Måttliga korvar är bäst
Folkliga uttryck i Astrid Lindgrens böcker
The purpose of this project is to survey the presence of folk expressions, i.e. proverbs, proverbial expressions, wellerisms and familiar expressions, in some of the realistic children?s books by Astrid Lindgren. The purpose also includes the study of the contextual and pragmatic functions of the expressions as well as how the expressions are integrated into the text by the change of the formulaic standard structure. The contextual and pragmatic function concern when, how and why the expressions are used and who the users of the expressions are. The questions at issue are:What kind of folk expressions occur in the children?s books by Astrid Lindgren?What contextual and pragmatic functions do the expressions have?How are the expressions integrated into the text?To be able to answer the questions, folk expressions were excerpted from the books with the help of close reading. The contextual and pragmatic functions of the expressions were determined by analysing the communicative context, the senders and the receivers of the expressions, the senders? purpose in using the expressions. Furthermore, the changes in the structure of the expressions were analysed in order to determine how the expressions were integrated into the text. The result shows that the 52 folk expressions found in general are used in dialogues between adults as senders and children as receivers. The senders use the expressions mainly to comment on anything or anyone with the purpose to explain, i.e. a didactic purpose. The majority of the expressions have not changed their formulaic standard structure, and the expressions that have changed are used as allusions, paraphrases or ellipses of folk expressions.