Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia
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Introduction. Architextures. Building, Writing, Speaking in Nordic Literatures and Languages
No full textThis special issue of Folia Scandinavica Posnaniensia, “Architextures. Building, Writing, Speaking in Nordic Literatures and Languages”, explores intersections of architecture, literature, and language. It investigates writerly responses to architectural styles, architecture as narrative settings, as a model for textual construction, and as metaphor for language structures. The contributions are grouped into three sections. The first section addresses the narrative potential of buildings and urban environments in the authorships of Hjalmar Bergman, Kjell Westö, Lotte Inuk, Mads Peder Nordbo, Simon Stålenhag, and Jonas Karlsson. The second considers textual structures as architectural forms, from saga archetypes to the organisation of Nordic svartebøker. The third focuses on the building blocks of language through studies on Old Icelandic word order and Swedish verbal polysemy. Through a variety of perspectives, this volume fosters new connections between space, structure, literary and linguistic discourses in Nordic studies
Constituent Order in Old Icelandic
No full textThe prevailing perspective in scholarly literature is that Old Icelandic exhibits free word order in terms of sentence constituent linearity. However, when examining head-complement order, the consensus is that Old Icelandic represents an OV language transitioning towards VO, as seen in modern Icelandic. This paper aims to elucidate the fundamental order of Old Icelandic by classifying languages based on the position of constituents (S, V, O) within sentences. The investigation begins with the question of what statistical insights can be gleaned from IcePaHC, an annotated corpus documenting the entire history of the Icelandic language from its earliest written records (1150) to contemporary times (2008). In this study, data were analyzed using the HistobankVis System, which allows for the extraction of percentages across various time periods. The findings suggest that Old Icelandic should be characterized by two predominant orders (SVO and VSO) rather than as a free-order language
En underlig historia. Hjalmar Bergman och funktionalismen
No full textIn 1929, Hjalmar Bergman was commissioned to write a play for the opening ceremony of the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition, an event that established functionalism as the dominant trend in Swedish architecture. The rejection of his proposal by the progressive organisers, art historian Gregor Paulsson and architect Gunnar Asplund, was something of “an odd story” according to Bergman himself, who, in an interview, asserted that the play was refused “for functionalist reasons”, and because of the tribute it paid to traditional Swedish handicraft. Some time before the interview, Bergman had ironised about this contemporary expression of Modernism in his radio play Tankar om funktionalism (Thoughts about Functionalism). In this article, Bergman’s personal assessment of the functionalist doctrine, according to which the purpose of architecture should dictate its form, is discussed and related to the improbable room at the centre of the Borck family home in the novel Farmor och Vår Herre (1921; Thy Rod and Thy Staff, 1937). While earlier readings of the puzzling ‘rooms of wonder’ that appear in Bergman’s generally solid houses of fiction have applied psychological and biographical lenses to interpret what may look like purposeless nooks and crannies, this essay departs from the historical context to show Bergman’s understanding – if not appreciation – of functionalism
Sygdommen satte spor i os. Den pårørendes afsøgning af kropslige grænser og identitet i Hanne Ørstaviks Ti Amo (2020) og Amalie Smiths I CIVIL (2012)
Full text linkCaring, writing and the desire for knowledge are deeply intertwined phenomena in Amalie Smith’s poetry collection I CIVIL and Hanne Ørstavik’s novel Ti Amo, both of which portray women in romantic relations with men who are cancer patients. Through depictions of the women’s initial attempts to maintain the closeness to their partners, the books explore the relational and somatic borderland between symbiosis and separation from the perspective of two informal caregivers. Taking a Lacanian approach, this borderland can be understood as a passage from the symbolic to the real which the women gain access to through their intense desire for knowledge and bodily experiences of jouissance and abjection. As informal caregivers for men who are unlikely to survive their illness, the women experience conflicting relational desires for both intimacy and distance. This article investigates how the passage from the symbolic to the real reintroduces the women to relational challenges from an early developmental stage and thus helps them solve the aforementioned conflict
Valuation and vulnerability. An analysis of the reception of two illness narratives in the contemporary Swedish literary landscape
Full text linkThe proliferation of autobiographical accounts of illness, or autopathographies, has attracted considerable scholarly interest. Nevertheless, a notable gap remains in our understanding of how these narratives are received and evaluated. This article addresses this gap by examining the dynamics of value negotiation surrounding two autobiographical illness narratives in Sweden: Kristina Sandberg’s En ensam plats (A Lonely Place, 2021) and Sara Meidell’s Ut ur min kropp (Out of My Body, 2022). Theoretically, the article is grounded in a constructivist framework of value. In addition to exploring how Sandberg and Meidell address the value question in their illness narratives, it presents a detailed analysis of reviews and debate articles to uncover the underlying values expressed in the reception of these narratives. The analysis reveals that the value discussions center on aesthetic, emotional, social, and ethical dimensions, reflecting broader cultural debates about illness and its representation. While Sandberg’s narrative raises questions about the portrayal of illness experiences, Meidell’s narrative provokes discussions about its potential impact on readers. In sum, this article highlights the need for a comprehensive understanding of value creation and negotiation pertaining to illness narratives
När sjukt blir friskt och friskt sjukt. Pooneh Rohis Hölje och sjukdomsbegreppets innebörd
Full text linkThis article discusses how different notions of illness are portrayed in the Swedish-Iranian author Pooneh Rohi’s novel Hölje (2021). It notes the tendency to diagnose the main character, Mona, with postpartum psychosis, as discernible in the reception, but questions its suitability as a fruitful perspective for approaching the novel and the experience expressed here. Instead, a phenomenological perspective is established, focusing on how illness is perceived by the sufferer herself and what knowledge about the self, other people, and the world becomes possible to obtain in this way. Through this perspective, it becomes clear that the concepts of illness and health are given new meanings and connotations in the novel, as they are associated with the concepts of falseness and authenticity in a new and unconventional way. Thus, the novel can be read as a criticism both of biomedical science that diagnose and sort people into categories based on a medical understanding of illness, and of a broader cultural perception of what constitutes sick and healthy behaviour
Training physicians to work in a second language
Full text linkThis study highlights the importance of targeting practices that facilitate physician-patient communication in language courses for health professionals. The aim of this study is twofold. Firstly, it examines if and how physicians with a second language deploy metaphors to facilitate understanding. Secondly, it investigates how this practice can be enhanced through communicative training. The study comprises two separate parts, each with a different approach, method, and participants. Study 1 investigates the use of metaphors in authentic situations from outpatient clinics, where physicians consulted patients in L2 Norwegian. The data consists of transcripts of video recordings and an interview with one of the physicians. Study 2 examines the outcomes of an intervention during an intensive language course before the physicians’ arrival in Norway. The data in this study include oral and written production, as well as an interview with one of the participants. Study 1 revealed contexts in which migrant physicians deploy metaphors to facilitate their communication in L2 and types of the expressions they use. Study 2 showed that stimulating metaphor awareness might be beneficial for metaphor use in communication and comprehension in visual representation, which in turn can support L2 communication in the physicians’ everyday practices