Att bli en på svenska läsande människa?: Flerspråkiga högutbildade vuxnas skönlitterära läspraktiker
Authors:   , Wilinger Henriikka 
Published: January 2022

The dissertation investigates fiction reading practices (Barton, 1994) of highly educated adult migrants. There are two contexts explored: reading in an advanced Swedish course and reading in free time. The title, Att bli en på svenska läsande människa? Flerspråkiga högutbildade vuxnas skönlitterära läspraktiker, translates to: ”Becoming a person who reads in Swedish? Fiction reading practices of highly educated multilingual adults”. The topic relates to three fields: literature education, multilingualism, and sociolinguistics. The main research questions are: Why and how do highly educated multilingual adults read literature in advanced Swedish language courses? Why, how and in which languages do highly educated multilingual adults read literature in their free time? The focus is on fiction reading practices of migrants that either study Swedish at an advanced level or have done so several years ago. The overall aim is to highlight a group of individuals who possess a great deal of cultural capital which might not always be visible in a new linguistic and cultural context (Blackledge, 2005). “Highly educated” refers to individuals with an academic degree, ongoing university studies, or a high school education with academic studies as a goal. The educational context consists of advanced Swedish courses, so called university access programs, at two universities in Sweden. This educational context is investigated by interviews with students and teachers, policy document analysis, and observations of an oral exam. The free time context is explored by deep interviews with multilinguals that have lived in Sweden for three years or more. The dissertation consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the topic and motivates why it is important to study adult multilingualism and literature reading. The answer is quite simple: because this area has hardly ever been researched in Sweden when it comes to informants with academic backgrounds. Earlier research in this area has mainly focused on multilingual children and youth, or adults with short educational backgrounds. Chapter 2 gives an overview of previous research and theories relevant for this study. Chapter 3 is a methods chapter including a presentation of the material categories, study subjects, ethical considerations, and the analysis method, which is qualitative and empirical. The theoretic framework draws on social constructionism (Burr, 2001) and a poststructuralist understanding of multilingualism (Blackledge, 2005). Multilingualism is seen as a choice of languages, based on identity positions as presented by Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004). Because of the broad, interdisciplinary topic, several theoretical tools are applied. The literature reception perspective draws on reader-response theory by Rosenblatt (1938; 1995). When it comes to the educational context, the legitimation typology of reading literature in educational settings in Sweden, created by Persson (2007), is applied. Furthermore, McCormick’s (1994) sociocultural model explains how readers’ backgrounds affect their so called “reading forms” (Tengberg, 2011). In addition, Torell’s (2002) understanding of the concept of literary competence and Janks’ (2009) critical literacy theory are used. The analysis of language learning aspects is based on Cummins’ (1981) iceberg model and his two concepts: BICS, basic interpersonal communication skills, and CALP, cognitive and academic language proficiency. Further, a model dividing the relationship between second language learning and literature instruction into four categories (Paran, 2008) is used as a way of describing the goals and practices of the course. Felski’s (2008) four “modes of engagement” are used to understand the individuals’ personal interests when reading fiction in L2 in both contexts. When it comes to the leisure readers, the theories mentioned above are complemented with Bourdieu’s (1977) sociology and the concept of cultural capital. The dissertation consists of two empirical parts. Part I, presented in Chapter 4 and 5, focuses on literature reading in educational settings and also discusses the primary and the secondary literary socialization of the multilingual students. Chapter 4 examines the motivations of literature reading in the advanced language course, thus centering on the question word “why”. Chapter 5 examines the observations of an oral exam and group interviews with the students after the course and concentrates on the question word “how”. Part II, presented in Chapter 6, focuses on ten migrants’ reading practices today, after several years in Sweden. Deep interviews with these multilingual readers have been reconstructed as reader biographies, presented as portraits of the readers.