Hej Håkan! – a reception analysis of upper secondary school students use of literary terms in rock lyric analysis

This paper examines the use of literary terminology in upper secondary school. The study consists of 13 students letters written to Håkan Hellström where they analyze the rock lyrics of his song “Din tid kommer”. The lyrics chosen contain a variety of metaphors, symbols, themes and messages. The purpose is to examine both the correct and incorrect terms used by the students, to examine their strategies in lack of literary terminology and to examine how the lyric genre affects the students analysis. The method used is qualitative research. To conduct the analysis, both reception theory and terms from music sociology is applied. The main theory is based on Kathleen McCormick’s use of repertoirs and Örjan Torells literary transfer competence. The analysis also uses Simon Friths term “authenticity” and Ulf Lindbergs term “fonotext”. Results of Maritha Johanssons comparative study of french and swedish students use of literary terms to describe fiction is also important for this study, due to the fact that it has inspired the method used to analyze the material. The results show that the students use of literary terms are lacking and that they use pseudoterms, form questions and use an every-day-vocabulary instead of literary terms. It also shows hos students tend to build their analysis from a subjective point of view instead of having an objective, analytical standpoint. Both the rock lyric genre and the letter genre affects the students ability to focus on the analytical part of the task. Their subjective point of view and the fact that they assume that the narrator is the author himself, result in literary transfer blocking, which makes it difficult to practice literary analysis and therefore difficult to meet the requirements of the curriculum