Caroline Liberg receives Swedish Academy prize for language research
Caroline Liberg, Professor Emerita at the Department of Education at Uppsala University, has been awarded the Swedish Academy’s prize for outstanding services to Swedish language research and language planning in memory of Carl Gabriel and Karin Forsberg. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt.
Hello Caroline Liberg, Professor Emerita at the Department of Education at Uppsala University. You have been awarded the Swedish Academy’s prize for outstanding services to Swedish language research and language planning in memory of Carl Gabriel and Karin Forsberg for 2024.
How does it feel to receive this prize?
“I feel very honoured, happy and exhilarated. I particularly appreciate the fact that the Swedish Academy is recognising research on young children’s use of language in speech and writing and how this develops.”
Which of your contributions to language research and language planning are you most proud of?
“That I have drawn attention to language skills in both preschool children and schoolchildren that were not previously addressed in governance documents or educational practice. Also, that I have created numerous concepts that help teachers and others talk about these kinds of skills with both colleagues and children and pupils.
“In my doctoral thesis ‘Learning to read and write’ I demonstrated the highly detailed skills that preschool children exhibit when cracking the code of written language and beginning to read and write. To give some other examples, in later projects together with colleagues, I have demonstrated the linguistic skills – often very extensive skills – that children use in their writing even in their early years in school, as well as what is involved in reading and writing in different subjects.
“The knowledge we have contributed in these ways can be helpful in providing children and young people with more targeted support in developing and cultivating their use of language in speech and writing, even from an early age. In other words, this means they can receive support in their linguistic development over a longer stretch of time.”
Even though you are emerita, I assume you have new research on the go. Is there anything you can tell us about?
“I have a few ideas and thoughts about further research buzzing around in my head. But first I’m going to take care of some ideas that I’ve already thought through but not yet found time to write up in article form and publish. The topics include what pupils in early school years write about in different subjects and which features of language they use when doing so to express what they know about these subjects.”
Anders Berndt
Facts
The Swedish Academy’s prize for outstanding services to Swedish language research and language planning in memory of Carl Gabriel and Karin Forsberg was established in 2024.
Caroline Liberg shares the prize for 2024 with Per Holmberg, Professor at the Department of Swedish, Multilingualism and Language Technology at the University of Gothenburg.