Bodil Hedeboe

Dept of Scandinavian Languages, Stockholm University

‘If this is the way you tackle your middle-aged crisis, Mr. Guillou…’- Genre and Stance in Swedish Students’ Argumentative Texts

In this study I apply the systems of Appraisal and Genre in a discourse analysis of 90 senior secondary Swedish students’ argumentative texts.

I describe the texts as dialogically realising the socio-cultural context of the task, as well as responding to the specific stimulus text, a column by the Swedish author Jan Guillou.

My analysis demonstrates that inexperienced writers recontextualise their experience of ‘argumentation’ by imitating more spoken genres (opinion, observation, exemplum), whereas the experienced writers imitate more written argumentative genres (discussion, essay, analysis). Also the analysis demonstrates how the genres are realised by the choice of Engagement resources invested in the texts. White’s distinction between dialogic contraction and dialogic expansion enabling variations in stance is applied. An additional option is suggested here : dialogic confrontation, the ‘most spoken’ one, recontextualising spoken interactional genres like argument (i.e. quarrel) and even gossip.

The purpose of the study is – in the context of a popular genre at senior secondary level - to offer a linguistic model for observing and reflecting on students’ language choices in a developmental perspective.

In my paper I demonstrate aspects of my analysis. Text samples have been translated into English.

References:

Martin, J. & Rose, D.(2003) Working with discourse analysis. Meaning beyond the clause. Continuum.

White, Peter (2001) An Introductory tour through Appraisal Theory.