Swedish America in the Rocky Mountain West, 1880-1917: Folkloric Perspectives on the Immigrant Letter

Attebery examines letters as vernacular texts and uses ideas from folklore studies to analyze the letters' conventions and repetitions as keys to meaning. He stresses that if one sees repetitiousness and conventionality as instructive rather than annoying, one can read the letters ethnographica...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScandinavian studies Vol. 77; no. 1; pp. 53 - 84
Main Author Attebery, Jennifer Eastman
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Champaign Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study 22.03.2005
University of Illinois Press
Subjects
Celebrations
Colloquial language
Emigration
Ethnic identity
Ethnicity
Folk culture
Folklore
Immigrants
Letters
Narratives
Native Americans
Noncitizens
Reference letters
Swedish language
United States Senate
Writers
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Summary:Attebery examines letters as vernacular texts and uses ideas from folklore studies to analyze the letters' conventions and repetitions as keys to meaning. He stresses that if one sees repetitiousness and conventionality as instructive rather than annoying, one can read the letters ethnographically by allowing the categories of the letter-writers themselves to guide one's analysis.
ISSN:0036-5637
2163-8195