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One thing struck me while watching this, but I have been out of daily exposure to the Swedish language for a while now, so I don't know if it is in fact strange...

In Swedish one can quite easily do away with most pronouns in a sentence, replacing the subject with the impersonal pronoun 'one', which is quite commonly in use. The object can often just be dropped or replaced in one way or another, so we end up with something where the 'I' is quite simply gone and displaced to people in general, and the object is just assumed. This can be done, it is done, but one does have other options, it is not the only way to speak. It seems to me that Persson does this a lot. More than 'normal'. I was trying to render it in English with somewhat idiosyncratic translations. Like this one, where we start with 'he' and 'I', and then quickly proceeds to depersonalised statements:

Göran Person: I noticed that he was uncertain, going up to the podium. And this is not unimportant as a signal, to me. That one notices quickly when one has socialised. It becomes a bit loose, and a bit unnecessarily stressed voice, and things like that.

Is this in any way strange, or is this actually how people speak? Is this how politicians speak? Is this an intentional effect to make us feel more like Persson is allowing us in on some dirty secrets? Does he end up doing this because he is gossiping about his colleagues and would like to distance himself (and them!) a bit from it?

by someone (s0me1smail(a)gmail(d)com) on Wed Mar 21st, 2007 at 03:15:39 AM EST
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