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I ett protokoll fört under en asylintervju återfanns en obegriplig mening som den asylsökande inte kände igen. I denna artikel undersöker vi vad som ledde fram till denna mening. Med sam­talsanalys som teoretisk och metodisk ansats går vi igenom en 3,5 minuter lång sekvens hämtad från den ljudinspelade, tolkade asylintervju där den obegripliga meningen fördes till proto­kollet. Språken som talades var svenska och ryska. Protokollet skrevs på svenska. Under­sök­ningen visar hur flera faktorer och samtliga deltagare i asylintervjun, på olika sätt, styr och for­mar framväxten av den asylberättelse som manifesteras i protokollet. Generellt för tolkade samtal gäller att tolkens återgivningar av det som sagts på det andra språket möjliggör parternas delade förståelse – samtidigt som de skapar ett icke-konventionellt turtagningsmönster. Specifikt för asylintervjuer är att ett detaljerat protokoll av det som sägs förs, samtidigt som intervjun pågår. Hur det samtidiga protokollskrivandet påverkar turtag­nings­­mönstret har inte undersökts i någon större utsträckning i tidigare forskning. Artikeln visar på svårigheter som kan uppstå när en institutionell berättelse samkonstrueras när den parallellt dokumenteras i ett protokoll. Kunskap om detta är av vikt för såväl praktiker inom asylprocessen, som för vidare studier av tolkning i offentlig sektor.

The aim of this study is to demonstrate how the presence of an emerging written record may affect the content of an asylum narrative, based on which a decision concerning the asylum claimant’s right to receive protection eventually is taken. The lion’s share of studies on interpreter-mediated asylum interviews to date focus on risks involved with assigning non-professionals to perform the interpreting. This study draws specifically on a 3.5 min-long sequence taken from an asylum interview involving a professional interpreter, working between Russian and Swedish, and the corresponding paragraph of the Swedish-language written minutes, produced in parallel by the caseworker at a Migration Agency office. The study demonstrates something that hasn’t been highlighted much in the literature on asylum interviews, namely the mutual impact of the interpreter-mediated communicative format—the specific turn taking order and the restricted linguistic transparency—and the parallel record keeping; the intricate passage from two spoken languages to an asylum narrative in the form of a text written in one of these languages.

In this paper, we conduct a critical discourse analytical study of asylum interviews in order to contribute to knowledge and awareness of (a) how asymmetrical power relations are discursively (re)produced as well as manoeuvred and negotiated during the interaction and (b) what this means in terms of positioning of the participants. Focusing on a number of metacommunicative sequences characterised by a notably high degree of interpersonal complexity, we examine how participants are positioned and how positioning is discursively realised. We draw on eight observed and recorded asylum interviews conducted in Sweden 2018–2021. Metacommunicative positioning is analysed mainly with a focus on speech functions and modality. We show that metacommunication is used by all participants largely as a means of constructing an asylum narrative within the framework of an institutional discourse. The participants can position each other in (dis)advantageous ways in their attempts to deny, or sometimes claim, responsibility for miscommunication. The applicants generally obey the metacommunicative instructions given by other, more powerful participants. However, we also show an example of an applicant who makes resistance to the institutional discourse. Furthermore, all participants use metacommunication as a tool to guide each other in the conversation, thereby positioning themselves as responsible for the co-construction of the asylum narrative. Finally, we underline the benefits of conducting critical discourse analysis in the study of asylum interviews, although such studies can barely change the fact that the asylum determination process is unequal and asymmetrical in its core.

In this paper we examine how traditional views of normality are negotiated, indorsed and resisted when talking about children with heart defects. Having as a starting point an ethnographic project that aimed to study knowledge construction when being pregnant or having a child with a heart defect, we focus on argumentation put forward by clinicians and parents in order to understand the forms that normality takes in relation to children's health and illness and the way that it is constructed argumentatively and linguistically. More specifically, we draw data from recorded doctor-patient consultations, ethnographic interviews and entries from family blogs and forums and focus on those instances where normality is negotiated as a means of providing a medical consultation or of taking and motivating decisions about the child's health and everyday life. The analysis is conducted by identifying content and logical topics in the data and showing how constructions of normality and alternative conceptions are constructed in discourse. Discourses are additionally related to discursive, semiotic framing and the realization of norms. Our results highlight a duality that is being painted both in the clinicians and in the parents' discourse when negotiating the illness and the accompanying risks in the child's everyday life. Some of the traditional norms being re-constructed and re-negotiated in the data are those of stigmatization, diversity, responsibility and freedom of choice., Hälsolitteracitet och kunskapsbyggande i informationssamhället

The aqueous phase resulting from the catalytic pyrolysis (AQcatPy) of biomass has been successfully applied for acidification of urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins. The resins were synthesized at a laboratory scale and characterized by gel permeation chromatography (GPC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The bonding ability of the resins was tested through the preparation of particle boards (PBs). It was found that the UF resins prepared with AQcatPy as acidification medium have a similar performance to typical UF resins, where conventional chemicals like formic acid (FA) or acetic acid (AA) serve for pH adjustments. The new resins give PBs with somewhat improved thickness swelling (TS) values, while all other properties are at the same level.

This article reports on research addressing the role of incident reporting at the workplace as a textual representation of lean management techniques. It draws on text and discourse analysis as well as on ethnographic data, including interviews, recorded interaction, and observations, from two projects on workplace literacy in Sweden: a study in an eldercare facility and a study in a large factory. Analysis of the data set demonstrates striking similarities, both in the way incident reporting texts are structured and worded and in the literacy practices that contextualize them. Dominant characteristics in the texts are the absence of actors and the structured, process-based approach of problems and problem handling. The forms often generate conflicts in the ways workers are asked to textually represent an incident. In this article, we argue that lean thinking has penetrated texts and literacy practices of two considerably different workplaces, and this has a large impact on the way workers are instructed to think and act with regard to problem handling techniques.

Olive leaves are a residue from the olive-oil industry and usually are discarded or used as feed for livestock. However, olive leaves are sources of added value bioactive compounds that can be used in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food industries. Several conventional methods are available in the literature regarding the extraction of valuable compounds from plant matrices. In the last few years, new extraction techniques have been studied to reduce the volume of solvents required to extract those types of compounds. The chapter discusses these extraction techniques, including microwave, supercritical fluid, superheated liquid, and ultrasound, which are being used to extract bioactive compounds from olive leaves, as well as their antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.

The study examines online searching as a digital health literacy practice and focuses on parents of children with congenital heart defects. Over the period of four years, we have conducted interviews with couples at different stages of pregnancy or parenthood and have encouraged them to reflect on their literacy practices when receiving a heart defect diagnosis, during the remaining time of their pregnancy and when living with a child with a heart defect. We have also read and analysed health blogs written by parents and focused on extracts where literacy events are described. Searching for information and support online is one of the most frequent practices amongst the participants in the study. The aim of this paper is therefore to highlight the complexity of looking for information online in order to take health decisions and provide care to a child with congenital illness. Based on what parents say they do when searching online, we focus on three main paths to knowledge: looking for medical facts, looking for other parents’ experiences and looking for practical information. We discuss digital health literacy practices as complex activities that often involve parents in the diagnosis and in the child’s medical care to such an extent that parents build up knowledge and become experts, not only in finding information and support but in talking and writing about their child’s illness. We also problematise the notion of trustworthy health information and show how facts and opinions often go hand in hand in platforms where health issues are discussed. Finally, we show some of the affordances and restrictions inherent in using the internet as a source for meaning making and learning about children’s health. The results reinforce our understanding of the socially framed nature of health literacy and make us focus on the digital as an additional important aspect in the practice of health literacy.

In this article we discuss the results of a study within the project Language work as care work. The study focuses on the documentation practices of carers and assistant nurses within three elder care facilities in Sweden. The aim is to explore how representations of work and work content are remediated and recontextualised in some of the key written genres in the nursing home. In this process different discourses, and thus different versions of the practice of caring, are promoted and restrained. In order to show how the literacy practices and written text genres of elder care construe different meanings of caring we closely examine four key genres in the communicative chain and analyse them in terms of genre and discourse. The data discussed here was collected in an ethnographic study lasting eighteen months, using participant observation, qualitative interviews and collection of key texts as the main tools.

In this article we problematize our field roles as two linguistic ethnographers who aim to study the communication and documentation practices drawn upon by care workers in elderly care facilities in Sweden. Our field roles are discussed in relation to the complex nature of care workers' knowledge and competence, which results from three different aspects of their work-identities: institutional, professional, and individual. As researchers, we found ourselves in constant dialogue with the research participants, and our field roles were continuously shaped and reshaped according to the individuals and the situations in which we became involved. Even aspects of our own identities taken into the field, such as our background and personal qualities, proved to be important in establishing good relations with the care staff. Coming closer to the participants' professional identity proved to be of utmost importance for interpreting their choices and decisions in the workplace. Identity negotiation is presented here as a constructive way of discussing ethnographic field roles in the research field.

In this paper, I show the relevance of using Activity Theory in the study of situated literacy. In order to do that, I draw on ethnographic data collected during a six-month period that focuses on the literacy practices of a warehouse administrator who studies on a work-basis for the completion of a National Vocational Qualification in the UK. The employee’s work context and the process of studying for a qualification are examined here as two distinct activity systems, within which various literacy events are enacted and literacy practices are developed. The result is a detailed study of the interaction of these two activity systems, and it becomes clear that work practices and qualification practices are connected in many ways. One of the most important connecting factors is the vocational portfolio, which acts as a boundary object between the two distinct yet highly recontextualising activity systems.