Linnéa Gunnarsdotter Koré

About Linnéa Gunnarsdotter Koré

Research

I am a sociolinguist specialising in the use of the French language. I completed my PhD in 2025 with a dissertation on politeness in commercial settings in Abidjan. I have several research interests, the most current of which are:

• Universal theories of politeness. Can we find a theoretical model that accounts for our linguistic behaviour in a bakery in Lyon, in a museum in Damascus, as well as in a family’s living room in Västerås?
  
  

• Édith Piaf’s chansons in Swedish translation. The number of Swedish translations of this literature has varied over the decades since 1948. What can this tell us about the Swedish cultural landscape? Piaf’s chansons also seem to occupy an interesting intermediate position in terms of prestige, circulating back and forth between high culture and popular culture over time.

• The French modal verb "falloir". In Abidjan, the fixed expression "faut", derived from this verb, seems to provide a quick and efficient way of signalling that the speaker is performing a directive speech act. How widespread is this sociolinguistic phenomenon?
  
  
  
  

Background

I started my post-secondary studies by taking courses in French and French cultural studies for two semesters at the University of Perpignan. In a next step, I obtained two Master’s degrees – one in translation studies and one in French – from the University of Gothenburg. Over the years, I have also worked in several different non-academic fields in Sweden, France, the UK and the Ivory Coast.

Teaching

I teach a relatively broad range of courses, although my teaching is almost always within the field of French. At the core of my teaching are French grammar and written language proficiency. My second main teaching interest is French-language literature, and you may also occasionally find me teaching subjects such as French phonetics or French culture and society.