Continuous skill-building

The Language Consultancy programme
For more than 20 years, an education programme in Swedish Language Consultancy has been offered by Stockholm University. The program, run by the Department of Scandinavian Languages, was set up in 1978 as a consequence of the debates on plain Swedish and democracy in the 70's. Thus, the main interest in the beginning was to reform the bureaucratic language of public authorities, and soon language consultants were on the staff of the Swedish government and engaged in plain language projects. Obviously, the programme has changed character the last few decades, due to both societal and academic factors. The so-called knowledge or information society has affected the labour market, and the so-called social turn of linguistics has produced theoretical insights in for example writing research and discourse analysis, and empirical insights in the communication of different organisations. Today, the job market for Certified Swedish Language Consultants comprises the public as well as the private sector, where the work generally focuses on providing training courses in communication and information, writing and editing texts, handling public relations etc., not least in the computer sector.

Special admission test
The programme in Swedish Language Consultancy starts every other year and it runs for five terms. A high proficiency in Swedish is required. Approximately 20 candidates, out of 300 applicants, are admitted each time, through a special admission test. The programme combines lectures, seminars, discussions, practice and independent work under tutorial guidance. It aims at providing the students with a solid knowledge of all aspects of the Swedish language. The focus is on socio-linguistics in a wide sense, including both applied and theoretical aspects, written and spoken discourse and different media, e.g. the Internet.