Umeå University's logo

This dissertation deals with 199 gender related proverbs that were collected in northern Sweden and were used in an agrarian environment, approximately between the beginning of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The conceptions of gender which these proverbs convey also belong to the same time range and place.

The aim of this dissertation is to find out which conceptions of gender that is conveyed by proverbs in an older agrarian environment in northern Sweden. In order to achieve this aim the following question is examined: What conceptions are found in the proverb material of the cultural category woman, the cultural category man and of the relationship between these categories?

As a base for an interpretation of the proverbs, which are written in various Swedish dialects, a linguistic analysis is carried out. The interpretation is then formed through a concept that was developed by Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1982); namely, base meaning. This concept relates to the shared meaning of a proverb by a group of people. The proverbs that include metaphors and similes are analyzed with a method that is developed from the cognitive linguistic theory of blending (Fauconnier & Turner 1996, 1998).

The proverb material is sorted in three analytical categories, and presented in separate chapters: Chapter four, The Marriage Market (Äktenskapsmarknaden), chapter five: The Household (Hushållet) and chapter six, Sexuality (Sexualiteten). These categories are in turn divided into sub categories.

One example of a salient conceptions of gender that is found in the category The Marriage Market is that the man chooses a woman, not the other way around. One example of a central conception in the category The Household is that the man earns money and supply other resources and the woman takes care of these resources. The significance of the conceptions of male and female sexuality is that they convey the difficulty in controlling a virulent male sexuality.

The gender conceptions are analysed as part of a system of gender hegemony and a cultural model of the successful household is suggested based on the proverb material.

At the heart of this thesis are the Swedish author Stig Larsson’s novels: Autisterna (The Autistic, 1979), Nyår (New Year, 1984), Introduktion (Introduction, 1986) and Komedin I (The Comedy I, 1989). The purpose is to illuminate how certain central activities in the novels contribute strongly to the actual formation of these works. A part of this purpose is demonstrating that these central activities can be related to fundamental thinking in the writer’s authorship that concerns a struggle for authenticity. In terms of theory I connect principally to Jean-Pierre Richard’s thematic criticism. The purpose of the thesis, the theoretical considerations and a presentation of Stig Larsson form the first chapter.

The second chapter discusses Larsson’s aesthetic points of departure, where a recurring striving after authenticity and change stand in focus. The chapter begins by placing Larsson’s authorship in relation to a late-modernistic literary tradition. Next it is emphasised that this authentic attitude often stands on a collision course with a harmonising and anti-modernistic view of literature, associated with György Lukács, which was common in Sweden in the 1970s when Larsson debuted as an author. The chapter ends with a rough description of the three most important elements of Larsson’s quest for authenticity: insignificant phenomena, everyday activities and painful experiences.

The third chapter concerns the insignificant and minimal activities that are such a dominant element in Larsson’s novels. First comes an analysis of the ”small moments” observed during a train journey by the protagonist of Autisterna, and then a comparison is made with literary impressionism. The chapter then focuses on: the peripheral spatial dimension, the odd moments in time, the slow movement and, finally, ”the view of an uninterrupted nothing”. Given Larsson’s aversion to a harmonising and grandiose literature, these insignificant phenomena are a clear element in his struggle for authenticity.

The everyday, the worthless and the ugly are the focus of the fourth chapter. The theme of everyday life is looked at from four different perspectives. The first concerns an ordinary everydayness (food preparation, watching TV and everyday games) and the second the literally worthless and ugly (rubbish and bodily fluids). The third perspective looks in detail at everyday language, and the performative character of dialogue in Larsson’s novels, and the fourth at relations to modern Swedish social developments since the 1960s.

The fifth chapter looks at humiliation, violence and abuse in the novels. I argue throughout that Larsson chooses to touch on phenomena such as humiliation and violence because they show more authentically how real people behave towards each other in real life. Even the way in which these activities are portrayed can be related to ideas concerning authenticity. This is because Larsson generally chooses to portray both violence and humiliation visually and without comment.

The thesis ends with a sixth chapter, which consists of a brief conclusion that shows how ideas concerning authenticity and change can also be related to four autobiographical prose works that Stig Larsson released between 1997 and 2000.

The presentworkis a study within a framework of functional grammar, by which is understood a grammar that aims not only at describing variations in syntactic form, but also at identifying their communicative function. The scope of the study is limited to adjectives as predicate complements to subjects. The analysis is based on excerpts from twenty Swedish novels by different authors, and also on some spoken material. Predicate complements can occur with different types of verbs and have, broadly speaking, four possible positions in the sentence: final, middle, initial and extra-posed after the sentence. The final position in the sentence is used for predicate complements that are non-omissible, i.e. are non-omissible in order for the sentence to remain in the same context. In this position, the predicate complement is most clearly rhematic, providing information important to the communicative development of the text. The middle position is used for the omissible predicate complements, i.e. if the predicate complement is deleted, the sentence can still remain in it* s context. The initial position is occupied by predicate complements that provide inferred information. These are mostly thematic. Predicate complements in the final position outside the sentence are more independent, almost of sentence status. Variations in word-order thus affect the information structure of the sentence. These functional rules governing the placement of the predicate complements in a Swedish sentence are also valid for adverbs of manner. In Swedish, these two categories are very close in certain cases where they appear to be interchangeable.The study also shows that sentences comprising copula+predicate complement and sentences comprising verbs of the type l^igga (lie)+predicate complement partly have different functions and occur in different contexts. This functional difference can be correlated with various differences in syntactic behaviour. Verbs of the type Z-i^a+predicate complement often form a semantic unit, in which both the verb and the adjective have a reduced lexical meaning. In this unit the adjective carries the greater information value. Such units are broken by the insertion of the words där/här (there/ here). In these cases, the verb and the adjective no longer constitute a semantic unit and they regain their full lexical meaning. The sentence then has another information structure in which the information value of the verb and the adjective are equally great. Such sentences summarize and/or describe states of affairs;, they do not develope the narrative further.In a study of the function of syntactic variants, analyzing predicate complements to verbs other than copula verbs as reduced sentences is found not to be useful. Paraphrasing predicate complements by full clauses is not meaning preserving: the predicate complement receives greater emphasis and the paraphrase has other presuppositions.

By means of content analysis, this study evaluated the ways in which a community-based preventive program in Sweden in the field of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes was reported in the news by the Swedish mass media We were also interested in determining whether, and to what extent, 5 years of exposure to the media had affected the health habits of the residents in the intervention area. Thus, the views of the public were obtained via a cross-sectional posttest survey of all adults 16 to 80 years of age. Responses were obtained from 65% of the population. Data were interpreted within a framework of a three-dimensional power approach: control of issue resolution, control of information content, and emphasis and control of ideology. The health program has attracted much attention, and some of the contents have been commented on in depth (e.g., dietary habits, health examinations, and organizational issues). The authorities, including the health and medical staff, were the main actors on the media stage. The media coverage was largely restricted to middle-aged men, whereas women, children, young people, and pensioners were less salient in the news. The mass media were found to emphasize an individual standpoint concerning health habits, and when the "ordinary people" appeared it was as exemplary models in the spirit of the health program. The results indicated sex and social class differences among people recalling the media news. Men in manual occupations were the least affected by the media coverage of the health program.