Centre for Norwegian Professional Language

Participation in education, working life, and a democratic public debate, requires a well-functioning Norwegian professional language. The Centre for Norwegian Professional Language aims to develop new, empirical knowledge about how professional language functions and the role it plays in society. The goal is to strengthen Norwegian as a societal language when facing digitalisation, globalisation, and the increasing use of English.

The centre brings together researchers from across the country and a range of disciplines – from lexicography and terminology, Norwegian as a second language and multilingualism, and onomastics, to healthcare sciences, sustainability, meteorology, and societal resilience and emergency preparedness. The focus is on developing theory, methods, and practices that enhance Norwegian language research and support flexible and sustainable education.

Through interdisciplinary collaboration, we will study professional language use in education, research, and working life and what happens when Norwegian language competence is insufficient. We will examine how English influences Norwegian professional language and develop strategies for parallel language use adapted to a multilingual Norwegian society. 

Language technology is an integral part of the work, and we will develop language data for Norwegian language model training.

The centre is led by the University of Bergen, in collaboration with Østfold University College, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Volda University College, NTNU, and the University of Agder. Researchers from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Helse Vest, Helse Vest IKT, the University of Oslo, the Institute for Language and Folklore (Sweden), and the Center for Internationalization and Parallel Language Use (Denmark) also participate. Collaboration with leading European researchers ensures high quality and knowledge exchange.