Norway: Proposing measures to ensure Bergen University's language policy

[Harold F. Schiffman]

23.2.2007

Proposing measures to ensure UiBs language policy

Rector Sigmund Grnmo thanked professor Helge Sandy for good cooperation.
The academic environments must discuss and agree on a policy for the
choice of language in research and communication which takes both academic
developments and social responsibility into account. At the same time, we
have many proposals for how we can ensure parallel language use, says
Professor Helge Sandy, head of the group that has drawn up a proposal for
a language policy at UiB.

By Silje Gripsrud and Jon Holgersen


The main language at the University of Bergen should be Norwegian, but the
goal is to develop a practice that is based as far as possible on parallel
language use. Rector Sigmund Grnmo has received the report from a working
group at UiB that has examined how goals in the university's core areas
can be followed up. This is very important work that will help increase
awareness at all levels. The most important thing now is that the
individual environments, including every single one of us, give some
thought to how we use language in research, tuition and communication,
says Mr Grnmo.

Wish to establish a competence centre

The working group believes that there is great interest in language policy
issues in the organisation. By emphasising that staff and students must
improve in their use of both their native language and foreign languages,
the university can strengthen its research and learning potential, and be
in a better position to exploit opportunities at a time when external
contact is more important than it used to be. I therefore believe we
should invest more in language assistance and language courses, says
Professor Sandy. One of the measures they have proposed is to establish a
separate competence centre for language services, which would offer text
revision in both English and Norwegian, and would be able to produce and
inform users about language resources on the internet.

Another proposal is that PhD theses and Masters dissertations written in a
foreign language should have a summary in Norwegian and, correspondingly,
that theses and dissertations in Norwegian should have a summary in
English, or in another foreign language that is relevant to the discipline
in question.

Separate Norwegian courses for foreign staff

The working group has also looked into what is on offer at UiB for the
university's many foreign employees. It believes that since there are a
relatively high number of participants in the Norwegian language courses
offered by the Section for Norwegian as a Second Language, it would be
possible to try out an alternative system, e.g. intensive Norwegian
courses for foreign staff.

http://nyheter.uib.no/lib/utskrift.php?meldingstype=engelsk&id=35539&medium=nettavis

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