The use of posture verbs among students in upper secondary education : A study of students studying Swedish in comparison to students studying Swedish as a second language

This thesis examines the use of posture verbs among students in upper secondary education. Posture verbs are difficult to differentiate between and have a wide semantic range. The aim of this study is to examine how often students studying Swedish as a second language (SSL) in upper secondary education use posture verbs in the production of texts in comparison to students studying Swedish. The research material for this study is comprised of two parts. The first part consists of 68 student texts, taken from the Swedish National Test 2015 in the courses of Swedish 1 and SSL 1. The second part consists of a questionnaire which requires an active choice of a posture verb by the participant. The study reveals that native speakers of Swedish use posture verbs twice as often as SSL-learners when writing. The study also reveals a small difference between the student groups concerning their use of posture verbs as opposed to copula sentences. This signifies an uncertainty surrounding the context in which these verbs are used.