"En mörk dag i svensk historia" : En kritisk diskursanalys av Ulf Kristerssons tal till nationen

Sammanfattning

This bachelor’s thesis aims to investigate two speeches to the nation held by the Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson. The first one was held in 2023, due to the gang related wave of violence that shook the country. Around 20 people were killed and around 30 injured in shootings and explosions. The next speech took place two years later, after the worst shooting in modern Swedish history. The shooting occurred at an adult education center in Örebro, where eleven people were killed – including the shooter, who shot himself. Through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) with a focus on rhetorical strategies, this study examines how Ulf Kristersson addresses his citizens during a national crisis, differences and patterns in the speeches, and what these might mean. The purpose is to compare how the prime minister portrays and describes Sweden in his speeches to the nation in 2023 and 2025, and to what extent party political positions appear in these speeches. The method as well as the theoretical framework is based on CDA and Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, which helps us shed light on how Ulf Kristersson's speech to the nation reproduces or changes various interests and agendas in society. The thesis explores how political ideology is expressed or downplayed in times of crisis, revealing how party political positions are either emphasized or silenced. The analysis shows that Kristerssons portrayal of Sweden shifts between a nation under threat and a nation in mourning, and that this framing plays a key role in legitimizing both political direction and national identity.