About us

The Department of Linguistics offers courses and programmes in two main areas: linguistics and sign language. Our researchers are active in areas such as child language development, computational linguistics, general linguistics, the multilingualism of the deaf and hard of hearing, phonetics and sign language linguistics.

The Department of Linguistics has approximately 70 employees and is one of the largest language departments at Stockholm University. Approximately 30 per cent of the department’s operations focus on teaching, with the remaining 70 per cent being research, most of which is externally funded.

Our department also includes the Phonetics Laboratory, Språkstudion and Stockholm University Brain Imaging Centre (SUBIC), which function as stand-alone units. 

 

Our history

The Department of Linguistics was founded in 1965, following the merger of the Department of General Linguistics and the Department of Phonetics. In the 1970s, the Section for Sign Language was added, and Stockholm University became the first university in the world to establish a professorship in sign language research.

We moved into our current premises in the C buliding of Södra huset at Frescati campus in 1977. In the same year we opened the new Phonetics Laboratory, specially built for our activities and operations. 

2018 saw the opening of the SUBIC lab, which offers modern brain-imaging technology for experimental non-clinical research on brain function and structure.

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