The Language and Culture research environment

Le mur des je t'aime. Place des Abbesses, Paris. By Britchi Mirela [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons.

The research environment Language and Culture is a meeting place for linguistic and literary research, which is unified by an interest in the interplay between language and culture in everyday, literary, medial, artistic and professional contexts. Our research deals with anything from everyday conversations and multimodal interaction to literary texts and reading cultures.

Since its inception in 2000, the research environment Language and Culture has provided a means for students to build on their bachelor and master studies in modern foreign languages, Swedish, Swedish as a second language, general linguistics and comparative literature.

The environment is an interdisciplinary forum for linguistic and literary research, its point of departure being the linguistic expression in all its varied forms: informal and professional, textual and multimodal, functional and artistic.

The forms of expression, products and processes that are studied within our environment can comprise anything from everyday talk to literary texts, from multimodal interaction to digital media, from institutional communication to archives and databases. These are related both to social, cultural, medial and material contexts as well as to their respective traditions.

Our research environment is a place where linguists and literary scholars speak to each other and work together. Yet this does not prevent research projects based on the shared frame of reference outlined above from having a clear linguistic or literary orientation.

Current

News

A men and his reflecetion near a brick wall.

Lubunca 鈥� a powerful language of hidden words

What can a hidden language tell us about freedom, identity and survival? By studying Lubunca, Burak Alp Çakar explores the emancipatory power of words and how they can empower, protect and keep communities alive.

LiU strengthens Sweden鈥檚 international standing in the humanities

The Swedish Research Council highlights Sweden鈥檚 strong international position in humanities research. A report confirms that 糖心网页版 plays an important and leading role, which makes the SoK research environment both pleased and proud.

En kvinna sitter vid ett skrivbord och l盲ser en bok.

American poets society

Literary scholar Elin Käck is probably the only person who has done her work experience programme with a poet. She enjoys spending her summers in various archives and has recently presented her research on American poets鈥� travels in Europe.

Seminar programme, Language and Culture

Language and Culture seminars

This term's program of research seminars within Language and Culture at 糖心网页版 is presented here 鈥� along with information on how to participate. Everyone interested is welcome!

The conversation and interaction seminar

The Conversation and Interaction Seminar (SIS) is a working forum for conversation researchers and concentrates its activities on data sessions and presentations of ongoing analytical work.

AI in Society Seminar

An interdisciplinary forum for discussing Humanities and Social Science perspectives on AI. We trace the historical fascination with building smart machines and discuss implications that machine learning has on everyday lives, culture and society.

Research areas and Doctoral studies

Literary Research

Literary research at Language and Culture is characterised by a diversity of perspectives and literary currents and encompasses both contemporary and older literary expressions across various languages, genres and themes.

The kind of topics and issues that interest us include the connections between literature, aesthetics, media, materiality, and history, as well as how literature constructs ideas, identities, and values that shape our relationship with the world. We also explore literary creative and writing practices and how they often build on various forms of reuse. In addition, we examine how conceptions of authorship and reader roles, as well as conceptions of literature itself, are renegotiated in relation to historical, cultural, spatial, and technological contexts.

Key theoretical influences are drawn from areas such as ecocriticism, fandom research, genre theory, gender theory, the history of ideas, cultural studies, media history, postcolonial theory, and spatial studies.

Doctoral Studies in Language and Culture

Doctoral studies in language and culture are multi- and interdisciplinary. Our doctoral students have typically studied modern foreign languages, Swedish, Swedish as a second language, general linguistics or comparative literature.

Publications by researchers that are conected to the envionment

2026

Lars Liljegren, Sally Bamber, Martin Matthews, Allan Owens, Emma Arya-Manesh (2026) Critical Learning Through Creative Research Practices, p. 97-115 (Chapter in book)

Leelo Keevallik (2026) Routledge handbook of conversation analysis, p. 48-69 (Chapter in book)

Mathias Broth, Erik Vinkhuyzen, Jakob Cromdal (2026) Symbolic interaction (Article in journal)

Barry Brown, Hannah Pelikan, Mathias Broth (2026) Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Conference paper)

Sofia Thunberg, Mafalda Gamboa, Meagan B. Loerakker, Patricia Alves-Oliveira, Hannah R. M. Pelikan (2026) Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, p. 1399-1401 (Conference paper)

Ilaria Torre, Maria Teresa Parreira, Hannah Pelikan, Erik Lagerstedt, Sarah Sch枚mbs, Katie Winkle, Sara Ljungblad (2026) Social Robotics + AI, p. 484-499 (Conference paper)

Hannah Pelikan, Karin Stendahl, Franziska Babel, Ola Johansson, Erik Frisk (2026) Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, p. 31-35 (Conference paper)

Marco C. Rozendaal, Anastasia Kouvaras Ostrowski, Mafalda Gamboa, Samantha Reig, Patricia Alves-Oliveira, Maaike Bleeker, Maria Luce Lupetti, John Vines, Nazli Cila, Hannah Pelikan, Nikolas Martelaro, Selma 艩abanovi膰, David Sirkin, Cristina Zaga (2026) Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, p. 1402-1404 (Conference paper)

Jakob Cromdal, Mathias Broth, Annerose Willemsen (2026) Linguistics and 糖心网页版, Vol. 93, Article 101509 (Article in journal)

Annika Norlund Shaswar, Elisabeth Zetterholm (2026) Symposievolym: Spr氓k och kommunikation i en digitaliserad v盲rld, p. 132-152 (Conference paper)

Silvia Kunitz, Olcay Sert (2026) The Routledge handbook of conversation analysis, p. 296-313 (Chapter in book)

Elisabeth Zetterholm, Sari Vuorenp盲盲, Ewa Jacquet, Katarina Rejman (2026) Framtidens svensk盲mne. Tradition och f枚rnyelse: Sextonde konferensen i svenska med didaktisk inriktning, p. 37-52 (Conference paper)

Olcay Sert, Silvia Kunitz (2026) Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, Vol. 5, Article 100316 (Article, review/survey)

Elin K盲ck (2026) Tidskrift f枚r litteraturvetenskap, Vol. 55, p. 180-185 (Article, book review)

Elin K盲ck (2026) Svenska Dagbladet, p. -40 (Article in journal)

Carl-Wilhelm Siwers (2026) Tillsammans var vi en m盲nniska: En antologi om P.O. Enquist, p. 47-55 (Chapter in book)

Elin K盲ck (2026) Contemporary literature, Vol. 66, p. 338-363 (Article in journal)

Simon Ekman, Joachim 脰rtegren, Kacper Mateusz Sieklucki, Raymond Tchou, Ludwig Halvorsen, Hannah Pelikan (2026) Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI Companion 鈥�26), p. 5 pages- (Conference paper)

Hannah Pelikan, Daniel Rudmark, Cilli Sobiech, Niklas Arvidsson, Stuart Reeves, Bern Grush (2026) (Conference paper)

Mathias Broth, Annerose Willemsen, Jakob Cromdal (2026) Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 251, p. 65-82 (Article in journal)

Research Projects

A selection of our research

Contacts

Director

Director of Doctoral Studies

Administrator

Visiting address

The Key Building
Valla Campus
尝颈苍办枚辫颈苍驳
Sweden

Postal address

尝颈苍办枚辫颈苍驳 University
Department of Culture and Communication
SE-581 83 LINK脰PING

Doctoral candidates

Burak Alp Çakar

PhD student

Sumudu Bandara

PhD student

Emile Bellewes

Lecturer

Amanda Hoskins

PhD student

Ingrid Johansson

PhD student

Louise Mullavey

PhD student

Sergio Passero

PhD student

Carl-Wilhelm Siwers

PhD student

Researchers

Mathias Broth

Professor

Emma Eldelin

Senior Associate Professor

Athena Farrokhzad

Professor

Cathryn Halverson

Associate Professor, Docent

Emily Hofstetter

Associate Professor, Docent

Lars Jämterud

Head of Department, Lecturer

Leelo Keevallik

Deputy Head of Department, Professor

Silvia Kunitz

Associate Professor

Elin Käck

Senior Associate Professor

Senior Associate Professor

Andreas Nyblom

Associate Professor, Docent

Hannah Pelikan

Assistant Professor

Ann-Sofie Persson

Associate Professor, Docent

Associate Professor, Docent

Elisabeth Zetterholm

Senior Associate Professor

Therese Örnberg Berglund

Associate Professor, Head of Division

Emeriti

Placeholder for missing image of Lars-H氓kan Svensson

Lars-Håkan Svensson

Professor Emeritus

Former collaborators and Guest researchers

Collaborators

Jan Anward, former professor emeritus in language and culture. Director of the graduate school in Language and Culture in Europe 2000-2012.

Alia Amir

Nazli Avdan

Frank Baasner, former guest professor in language and culture.

Eva Carlestål

Per Linell, former professor emeritus in language and culture.

Jan Paul Strid, former professor emeritus in language and culture.

Ellen Söderblom Saarela

Mechtild Tronnier

Pamela Vang

Cecilia Wadensjö

Jenny Öqvist

Guest researchers

Anna Carlstedt, Gästforskare

Unn Falkeid, Guest researcher

Lorenza Mondada, Guest professor

Antonia Steger, Guest doctoral student

Ioana Maria Stoenica, Guest doctoral student

Anna Vatanen, Guest doctoral student

Ann Weatherall, Guest professor

Organisation

Department of Culture and Society (IKOS)

At the Department of Culture and Society (IKOS), social sciences and the humanities gather in environments where research and education work together.

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