?Man behöver språket för att visa sig som människa? ? Språkcaféer ? en väg till empowerment
The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether publiclibraries language cafés can support or enable the empowerment of the participants. Empowerment means that the individuals ability to take control of their own lives is strengthened and that the individual becomes more independent. Empowerment also means that the individual takes part in a community. An important part of this is the language. I have developed two research questions: What forms of empowerment can be seen in the respondents' statements? What role do language cafés play for people from other countries, in terms of empowerment? The thesis empirical material consists of interviews whit five people involved in different languages cafes in public libraries in the city of Malmö. The theory used to analyze the material is the concept of empowerment. Based on this concept, I have selected a few keywords to structure the empirical material, identity and self-confidence, social context and vertical and horizontal empowerment. It was found that language cafés fill an important function for the participants' empowerment regarding language, social context, self-confidence and the opportunity to be part of a community.