Welcome to the Department of Scandinavian Languages at Turku University!
Exchange students are welcome to study at our department, provided their skills at Swedish are sufficient to follow the lectures and pass the exams.
Our department provides mainly studies in Swedish, and also in Norwegian and Danish, for Finnish speaking students. Swedish is an official language in Finland and compulsory in the school curriculum. Thus, having studied Swedish for a minimum of six years in school, and having passed our entrance test, our students have a fairly good knowledge of the language when they embark on their university level studies. This allows for all lectures to be given in Swedish (or other Scandinavian languages). Students are also expected to write all of their exams and other assignments in Swedish.
No primary courses in Nordic languages are given at our department. Students looking for primary courses in Swedish as a foreign language are referred to the Language Centre (Kielikeskus).
The main core of the curriculum is contrastive Finnish–Swedish aspects concerning phonetics, morphology and syntax. Guest students wanting to follow these courses must have a basic knowledge of Finnish. Courses in literature, language history, sociolinguistics, dialects etc. do not require any knowledge of Finnish.
For further information about our curriculum, see the study guide for Basic and Intermediate Studies or Advanced Studies (if you open a page in Finnish, click on "In English" in the right hand corner of the page).
The courses that are available to foreign guest students in the academic year 2011-2012 are:
Basic Studies:
POHF0713 Text production, 4 ECTS (small group, requires registration)
POHF0714 Normative Grammar, 6 ECTS (small group, requires registration)
POHF0715 Modern Swedish Literature, 5 ECTS (small group, requires registration)
Intermediate Studies:
POHF0723 Social variation of Swedish, 2 ECTS (small group, requires registration)
POHF0724 Historical and Regional Variation in Swedish, 3 ECTS (lecture)
POHF0725 Swedish literature classics, 4 ECTS (lecture/book exam)
POHF0634 Swedish as a Second Language, 4 ECTS (lecture/book exam)
POHF0727 Literaty Analysis and Stylistics, 4 ECTS (book exam)
Advanced Studies:
POHF0743 Language Norms and Language Planning, 5 ECTS (book exam)
POHF0742 Swedish in Speech and Conversation, 5 ECTS (book exam)
POHF0574 Finland-Swedish, 5 ECTS (lecture/book exam)
POHF0900 Sociolinguistics, 5 ECTS (lecture, the course is given in Norwegian)
POHF0673 Second Language Acquisition and Learner Swedish, 5 ECTS (book exam)
POHF0656 Bilingualism, 5 ECTS (book exam)
POHF0735 Swedish Syntax, 5 ECTS (book exam)
POHF0736 Swedish Lexicology and Phraseology, 5 ECTS (book exam)
POHF0901 Text Research, 5 ECTS (book exam)
POHF0746 Onomastics, 5 ECTS (book exam)
These courses do not require any knowledge of Finnish. If you are interested in studying at our department contant the staff (see Personnel) in advance. This information about next year's courses is preliminary and subject to change.
The registration period for courses in the autumn semester is in late August/early September and for courses in the spring semester in mid-December/early January. For further information contact the staff.
Please contact the members of staff in Swedish so we can make sure that your knowledge of Swedish is sufficient to study at our department.