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Gunlög Sundberg

About me

Senior lecturer and researcher 

Teaching

 

I supervise the PhD student Azar Raoufi Masouleh.

Research

Swedish as a second language; interactional sociolinguistics; conversation, interaction och ethnomethodology; workplace communication in a multilingual society; language policy; assessing and testing language competence; language learner corpus; methodology.

Research projects

Participant perspectives on professional language competence - internationally educated teachers and pre-school teachers

The project focuses on internationally trained teachers and pre-school teachers and their experience and view of communication and language use in their work in Sweden. Their experience derives from their supplementary education (ULV) at universities in Sweden, and from their work as teachers in different parts of the Swedish school system. A survey was sent to alumni from ULV, with questions  about the interaction between language practice's and their beliefs and values, what needs they see in their work and how they are received at Swedish schools. 

Transnational Professionals in Higher Education and in Research: sharing the Australian and Swedish experience of language assessment of an internationalized work force of regulated professions.

The project aims to share knowledge, experience and research on transnational academics in higher education in Australia and Sweden. Focus is on knowledge about academics in regulated professions, such as teachers, lawyers or doctors, who participate in supplementary higher education in order to work in a new country. The questions concern how a professional and sustainable academic education can develop models to utilize, support and assess linguistic resources and skills in these professions and how workplaces can be prepared. The result will provide a better understanding of how education and workplaces with great diversity can work with language development.

The project is funded by  STINT, The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education

Swedish Learner Language corpus, SweLL

I participated in the infrastructure project Swedish Learner Language (SweLL). The project has set up a portal and an infrastructure for text collection, pseudonymization, normalization, and correction annotation of written learner  production. A linguistically and correction annotated learner corpus of 500 adult learner texts are now available for Swedish as a second language at all learner levels. Another 200 are pseudonymized and searchable. The learner corpus can be found at Språkbanken at the University of Gothenburg.  https://spraakbanken.gu.se/korp

Riksbankens Jubileumsfond financed the project (IN16-0464:1). It was led from Språkbanken at the University of Gothenburg. SweLL (RJ 2017-2019)

Recruitment, socialization and representation in public administration. The case of language and culture for diversity in public organizations

The project took as its first staring point the concept of representation in relation to public administration. Globalisation and multilingualism in Sweden of today makes administrative bodies face a new composition of the citizenry it is supposed to serve. The second starting point was the language policy adopted by Parliament in 2005 and the use of language as a resource for identity, socialization and recruitment in public administration. The cases studied came from a complementary course in Public Administration for academics with an international background. In the project we followed around 80 students doing their internship in different national agencies and ministries. 

Riksbankens Jubileumsfond financed the project (P2007-0857:1)

International network

NOS HS financed a Nordic network 2020-2023: Language at work: migrants and Nordic workplaces

The Nordic network held three workshops: Stockholm University 13-14 June 2022, Jyväskylä University 13-14 September 2022, Copenhagen University 13-14 April 2023. 

Research projects

Participant perspectives on professional language competence

The project focuses on internationally trained teachers and pre-school teachers and their experience and view of communication and language use in their work in Sweden. Their experience derives from their supplementary education (ULV) at universities in Sweden, and from their work as teachers in different parts of the Swedish school system.

Childrens' hands playing with neon coloured geometrical puzzle pieces on a light board
Linguistic and Institutional Epistemic Dynamics in Multilingual Workplaces

This project explores linguistic and institutional dynamics in multilingual workplaces, examining interactional practices and identity construction. Using audio/video data, it focuses on backstage talk, leadership, and socio-technical practices in manager-employee meetings, employing EMCA, MCA, and socio-technical methods.

Research

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • SweLL: En svensk inlärarkorpus

    2023. Gunlög Sundberg, Julia Prentice. Språk i praktiken – i en föränderlig värld., 428-452

    Conference

    Språkbanken lanserade 2021 en ny annoterad digital inlärarkorpus med texter skrivna av inlärare av svenska, SweLL (Swedish Learner Language corpus). Syftet med artikeln är att diskutera och ge exempel på hur digitala inlärarkorpusar kan bidra till språkforskningen om inlärares språkanvändning, vilket är en fråga som fått allt mer uppmärksamhet (Le Bruyn & Paquot, 2021; Myles, 2015). Genom att utgå ifrån diskussionen om relationen mellan forskningsfälten LCR (Learner Corpus Research) och SLA (Second Language Acquisition) kommer vi i artikeln att presentera den nya inlärarkorpusen och diskutera några viktiga teoretiska och metodologiska aspekter i samband med dess utveckling (Volodina m.fl., 2019).Vi ger även exempel på några tillämpningar av korpusen genom en explorativ studie av förflyttningsverbkonstruktioner i inlärartexterna. Resultaten på gruppnivå stärker tidigare forskning som visar en överrepresentation av verbkonstruktioner med gå hos tidiga inlärare.

    Read more about SweLL: En svensk inlärarkorpus

  • The Swell Language Learner Corpus

    2019. Elena Volodina (et al.). Northern European Journal of Language Technology (NEJLT) 6, 67-104

    Article

    The article presents a new language learner corpus for Swedish, SweLL, and the methodology from collection and pesudonymisation to protect personal information of learners to annotation adapted to second language learning. The main aim is to deliver a well-annotated corpus of essays written by second language learners of Swedish and make it available for research through a browsable environment. To that end, a new annotation tool and a new project management tool have been implemented, both with the main purpose to ensure reliability and quality of the final corpus. In the article we discuss reasoning behind metadata selection, principles of gold corpus compilation and argue for separation of normalization from correction annotation.

    Read more about The Swell Language Learner Corpus

  • Learner Corpus Anonymization in the Age of GDPR

    2018. Beáta Megyesi (et al.). Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on NLP for Computer Assisted Language Learning at SLTC 2018 (NLP4CALL 2018), 47-56

    Conference

    This paper reports on the status of learner corpus anonymization for the ongoing research infrastructure project SweLL. The main project aim is to deliver and make available for research a well-annotated corpus of essays written by second language (L2) learners of Swedish. As the practice shows, annotation of learner texts is a sensitive process demanding a lot of compromises between ethical and legal demands on the one hand, and research and technical demands, on the other. Below, is a concise description of the current status of pseudonymization of language learner data to ensure anonymity of the learners, with numerous examples of the above-mentioned compromises.

    Read more about Learner Corpus Anonymization in the Age of GDPR

  • Kommunikationsetnografi som resurs för språk(in)lärare

    2016. Gunlög Sundberg. Flerspråkighet som resurs, 116-128

    Chapter

    I denna artikel diskuteras hur ett kommunikationsetnografiskt arbetssätt kan användas i språkutbildningen, för att närmare studera kommunikationen i olika situationer och därmed förbereda vuxna andraspråksbrukare för yrkeslivet i Sverige. Inledningsvis ges en bakgrund till etnografisk forskning och några exempel på studier från en svensk andraspråkskontext.

    Read more about Kommunikationsetnografi som resurs för språk(in)lärare

  • Kommunikativa dilemman i rekryteringssamtal

    2009. Gunlög Sundberg. Nordand (2), 91-106

    Article

    Som samtalsdeltagare kan vi ställas inför kommunikativa dilemman som kan vara mer eller mindre uppenbara. Sådana dilemman kan ha att göra med motsägelsefulla krav i samtalet, såväl i den inre interaktionella organisationen av samtalet som i de yttre ramar som omger det.

    I samtal mellan personer med o(jäm)lika språkliga resurser, exempelvis i andraspråksamtal, kan dilemman vara knutna till förståelsen på både lokal och global nivå i det gemensamma meningsskapandet. I artikeln illustreras sådana kommunikativa dilemman med exempel från en studie av rekryteringssamtal med andraspråksbrukare. I studien analyseras frågor om starka och svaga egenskaper i samtal mellan fjorton arbetssökande och en rekryterare på ett bemanningsföretag.

    De kommunikativa dilemman som synliggörs i analysen - rekryterarens dilemma, den arbetssökandes dilemma och ett gemensamt dilemma - speglar även olika asymmetrier i de institutionella samtalen. Jag frågar mig på vilket sätt samtalsdeltagarna hanterar sina dilemman och om kommunikativa dilemman ställer speciella krav på lösningar eller kompromisser just i andraspråkssamtal

    Read more about Kommunikativa dilemman i rekryteringssamtal

  • Att bedöma andraspråkstexter

    2006. Gunlög Sundberg. Textvård, 102-110

    Chapter

    Allt fler skribenter i Sverige har lärt sig svenska i vuxen ålder. Deras texter kan många gånger innehålla grammatik- och ordvalsfel, samtidigt som de är informativa och välstrukturerade och fungerar mycket bra för sitt syfte. Hur ska man bedöma deras skrivförmåga? Det är en viktig fråga för lärare, arbetsledare och kamrater i skola och arbetsliv.

    Read more about Att bedöma andraspråkstexter

  • Bedömning och testning av andraspråksfärdighet i Norden

    2006. Gunlög Sundberg. Språk i Norden, 107-120

    Article

    Människor som flyttar till de nordiska länderna i dag behöver ofta i migrations- och integrationsprocessen kunna visa att de behärskar något av de nordiska språken. Detta ställer krav på oss som sysslar med Nordens språk som andraspråk att som en del av vår profession på ett rättssäkert sätt kunna bedöma och intyga andraspråksfärdighet i förhållande till de språkliga krav som finns inom utbildning, på arbetsmarknad och i vissa länder för medborgarskap. I en europeisk kontext är också de sex nivåerna i The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR-skalan) från Europarådet ett tecken på behovet av samsyn om den språkförmåga som bedöms. I denna artikel görs en översikt över vad som just nu görs i de nordiska länderna på detta område.

    Read more about Bedömning och testning av andraspråksfärdighet i Norden

  • Asymmetrier och samförstånd i rekryteringssamtal med andraspråkstalare

    2004. Gunlög Sundberg (et al.).

    Thesis (Doc)

    In many institutional settings in today’s globalized job market, people have to deal with different role asymmetries in the co-construction of meaning. In this study, institutional, cultural and linguistic asymmetries are focused on in interviews at an employment agency in Sweden. Interviews between a recruiter and fourteen female job candidates with an academic background from other countries were video taped. Three sequences on personality were analysed: What do you consider to be your strengths? What personal characteristics do you want to improve? and What has made an impact on you? The general aim of the study was to gain knowledge of the processes whereby self-presentations are co-constructed and how participants try to reach common understanding when they do not share common linguistic and cultural resources.

    Theoretically, the study has a dialogical framework. Discourse is seen as the place where society, culture, situation, individual and language meet and where meaning is constructed through social action. Within an interactional sociolinguistics framework, an holistic approach to methods combines ethnography of communication with ethnomethodology and conversation analysis.

    The results show that the meaning-making project in this institutional situation is institutionally framed, culturally hidden, socially constrained by face-work and interactionally embedded. The recruiter orients to the institutional frame by embedding reformulations of the candidates’ answers in her uptake, often an adjective, which is filled in on a form and later transferred to a data base. The recruiter also takes on the face-work of the communicative dilemmas that the questions exhibit, for example by using explanations when candidates admit to low self-confidence. It is also shown that for some candidates the hidden agenda of the situation is concealed and that their communicative styles clash with the recruiter’s expectations.

    The asymmetrical situation can for the candidates be seen as both a resource and a constraint. The linguistic asymmetry is not foregrounded. Instead, the negotiation of meaning concerns the institutional and cultural frame rather than linguistic meanings. On the other hand, the recruiter shows a tendency to normalize the candidates according to her own institutional and cultural knowledge. This dynamic interplay between heterogenization and homogenization tendencies is an important feature in the interviews.

    Read more about Asymmetrier och samförstånd i rekryteringssamtal med andraspråkstalare

  • Handbok för produktion av språktest

    2000. Gunlög Sundberg, Margareta Corell.

    Book

    Handbok för produktion av språktest med följande kapitel: Teoretisk bakgrund, Testproduktionsprocessen, Utprovning, testanalys och testkonstruktion och Itembaserade uppgiftstyper. 

    Read more about Handbok för produktion av språktest

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