Abstract    The purpose of my essay is to understand how language and identity interact in individuals with an immigrant backgrounds? My main focus is rooted in the individual`s identity and my questions are:-        How is the informants talkning about the importance of being able to make themselves understood with the language?-        How do they talk about the creation of identity?-        How does language and identity be linked in their discourse about language and identity?   To accomplish this and to answer my questions I have chosen to use a qualitative method based of interviews. I believe that this method is the most appropriate in order to provide answers to my questions. I interviewed four people who have lived in Sweden between 3-6 years. Two of  the  informants are from Latvia and speak fluent swedish, the two other informants come from Chile and are currently learning swedish.

Edward Said's book Orientalism (1978) is the most important reference point in the post-colonial theory and describes how the West is dominant over the Orient. There is a clear distinction between "us" and "the other" and the purpose of this study is that, from a postcolonial perspective, focusing on Said's theoretical concepts "the other" and "discourse", examining how two foreign-born people with ethnic backgrounds living in the same place, are looking at themselves, at other foreign-born and native Swedes. My questions to answer this are; ?what are the concepts of "the other" and "discourse" and is it possible to use these concepts to examine how foreign-born people are looking at themselves, at other foreign-born and native Swedes in a specific location??, ?who is "the other" in a place where there are almost as many native Swedes as foreign-born??, and ?how do these two foreign-born people with ethnic backgrounds perceive Norrliden as a place and what effect has that place had on their identity?? I have used a post-colonial philosophical ground and a qualitative approach, focusing on two different interviews with two men, living in Norrliden. In Norrliden almost 50% of the inhabitants are foreign-born were both of the interview-persons are feeling safe and secure.

This thesis is intended to respond to the extent to which South African textbooks on the subject of history is linked to the governmental policy documents and whether they are producing and reproducing national identity. The two textbooks are aimed at students in grade 10. Both books were produced in 2008 but published by different publishers.The essay is based on Norman Faircloughs critical discourse theory which has been supplemented by Michael Billings theory Banal Nationalism, which assumes that it is the national words that remind us daily of our homeland that is producing and reproducing national identity.  The survey shows that both textbooks are closely tied to the government policy document for the teaching of history. The textbooks refer to the policy, both explicitly and implicitly. The two textbooks reproduce a common national identity in South Africa based on the discussions taking place in society.

In this thesis the construction of identity within the EU is discussed. A thesis problem in three dimensions is used to explain the purpose of the construction, its realization and the consequences of such identity. These aspects show the complexity of the problems related to identity construction on a structural level.By using a post-modern and a social constructivist theoretical approach identity is presented as socially constructed by discourse. The theory of discourse makes it possible to analyze the development of an identity forming discourse within the EU and its status today.With an approach inspired by critical theory, we use discourse analysis as a methodological tool to illustrate the ideas that govern discourse, and in what way it is related to the social reality.The analysis states that the purpose of identity constructing is the striving for legitimacy. Without identification, the legitimacy is threatened.

This thesis aims to analyze the similarities and differences in how identity is constructed by the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament regarding the Polish membership and the potential Turkish membership of the European Union. The construction of identity is analyzed through a social constructivist perspective where identity is constructed by distinguishing ?us? from ?them?. The research metod used is a qualitative text analysis. The arguments of identity are taken from the Commission?s and the Council?s documents, as well as from the debates of the European Parliament.

The overall aim of this study is to gain an understanding of how student?sexperiences influence their perceptions about the use of alcohol during the study years. We focused on various factors that might have an impact on the individual?sperception and alcohol intake. These are: environmental influences such as family, school and friends and their dominant norms, context such as place and time in life and how individual and social identity affects student?sperceptions.

Based on the on the assumption that the two recent Swedish poetry collections mil by Anna Hallberg and mallamerik, mallamer, malameri, mallame, amerik, mallameka, merikka, by Lars Mikael Raattamaa, are constructed with theoretical questions about identity, national identity, language hierarchy and power in mind, this study aims to investigate the ways in which these issues come to expression. Simplified, the term language-poetry, or språkmaterialism, can be used to describe a language-philosophical poetry that aims to eliminate the hierarcic structures between writer and reader in a text and invite the reader to become the co-worker of it. The study shows that by different ways of eliminating the centre of the text, the text is made democratical. But one question that this study asks is how can a nation's conventional and standardised written  language ? the language of the centre ? be used to write itself out of this centre into the margin? Stepping from a theoretical background of postcolonial theories on identity and national identity, including reflections as those given by Benedict Anderson, Madan Sarup, Timothy Brennan, Stefan Helgesson and Mia Cuoto, the analysis points out how this poetry laborates with the terms bugging, repetition, national language identity, and space as poetic material, in order to work in line with ? and contrary to - conceptions of a unified and shared language.

The purpose of this study was to try to develop a better understanding of the process that being a member in a new religious movement might imply, and to find out how the identity of a defector changes from the time upon entering the movement, while they are within the movement and after leaving the movement. We also wanted to examine what kind of help and support would be needed around a defection. The study focuses on identity and our questions were: How does the defector describe him/herself and his/her identity before joining the new religious movement until the period after defecting? What demand for support and help may there be when defecting from new religious movement? The theoretical starting point was The Identity Theory, Structural Role Theory and KASAM. A qualitative method was used and four defectors from new religious movements were interviewed.

This essay in how to create a brand identity is a result of a case study of the Spanish mobilephone company Xfera and their new brand ?Yoigo?. Our object was to identify the critical variables in the process of building a brand identity. To achieve this we collected data about the company through several interviews with respondents with good insight in the company. The critical variables that we obtained by analyzing the interviews are presented in an empirical driven model.

AbstractTitle: Who are you? Who am I? ? Charades in the mediated world of today. A study of the construction of identity at Facebook.(Vem är du? Vem är jag? ? Charader i dagens medierade värld. En studie av identitetskonstruktionen på Facebook.)Number of pages: 58 (66 including enclosures.)Author: Mathilda WahlundTutor: Ylva EkströmCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Fall 2007University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University.Purpose/Aim: The aim is to study how people construct their own identities today.

The aim of this study is to look at the identity of the public library, and to examine one way to make the identity of a specific library strong. PUNKTmedis is a newly opened library in Stockholm, aimed solely at people between 13-19. The question to be answered was: How can it affect the image of the public librarys identity when you aim the activity towards a specific user group? To answer this question, the qualitative method of case-study was used. Five interviews were carried out, with representatives from three different groups: users, politicians and librarians.

The theory chapter is based on a model about brand identity, ?Brand Identity Prism? (Kapferer, 2008, s.183). This model contains six elements which we have supplemented with theories about personal branding. This because the focus and theory on a person's brand identity is almost non-existent. The purpose of the study is therefore to examine how editors at fashion magazines are working with their brand identity in the personal brand and thereby create an understanding of the identity function.

Title: Music and adult identity: A study of how students at Malmö Academy of Music look upon their identity from a musical point of view. This study is about adults and how they look upon their identity from a music perspective. I have interviewed four students between 26 to 29 years old at the Malmö Academy of Music. The purpose with my study is to examine how music has affected the identity of the students as adults and to see if their identity still is affected by music. The interviews have then been analyzed and compared with existing research in this matter.

The aim of this master's thesis is to study how the design of the music library space affects how it is used and its role as an arena for culture. This is done in form of a case study of Library 10 in Helsinki, a public library branch that specializes in music and information technology. The backdrop to the study is the changing context for cultural activity in the information society and the role of public libraries as public space and meeting place. By analyzing the distribution of space in the library, the distribution of functions and artefacts and the spatial use of the room, I interpret the ways in which this distributional logic produces a unique place for music and culture. I discuss the music library design in a space and place perspective, utilizing theoretical tools from cultural geography and the space theories of Henri Lefebvre.

Introduction: How to implement and integrate cultural aspects in strategy making and planning in order for cities and regions to reap both social and economic benefits has been widely discussed in recent years. This method of working with culture, both as an economic, as well as an identity strengthening tool has come to be labeled as cultural planning. But in order for these ideas about cultural projects and institutions to become a reality, something has to be done. This is where the entrepreneur enters.The Glass Factory, a newly opened cultural establishment in the heart of the Glass Kingdom in Småland, Sweden, became the subject of empirical investigation for this paper. As this originally was an initiative from Emmaboda municipality the planning and start-up procedure could be viewed as a cultural planning process.