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Rose Hollis

English on the run in Swedish Social Space

Rose Hollis

English on the run in Swedish Social Space

PHOTOS: Rose Hollis apart from the following: Front Cover: my photo of Kjellströms photo on public display, with permission from Stadsmuseet in Stockholm. Gun Hägglund och Gunnar Hörstadius läser Daily Mail på Publicistklubben i Rosenbad. 1950-1950 PHOTOGRAPHER: Kjellström, John (Pressfotograf). Svenska Dagbladet, BILDNUMMER: SvD 22182, Unikt dokument ID: SSMSVD022182, Stadsmuseet i Stockholm p. 285: Photographer: Unknown/Svenska Dagbladet, Created 1935, Photo number F 77859, Stadsmuseet i Stockholm p. 325: With permission from Stadsmuseet in Stockholm to use my photo of texts.

Cover photo & photo of text The photo on the front cover and the one on page 325, taken in October 2019, are from Drottninggatan in Stockholm, the street where the government offices called Rosenbad are undergoing renovation. The two photos appear as part of a historical display in public space on the board fence erected around the building site. The National Property Board Sweden is responsible for information about renovation. The cover photo depicts Gun Hägglund, the first female news reader on Swedish TV, and Gunnar Hörstadius, reading the Daily Mail on 12 January 1950 at the Swedish Publicists’ Association at Rosenbad. The photo is available from Stadsmuseet in Stockholm (Stockholmskällan).

Contents Preface............................................................................................................. 9 1. Travel in Mind ......................................................................................... 13 In flight................................................................................................................................... 13 Places and spaces.................................................................................................................. 15 Adults in the room ............................................................................................................... 19 Crossing the line ................................................................................................................... 23 “Betweenness” ...................................................................................................................... 33 Running down the clock ..................................................................................................... 41

2. Gatekeeping ............................................................................................. 43 In defence of … ..................................................................................................................... 43 How does it feel? .................................................................................................................. 47 Monster or mate?.................................................................................................................. 53

3. Genius ....................................................................................................... 63 Gone cuckoo –ish.................................................................................................................. 63 Out and about in society ..................................................................................................... 71 A liking for –ish .................................................................................................................... 77 Follow my leader.................................................................................................................. 79

4. Creating a Buzz ....................................................................................... 83 The new black ....................................................................................................................... 83 The new normal.................................................................................................................... 90 Meteorites .............................................................................................................................. 99 In vogue ............................................................................................................................... 105

5. Purity, Vigour & Majesty ..................................................................... 111 Ordmärkeri ......................................................................................................................... 111 Welcome to the capital of Scandinavia........................................................................... 119 Mind the gap ...................................................................................................................... 123 Humanity is social practice .............................................................................................. 126

6. SAS .......................................................................................................... 133 We are travelers ................................................................................................................. 133 SAS – We dream in foreign languages ........................................................................... 139 Down-classing .................................................................................................................... 144

7. Made by Sweden – Make in India ...................................................... 151 Volvo.................................................................................................................................... 151 The Winter’s Tale ............................................................................................................... 153 The golden stork ................................................................................................................ 159 Silly season.......................................................................................................................... 162 It’s not about … .................................................................................................................. 166

8. Understanding the Mood..................................................................... 169 Napoleon............................................................................................................................. 169 A sudden passion for French ........................................................................................... 172 Wild Street .......................................................................................................................... 176 Zest....................................................................................................................................... 179 My, my Waterloo! .............................................................................................................. 183

9. The Beach................................................................................................ 189 Burkas and bathing machines.......................................................................................... 189 “I know words. I have the best words”.......................................................................... 193 Watch your words! ............................................................................................................ 195 In English: This happened in Sweden Friday night, Mr President ............................ 203 … and the hare jumped into Cornelis grave.................................................................. 205

10. Extinction ............................................................................................. 211 Strawberry fields ................................................................................................................ 211 The Brexit arena.................................................................................................................. 215 Make the world Greta again ............................................................................................. 221

11. The End of May ................................................................................... 227 Defining moments.............................................................................................................. 227 Language is social practice ............................................................................................... 234 The just do it – do or die Brexit! ....................................................................................... 239

12. Politics vs Personality......................................................................... 245 Radiation.............................................................................................................................. 245 Charisma.............................................................................................................................. 254 Hus, house, ting, thing ...................................................................................................... 258

13. Deal or No Deal … probably............................................................. 263 Mr No Deal.......................................................................................................................... 263 Round trips.......................................................................................................................... 265 Trump: I have had ‘a very good call with Stefan Löfven’ ............................................ 267 Greenland ............................................................................................................................ 273 Giving language a look...................................................................................................... 276

14. The Merry-Go-Round......................................................................... 285 Taking back control............................................................................................................ 285 Influencers ........................................................................................................................... 290 Stop, I want to get off!........................................................................................................ 298 Let’s Get Brexit Done! ........................................................................................................ 308 Islanders............................................................................................................................... 314

Preface The idea for this book has grown out of an interest in politics, education and the way situations and languages meet via Swedish and international mainstream news media. It prompted a desire to learn how English expressions affect Swedish news and other texts and vice versa and what happens to English on the run as it becomes part of the production of Swedish Social Space. Is it possible to catch a glimpse of English and Swedish at work together as the news flashes past us day after day and texts meet at random? After following some of the action between 2015 and 2020, the answer is, Yes, but of course it is just a glimpse. When combined with Swedish, English plays the clown, the villain, or acts as the sweetener to package a message in Swedish. It is both elitist and elusive when it is squeezed into Swedish space in much the same way as French is nudged into English. In its quest for originality, English gets online in different guises – dressed up in French as Je suis Charlie, or glued together as metoo. It shows a liking for “F” as in FridaysForFuture and fixes the posters for organisations like Extinction Rebellion. It stands for political uproar in the UK and the US introducing new words and phrases for people in other countries to accept or try to avoid.

Past studies at The Department of Media Studies (JMK), The Department of English, The Department of Education at Stockholm University, as well as my work as a teacher within Higher Vocational Education, have influenced my writing to some extent, but this is not intended to be an academic text. The discussion around language and topics is often light-hearted but also serious since words we encounter in the media and elsewhere can influence political decisions that greatly affect society and even the direction our own lives take. Who or what produces what we all â&#x20AC;&#x153;knowâ&#x20AC;? about refugees or immigrants, about SAS, Volvo or New Karolinska Hospital etc. with the help of English? How is a space such as Brexit sustained over time through a particular discourse; a way of speaking or writing about it that becomes part of social practice? Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) is a French philosopher whose work on understanding the production of space has provided me with many hours of thought. Here, I have just borrowed and tested a few of his ideas. Lefebvre sees society itself as a mode of production and language as part of this. With some allowances made for the huge impact digitalisation of mainstream media has had which he barely encountered in his lifetime, many of his thoughts on social space and practices are relevant today.

Lefebvre treads his own pathway through the production of space in his quest for unity, to bring together the mental space of philosophers; representations of space – the knowledge, signs, and symbols we meet up-front as conceived, for example, by urban planners and experts; and representational space – the more covert side of life directly lived and experienced through work or leisure. Swedish social space as it occurs in this book refers mainly to how language is used in news media in Sweden, and how Swedish connects with English in international news media as older texts overlap with new ones. “Swedish” used here does not necessarily concern nationality. I have written with speakers of English and Swedish in mind, but also for people with an interest in learning the Swedish language, which is not so widely spoken outside of the country. Depending on levels of curiosity and which other language(s) readers may already understand, I hope it will be possible to get the gist. Dealing with the power of language in the news media on society is no easy task; my aim is to help strengthen a growing awareness. Brexit still takes up more space than it should as we move into 2020, but new terms are already waiting in the wings to suit political ends and are keen to enter production. A person with a different background from my own would no doubt follow English on the run in Swedish Social Space via other topics in the mainstream news.

I have done my very best to ensure that citations and words used are as they appeared, although news is quickly updated in digital versions and the original use of language can therefore change. Words and phrases disappear and reappear like magic. It is my responsibility if I have misquoted anyone. Readers should note that when a word(s) occurs in English within a phrase or sentence in Swedish, it now appears in italics to make reading easier. Thanks is due to all those hard-working journalists, reporters, editors, politicians and many others for â&#x20AC;&#x153;contributingâ&#x20AC;? to the array of expressions in English and Swedish that meet in mainly mainstream media over the past five years. A special thanks to those who also speak out against the use of language that harms society. Many thanks also to my husband, TorbjĂśrn Cederholm, for not protesting too much whenever I needed to discuss the never-ending stream of examples, and also for reading through the manuscript and checking as far as possible the huge number of footnotes this collection of ever-changing texts has produced.

1. Travel in Mind English tolerates most conditions and participates willingly in real life meetings, crossing semantic fields and language boundaries to suit those who use it.

In flight How does it feel to be in Sweden? The reporter thrust a microphone into the crowd of travellers arriving at the Stockholm Central station in the middle of the night. We are still in the mood for walking, replied a young man from Syria â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not meaning exactly that â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but managing to roll tragedy, hope and humour into one.

English keeps the mind busy locating fragments of language as we strive to make sense of the news in Sweden in 2015 and locate the part of the brain that can help us understand how it might feel to arrive at your final destination after crossing so many national borders on foot with a three-year old child slung over your shoulders and your sole belongings packed into a plastic bag. A catalogue of “walkin” lyrics is running amok in your head. Don’t worry, sings Ace Wilder as Swedish Mello starts up again on TV. A holiday brochure from Alpresor lying on the sofa catches your eye and offers you a Nordic Walking tour abroad –– Nordic walking is mainly on the flat, it explains, while you note the research results that show the way you walk can actually affect your mood: bouncing along the street makes you happy; slumping makes you sad. English expressions still arrive in Sweden on foot but most of us encounter the language digitally via Swedish or global media. Some words enjoy a long round of applause as they make a perfect landing, acknowledged for their humour or contribution to society; others touch down unceremoniously, unnoticed at first in everyday life, waiting for a chance to perform. Loved or loathed, English tolerates most conditions and participates willingly in real life meetings, crossing semantic fields and language boundaries to suit those who use it.

Places and spaces French philosopher, Henri Lefebvre, devoted much of his thinking around the human production of space and is critical of the structuralist views of language, which ignores the spaces people produce by living them. We do not live by words alone, he reminds us. Place is always there, the landscape doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t move, however many changes we inflict upon it, but the meaning of space has changed from the idea of an empty area to that of a fascinating space between the theoretical and the practical, the mental and the social. Moving away from products, labour, and economics that preoccupied Marx thinking, Lefebvre sees production as a broad, philosophical space, but also societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s base of which language forms a part. He sees a huge gap between linguistic mental space that includes the structural language theories of Saussure, Chomsky and others and the social space of people where language becomes part of social practice.1 Lefebvre seeks more concrete replies to questions about production. Who produces? What? How? Why and for Whom?

Henri Lefebvre, Plan of the Present Work, The Production of Space, Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, Blackwell: Ch. 1. 3-6 (1991, 2003)

Politicians often talk about us using terms like, “the real people” or “the ordinary people” which we learn through reports in various media. This is a space of representation. Lefebvre emphasises the importance of another space, representational space, the space produced by those who actually “live”, experience and perceive their own production of space directly and talk about it – their discourse – a word he seems to dislike. These spaces are all involved in Lefebvre’s thinking around production and should be understood as forming a unity in the production of social space. During his later years, Lefebvre recognised that communication technology has a profound effect on people’s lives, it is no longer just for use at work, but used at home and increasingly for leisure. Media is so much more today than reading a few news reports in Swedish. We cannot produce the kind of replies that Henri Lefebvre was seeking from the lived spaces of the 1970’s, but we can enter the knowledge “trap” and dive into “media space”. It will at least produce some concrete examples of an ever more familiar everyday practice that constantly refers representations of space to representational space through signs and images.2 A small “elite” can sidestep 2

Henri Lefebvre, From Absolute Space to Abstract Space, The Production of Space, Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, Blackwell: Chapter 4, 233 (1991, 2003) 16

ritten with speakers of Swedish and English in mind, the author catches a glimpse of English at play with Swedish in mainstream news and international media between 2015 and 2020. What do we know about Volvo, immigrants or travel? Is Brexit part of a social practice? Why is French included as well as Norwegian wolves and wood? How do British and Swedish party leaders, US presidents and climate activists perform, and why so many elephants? When English is taken hostage to help occupy Swedish space it can affect the political direction and impact everyday lives. With curiosity and the help of other language(s) readers should get the gist of English on the run in Swedish Social Space.

ISBN: 978-91-7851-176-1 www.bod.se