigating the coverage of binary, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ characters in digital textbooks in upper secondary Swedish schools (English, 5, 6, 7) by employing a content analysis. The content analysis was initiated by first considering female, male, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ characters. The pronouns and names were supported by extending the analyses to adjectives and adverbs of manner used to describe the binary and non-binary genders and the activities performed by them. Data of adjectives and adverbs of manner connected to the binary, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ identities were also collected from the three selected textbooks. The findings reveal that there is a gender imbalance regarding the visibility of the female gender. In two out of the three textbooks male dominance is prevalent with approximately 30 % more male visibility. Non-binary and LGBTQIA+ characters are almost non-existent in the three selected textbooks, with a very limited number of characters included. The analysis also showed that there are multiple occurrences of gender-marked (Stanley, 1977) adjectives. However, the conclusion of the analysis of the adjective is that there is no gender bias because of the variation of the adjectives. 

The primary aim of this study is to gain insight into the level of formality in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classrooms in upper secondary schools and in SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) classrooms in Sweden. This research specifically examines how EFL and SFI teachers perceive and integrate formal language into their teaching practices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 teachers, including 5 EFL and 5 SFI teachers to gather qualitative data. The interviews ranged from 20-45 minutes and were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a thematic analysis to identify recurring themes and patterns within the interview transcripts. The findings reveal distinct perceptions and practices between EFL and SFI teachers regarding formal language. EFL teachers view formal language as essential for promoting social norms, such as politeness and respect. They incorporate formal language using formal texts, advanced formal vocabulary, and sentence structures. Some EFL teachers prioritize the use of formal language based on specific lesson goals, while others are influenced by the informal nature of Swedish culture and prefer to use informal language in their classrooms. On the other hand, SFI teachers perceive formal language as flexible and context dependent. They emphasize practical applications of formal language such as writing emails and formal letters at a basic level. SFI teachers focus on clarity and correctness over strict formal language rules and the aim of such focus is to ensure that the students learn the basic Swedish language necessary for social integration.

Wherever migration or travelling takes place, people need to learn new languages. This learning entails a variety of interlanguages. Irrespective of whether you are a learner or a teacher of a language, you need to decide how to allocate time and effort for learning and teaching into developing different sub-skills of the language. Four skills are considered in second language teaching and learning; listening, reading, speaking and writing. Proficiency in speaking requires sub-competences, such as pragmatic competence, fluency or making a clear pronunciation. Even having each of these sub-competences for speaking require having sub-skills. For example, to have a "good" pronunciation, one needs to well realise segmental features: phonemes, phonotactics, assimilations, and prosodic features: rhythm and intonation. Most of the time, young children learning their first language (L1) as well as additional languages (L2's) acquire these pronunciation skills without formal training and often reach a native-like speech also in additional languages. By contrast, adult learners of an additional language seldom reach nativelikeness in their pronunciation of the language. However, ideally, they still can achieve a fluent, intelligible and well-received pronunciation of the language. The present paper is concerned with the pronunciation of Swedish as an additional language, in particular, three phonemic prosodic contrasts, namely stress contrast, quantity contrast and tonal word accent contrast. We attempt to find out, among these three prosodic contrasts, which is more crucial than the others for making one's speech intelligible. That is, if the second language learner cannot acquire all of them perfectly, which of them should be given more priority in learning and teaching Swedish pronunciation? We also want to study whether or not a pronunciation lacking one or two of these contrasts can still be well understood.

When teaching the pronunciation of an additional language, the teacher should know which properties to give high priority and which to give lower priority. The present study aims at ranking the perceptual weight among the three phonemic prosodic contrasts of Swedish, namely word stress, quantity and tonal word accent. In two experiments, native Swedish subjects were presented with several disyllabic sequences; intact words, nonsense words and words that were distorted with respect to the three prosodic contrasts. The distorted words were not members of minimal pairs. In addition to intact words and non-word distractors, subjects heard originally trochaic words pronounced with iambic stress pattern and vice versa, originally /VːC/ words pronounced as /VCː/ and originally accent I words pronounced with accent II and vice versa. Listeners should decide whether the words were real words or not. The result shows that words with changed word accent category were rather easy to identify, words with changed stress pattern harder to identify, and changed quantity category caused most problems.

Abstract. In addition to 9 vowel and 18 consonant phonemes, Swedish has three prosodic phonemic contrasts: word stress, quantity and tonal word accent. There are also examples of distinctive phrase or sentence stress, where a verb can be followed by either an unstressed preposition or a stressed particle. This study focuses on word level and more specifically on word stress and tonal word accent in disyllabic words. When making curriculums for second language learners, teachers are helped by knowing which phonetic or phonological features are more or less crucial for the intelligibility of speech and there are some structural and anecdotal evidence that word stress should play a more important role for intelligibility of Swedish, than the tonal word accent. The Swedish word stress is about prominence contrasts between syllables, mainly signaled by syllable duration, while the tonal word accent is signaled mainly by pitch contour. The word stress contrast, as in armen [´arːmən] ‘the arm’ - armén [ar´meːn] ‘the army’, the first word trochaic and the second iambic, is present in all regional varieties of Swedish, and realized with roughly the same acoustic cues, while the tonal word accent, as in anden [´anːdən] ‘the duck’ - anden [`anːdən] ‘the spirit’ is absent in some dialects (as well as in singing), and also signaled with a variety of tonal patterns depending on region. The present study aims at comparing the respective perceptual weight of the two mentioned contrasts. Two lexical decision tests were carried out where in total 34 native Swedish listeners should decide whether a stimulus was a real word or a non-word. Real words of all mentioned categories were mixed with nonsense words and words that were mispronounced with opposite stress pattern or opposite tonal word accent category. The results show that distorted word stress caused more non-word judgments and more loss, than distorted word accent. Our conclusion is that intelligibility of Swedish is more sensitive to distorted word stress pattern than to distorted tonal word accent pattern. This is in compliance with the structural arguments presented above, and also with our own intuition.

In an attempt to find out which of the two Swedish prosodic contrasts of 1) wordstress pattern and 2) tonal word accent category has the greatest communicative weight, a lexical decision experiment was conducted: in one part word stress pattern was changed from trochaic to iambic, and in the other part trochaic accentII words were changed to accent I.Native Swedish listeners were asked to decide whether the distorted words werereal words or ‘non-words’. A clear tendency is that listeners preferred to give more‘non-word’ responses when the stress pattern was shifted, compared to when wordaccent category was shifted. This could have implications for priority of phonological features when teaching Swedish as a second language.

This chapter introduces the rest of the book by rapidly surveying the names of the Uralic languages and their speakers’ numbers, as well as discussing the relative size and age of the family and its nine branches. It outlines the prehistory of these branches and then goes on to sketch in outline the phonological and lexicogrammatical features that the editors think most interesting, problematic, suggestive, and instructive. The reader should come away from reading this chapter with an understanding of the four kinds of information contained in the rest of the book. These are (i) how and which speech sounds are used (vowels and vowel harmony, stress, consonants, and consonant gradation); (ii) how nouns and verbs change their shapes in sentences—case, number, and predestination (in nouns) and tense, mood, and object indexing (in verbs); (iii) how words are put together to make clauses and complex sentences; and (iv) how new words are made (derivation and compounding). The chapter also introduces the more important theoretical conventions that the editors have found most useful in characterizing Uralic languages. To make the chapter accessible to as wide as possible a readership, most of the terminology used is cast in a basic linguistic theory framework. 

The Uralic Languages, second edition, is a reference book which brings together detailed discussions of the historical development and specialized linguistic structures and features of the languages in the Uralic family.

The Uralic languages are spoken today in a vast geographical area stretching from Dalarna County in Sweden to Dudinka, Taimyr, Russia. There are currently approximately 50 languages in the group, the largest one among them being the state languages Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian; other Uralic languages covered in the book are South Saami, Skolt Saami, Võro, Moksha Mordvin, Mari, Udmurt, Zyrian Komi, Mansi, Khanty, Nganasan, Forest and Tundra Enets, Nenets, and Selkup. The book also contains a chapter on Finnic languages, the reconstruction of Uralic, the history of Uralic studies, connections of Uralic to other language families, and language names, demographics, and degrees of endangerment. This second and thoroughly revised edition updates and augments the authoritative accounts of the first edition and reflects recent and ongoing developments in linguistics and the languages themselves, as well as our further enhanced understanding of the relations and patterns of influence between them. Each chapter combines modern linguistic analysis and documentary linguistics; a relatively uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages.

Written by an international team of experts, The Uralic Languages will be invaluable to students and researchers within linguistics, folklore, and Siberian studies.

Emojis are colorful pictorial icons used in day to day conversations via SMS and on plenty of different platforms, available for everyone today, but not yet studied to an extent even though they they are highly ambigous. The aim of this study is to find which semantic meanings emojis can have, if gender or age is a causing factor and if any norm for when and how emojis should be used exists among the users. Through a digital survey uploaded on different platforms and sent to different companies, the results show that misconceptions do happen, and that they happen often. However, gender does not seem to matter to the same extent as age. There is also evidence pointing to the users following some rules when it comes to what emoji should be used when and when no emoji should be used at all.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka hur man som svensklärare kan utveckla motivation hos gymnasieelever till läsförståelse i svenskämnet. I det ingår att visa på attityder, uppfattningar, likheter och skillnader hos båda målgrupperna i koppling till läsförståelse, läsning och motivation. Likaså undersöks vad gymnasieelever respektive svensklärare har för läsvanor i och utanför gymnasieskolans verksamhet. Kön är en underliggande faktor som också undersöks i samband med de tidigare nämnda målgrupperna. Två enkäter förmedlades till gymnasieelever och svensklärare där de fick besvara kvalitativa och kvantitativa frågor med ett fokus på motivation till läsförståelse utifrån olika perspektiv. Resultatet visade att det finns olika metoder, som till exempel variation av litteratur och ett engagerande förhållningssätt, som lärare kan använda för att utveckla motivation hos gymnasieelever till läsförståelse i svenskämnet. Båda målgrupperna anser att ett aktivt deltagande hos den andra parten i klassrummet är viktigt för att utstråla motivation gentemot läsförståelse och läsning. Majoriteten av gymnasieeleverna och svensklärarna har en positiv attityd till de ovanstående områdena med synpunkten att det är viktigt att läsa och förstå olika texter för att som läsare får man nya tankar och perspektiv samt ett ökat ordförråd. Likaså har gymnasieelever och svensklärare olika synpunkter på hur de upplever och om de är motiverade till delmoment i svenskämnet som berör läsförståelse och läsning. Ett exempel är att båda områdena är viktiga för att elever ska kunna utvecklas positivt inför sitt framtida arbetsliv eller sina framtida studier. Trots varierade läsvanor i och utanför gymnasieskolans verksamhet, eftersom elever föredrar tonårsböcker medan lärare tycker mer om sakprosa, ser majoriteten av båda målgrupperna det positiva med läsning och läsförståelse.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att, utifrån olika exempel på ungdomsspråk, undersöka gymnasieelevers och svensklärares attityder till samt användning av ungdomsspråk i och utanför gymnasieskolans verksamhet med ett fokus på muntlig språkproduktion i svenskämnet. Vidare utreder uppsatsen om det finns likheter och skillnader mellan gymnasieelevers och svensklärares användning av ungdomsspråk samt vad för attityder de har till det. Uppsatsen visar också på om och hur gymnasieelevers prestationer i svenskämnet påverkas av deras användning av ungdomsspråk. Dessutom undersöks gymnasieelevers och svensklärares uppfattning om det ovanstående och om motpartens användning av ungdomsspråk. Två underliggande faktorer, det vill säga kön och ålder, undersöks också i koppling till de ovannämnda målgrupperna. Två enkäter distribuerades till gymnasielever och svensklärare vid en gymnasieskola där de fick besvara kvalitativa och kvantitativa frågor angående attityder till och användning av ungdomsspråk. Resultatet visade att gymnasieelever använder ungdomsspråk mer än svensklärare, både i och utanför gymnasieskolans verksamhet, exempelvis genom slang, svordomar och diskurspartiklar. Båda målgrupperna har olika attityder till ungdomsspråk där svensklärare kan se det som begränsande medan gymnasielever anser att det skapar gemenskap. Svensklärare och gymnasieelever har också varierande åsikter om huruvida elevers användning av ungdomsspråk påverkar deras prestationer i svenskämnet. Dock anser majoriteten av dem att det har en negativ inverkan. Likaså finns det både likheter och skillnader hos båda målgruppernas uppfattning av motpartens användning av ungdomsspråk. Det visas till exempel genom att svensklärarna anser att ungdomsspråk kan vara innovativt medan gymnasielever uttrycker att det är pinsamt om deras lärare försöker använda ungdomsspråk i klassrummet.

Teachers need to continuously develop their Information and Communication Technology (ICT) proficiency to keep up with the rapid development of technology, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made this more apparent. This study aims to understand how EFL-teachers exercise their teacher agency and adapt their teaching in an environment where ICT is the basis for their teaching. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six upper secondary school teachers and then analysed using thematic analysis. The results showed a significant decrease in professional development as a result of reduced contact between colleagues. Most teachers have focused on developing their toolspecific skills. Adaption of teaching strategies has seen the most success in the teaching of writing proficiency. Most teachers are familiar with integrating technology with writing. Most teachers have found strategies to increase the accessibility of information as well as increased clarity of tasks. However, teachers have found it difficult to motivate students who have a hard time working on their own. They have also found it difficult to follow students’ progress in more extensive tasks.

This thesis deals with developmental, universal, grammatical, and functional factors involved in the acquisition of L2 syllable structure. More specifically, using speech data from Spanish and Chinese learners of Swedish, the thesis examines the production and development of syllable onsets and codas—that is, syllable margins. In doing so, the present work draws on various theoretical considerations and empirical findings from research on L1 and L2 acquisition, phonology and phonetics, language variation and language typology. The thesis includes three empirical studies, all of which are based on longitudinal conver­sational data. Study I deals with the acquisition of word-initial /sC(C)/ onsets by one native Spanish speaker, whereas Study II and Study III focus on the acquisi­tion of word-final codas by three native Chinese speakers. Study I and Study II both showed that onset and coda length and phonetic environment are influen­tial factors in the production of syllable structure, while sonority may not be as reliable a predictor of production difficulty. Next, both Study I and Study III provide evidence of a U-shaped rather than linear development of pronunciation accuracy. This pattern is interpreted as an effect of initial increase in fluency, with more focus on content and less on form. In addition, Study III showed that L2 proficiency is related to the epenthesis-deletion differential. An increasing ratio of epenthesis-to-deletion is the first-order indicator of increasing L2 profi­ciency during early stages of acquisition, but increased target-like production becomes the first-order indicator of development at later stages. Finally, Study III showed that learners are aware of potential ambiguity resulting from simpli­fication in different grammatical/functional categories. Codas that are essential for the retention of semantic information are preserved through higher accuracy rates and higher relative levels of epenthesis errors.

Research has consistently shown there is a negative correlation between age of onset (AO) of acquisition and ultimate attainment (UA) of either pronunciation or grammar in a second language (L2). A few studies have indeed reported nativelike behavior in some postpuberty learners with respect to either phonetics/phonology or morphosyntax, a result that has sometimes been taken as evidence against the critical period hypothesis (CPH). However, in the few studies that have employed a wide range of linguistic tests and tasks, adult learners have not exhibited nativelike L2 proficiency across the board of measures, which, according to some, suggests that the hypothesis still holds. The present study investigated the relationship between AO and UA and the incidence of nativelikeness when measures of phonetic and grammatical intuition are combined. An additional aim was to investigate whether children and adults develop the L2 through fundamentally different brain mechanisms-namely, whether children acquire the language (more) implicitly as an interdependent whole, whereas adults learn it (more) explicitly as independent parts of a whole.

Denna grundbok belyser fenomenet, ämnet och forskningsfältet andraspråksinlärning. Med utgångspunkt i 1960-talets brytning med behavioristisk inlärningspsykologi och kontrastiv språkanalys diskuteras de mest centrala frågeställningarna inom den därefter följande moderna, mentalistiskt orienterade andraspråksforskningen.

I bokens tio kapitel presenteras de huvudsakliga empiriska upptäckterna och teorierna om andraspråkets utveckling och variation, dess kognition, processning och universella egenskaper, liksom inflödets, interaktionens och undervisningens roll, effekter av sociala och individuella skillnader samt modersmålets inverkan. Många exempel ges från studier av svenska som andraspråk. Boken avslutas med en termordlista med förklaringar till centrala begrepp inom fältet.

Boken vänder sig främst till universitetsstuderande på grundnivå i ämnen som tvåspråkighet, svenska och nordiska språk samt till blivande och verksamma lärare i svenska som andraspråk och modersmålssvenska.

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.

Previous studies showed that vowel epenthesis of initial /sC(C)/ clusters in the L2 production of L1 Spanish speakers is conditioned by several variable constraints, such as preceding environment, onset length, and sonority relations among onset members. This case study was designed to investigate whether the patterns obtained from elicited speech also hold for conversational data. A longitudinal corpus of spontaneous/natural speech from 1 adult L1 Spanish learner of L2 Swedish was used. The study confirmed most of the results from previous research, for example, that the frequency of epenthesis varies with preceding phonetic environment. However, the study suggested that a lowering effect of preceding vowels must be present, not just the enhancing effect of preceding consonants suggested by Carlisle (1997).

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.