Förekommer uttryck för ålderism i definitioner och språkexempel? Bilder av äldre människor i Svensk ordbok utgiven av Svenska Akademien (2021)

Authors

• Hans Landqvist Göteborgs universitet

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70484/vakki.161610

Keywords:

definitioner, kritisk lexikografi, Svensk ordbok utgiven av Svenska Akademien, syntaktiska språkexempel, ålderism

Abstract

This paper reports a case study of dictionary entries, describing elderly persons, in the second edition of The Contemporary Dictionary of the Swedish Academy (Sw. Svensk ordbok utgiven av Svenska Akademien – SO, 2021). Three research questions are addressed in the paper: (RQ1) How are definitions of headwords that describe elderly persons formulated? (RQ2) What images of the elderly appear in syntactic examples? (RQ3) Can ageism be said to occur in the current SO entries? The first category of SO entries studied are designations of individuals who are certainly or probably 60+. Definitions of the headwords, sub-material (A), and syntactic examples, sub-material (B), are analyzed. The second category of entries consists of SO entries where designations in (A) are used in syntactic examples, i.e. sub-material (C). The most occurrences of semantic components are found in sub-material (A), followed by (C) and (B). The occurrence of different semantic components in (A)–(C) is clarified. Some definitions in (A), some examples in (B), and rather many examples in (C) express stereotypical ideas about the elderly, i.e. ageism. Therefore, the ongoing work preparing a new edition of the SO requires vigilance in the description of headwords and syntactic examples that apply to the elderly.