Medborgare och myndigheter

Citizens and public authorities reports from a workshop held in Stockholm in October 2008, in connection with the national conference Svenskans beskrivning [Describing Swedish]. It contains seven of the papers presented at the workshop and an additional introductory chapter, written by Catharina Nyström Höög, which gives the background to the workshop and introduces the discussion of plain language practices and their relationship to linguistic research. Britt-Louise Gunnarsson then looks back on her own study of comprehensibility in legal language, and discusses the increasing access to legal texts that the internet has offered Swedish citizens and how this development challenges plain language practices. Starting from examples of geriatric care discourse, Henrik Rahm and Claes Ohlsson reveal how the voice of public authorities becomes increasingly similar to the voice of market forces and discuss the impact of this on citizens. Jaana Puskala studies to what extent local authorities use linguistic devices to disguise or reveal themselves as responsible for actions in agendas, while Merja Koskela looks at the way tax authorities strive to rewrite more comprehensible versions of texts as they are published on public websites. Anna-Lena Göransson and Per Ledin address the increasing use of texts in previously manual vocations; in this specific case they discuss a textbook for the fire brigade, and how it becomes accessible through mediation. Gunlög Sundberg takes on the question of multi-ethnicity in public workplaces and reports how students for whom Swedish is a second language experience public authorities. The volume concludes with Olle Josephson’s appraisal of the future for plain language practice, linguistic research and the interplay between them