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Legitima prisökningar?

Svensson, Anna LU (2026) SPVR01 20261
Master's Programme: Language and Linguistics
Swedish
Abstract
This thesis is a critical discourse analysis of how money and the economic system are linguistically constructed and maintained in Swedish news journalism. The study focuses on news articles about prices and inflation published during the first quarter of 2025. The material consists partly of articles about inflation statistics, and partly of articles about the boycott of major grocery chains that took place during the period. The aim is to examine how language use contributes to shaping and reproducing the prevailing monetary system.
The material is analyzed through two text-oriented analyses. The first is based on systemic-functional grammar and examines the texts’ transitivity and ergativity. The second draws on the Swedish Academy... (More)
This thesis is a critical discourse analysis of how money and the economic system are linguistically constructed and maintained in Swedish news journalism. The study focuses on news articles about prices and inflation published during the first quarter of 2025. The material consists partly of articles about inflation statistics, and partly of articles about the boycott of major grocery chains that took place during the period. The aim is to examine how language use contributes to shaping and reproducing the prevailing monetary system.
The material is analyzed through two text-oriented analyses. The first is based on systemic-functional grammar and examines the texts’ transitivity and ergativity. The second draws on the Swedish Academy Grammar and Hooper and Thompson’s theory of asserted propositions, and examines how propositions are presented as asserted, presupposed or actualized.
The results show that inflation and price increases are represented as independently acting phenomena, rather than as the result of human decisions or social structures. The analysis also shows how subordinate clauses can establish and reproduce economic knowledge as self-evident. In this way, the thesis demonstrates how grammatical structures can contribute to reproducing an image of the monetary system as natural, complex and difficult to influence. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Svensson, Anna LU
supervisor
organization
alternative title
En diskursanalytisk studie av transitivitet, ergativitet och fakticitet i svenska nyhetstexter om inflation
course
SPVR01 20261
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Critical Discourse Analysis, Systemic Functional Linguistics, transitivity, facticity, hegemony, legitimation, money, monetary system
language
Swedish
id
9241443
date added to LUP
2026-06-18 14:36:40
date last changed
2026-06-18 16:40:18
@misc{9241443,
  abstract     = {{This thesis is a critical discourse analysis of how money and the economic system are linguistically constructed and maintained in Swedish news journalism. The study focuses on news articles about prices and inflation published during the first quarter of 2025. The material consists partly of articles about inflation statistics, and partly of articles about the boycott of major grocery chains that took place during the period. The aim is to examine how language use contributes to shaping and reproducing the prevailing monetary system.
The material is analyzed through two text-oriented analyses. The first is based on systemic-functional grammar and examines the texts’ transitivity and ergativity. The second draws on the Swedish Academy Grammar and Hooper and Thompson’s theory of asserted propositions, and examines how propositions are presented as asserted, presupposed or actualized.
The results show that inflation and price increases are represented as independently acting phenomena, rather than as the result of human decisions or social structures. The analysis also shows how subordinate clauses can establish and reproduce economic knowledge as self-evident. In this way, the thesis demonstrates how grammatical structures can contribute to reproducing an image of the monetary system as natural, complex and difficult to influence.}},
  author       = {{Svensson, Anna}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Legitima prisökningar?}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}