Danish as a second language
CIP research into teaching Danish as a second language examines how staff and students at UCPH who do not have Danish as their native language use and learn Danish. The need to enhance our knowledge about Danish as a second language has grown in line with the increased internationalisation of the university and the desire to retain researchers and students in Denmark.
Research areas
At CIP, we are interested in shedding light on the kind of Danish that different employees and students use and learn, why they do this and how this is done. We are also interested in being able to assess the effects of the Danish teaching they receive, and to find out whether organising the teaching in particular ways, for example, planning it around a working day or study programme, can promote language acquisition.
Studies of staff’s Danish typically focus on their performance of specific work functions such as teaching, administration and personnel management, but may also relate to their career and increasing opportunities to participate in their workplace's internal communication and meetings. Studies of students’ Danish are focused on how language skills affect academic learning and social contact, including participation in classroom teaching, study groups, etc. and in internships and professionally oriented courses.
In a series of interviews and surveys, we at CIP have studied how international researchers and lecturers at UCPH learn Danish and what attitudes they have towards the university's language policy. For example, Martha Kirilova and Merike Jürna have done research into the complex relationship between language choices, personal and professional identity and the performance of academic work, while Charlotte Øhrstrøm's PhD project looked specifically at the need to understand spoken Danish in a workplace that is dominated by English.
Other studies focus on the importance of Danish as a second language for students and of Danish as an academic language. The results from a number of surveys which we sent out as part of the language-strategy initiative in 2013-18 across UCPH revealed a need among international students for Danish language skills training for study and internship purposes, and this topic has also been the subject of a number of more specific projects.
Anne Holmen has demonstrated that there is a great deal of variation in students' experiences with learning and using Danish, including identifying an overlooked need for learning Danish among Nordic students.
Katja Å. Laursen has investigated the language used in formulating and describing the academic requirements for a health study programme and how such formulations are perceived by students with different ethnic backgrounds than Danish. Anne Sofie Jakobsen's PhD project focuses on Danish as an academic language and, through building and analysing a corpus, identifies both domain-specific language and common academic vocabulary.
Our studies into Danish as a second language aim to answer questions posed by the wider university environment regarding the importance of Danish for UCPH as a workplace and as a learning environment.
Methodologically, we use language use analyses for both spoken and written language, qualitative interviews and surveys, often comparing results with linguistic policy documents and other institutional descriptions.
CIP employees have participated in a number of Nordic and Erasmus+ projects designed to establish a common knowledge base documenting the development of language training and language use at universities in the non-Anglophone part of Europe, including providing training in local languages in the light of an increased focus on multilingualism.
Several of these collaboration projects have resulted in publications, including reports prepared under the auspices of the Nordic Council of Ministers and the LERU Alliance. As far as research into Danish as a second language is concerned, we have also been involved in joint projects with the Ministry and with researchers at the university’s Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics.
- The Nordic Council of Ministers, first report from the Nordic Parallel Language Group (2014)
- The Nordic Council of Ministers, second report from the Nordic Parallel Language Group (2018)
- Report on language policy at universities in the LERU Alliance (2019)
- Initiative under the European University Alliance, 4EU+
You can read about other network projects on the webpage “Network activities”.
CIP welcomes collaboration projects with all units from the University of Copenhagen – from faculties to individual research groups – on all issues related to Danish as a second language.
In addition to investigating Danish as a second language at UCPH, CIP has carried out studies into what happens when Danish is used on Greenlandic study programmes or as a second language for pupils in youth education programmes in Denmark. On the basis of these studies, we have also participated in projects on early language starts in primary and lower secondary schools and on Danish as a second language in degree programme classes.
Similar consultancy projects have included:
- Expert group on language in Greenlandic elementary schools (2018). You can read the report produced for the Greenland government, Naalakkersuisut (Danish/Greenlandic)
- Danish as a second language in the A.P. Møller funded project "Early language start" (Danish only).
- An evaluation of a new pilot scheme offering Danish as a second language on HF (higher preparatory exam) single-subject courses carried out by the Danish Agency for Education and Quality, under the Ministry of Education.
Holmen, A. (2016). Dansk som akademisk sprog for nordiske studerende. Sprog i Norden, 37-48
Holmen, A. (2020). Dansk som andetsprog. I Dansk Sproghistorie (Bind 4, s. 365-377). Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab.
Jakobsen, A. S. (2018). Danish Academic Vocabulary: Four studies on the words of academic written Danish. Ph.d.-afhandling. Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet.
Kirilova. M. & Lønsmann, D. (2020). Dansk – nøglen til arbejde? Ideologier om sprogbrug og sproglæring i to arbejdskontekster i Danmark. Nordand. 1, 37-57.
Laursen, K. Å., & Frederiksen, K-M. (2015). Developing and evaluating a multimodal course format: Danish for knowledge workers – labour market-related Danish. Critical CALL, 186-191.
Laursen, K. Å. (2013). "Det er sprogligt - selv hvor du ikke lægger mærke til det": En empirisk undersøgelse af sproglige og faglige vanskeligheder hos farmaceutstuderende med dansk som andetsprog på Københavns Universitet. Københavns Universitets Humanistiske Fakultet. Københavnerstudier i tosprogethed, Studier i Parallelsproglighed, Bind. C4
Øhrstrøm, C. (2016). L2 Listening at work. - A qualitative study of international employees’ experiences with understanding Danish as a second language. Ph.d.-afhandling, Københavns Universitet
