Henrik Rahm, Professor of Swedish Language
Henrik Rahm grew up in Linköping and completed a degree in education in Lund in the 1980s, specialising in German, Swedish and Swedish as a second language. Following his undergraduate studies, he taught courses in the programme in interpretation and translation in Savonlinna, Finland, and learned a lot about the complexity of translation.
His fascination in languages led to a doctoral thesis in Scandinavian languages at Lund University, focusing on strike coverage in the Swedish daily press from 1879 to 1995, aiming to clarify the relationship between language, journalism and society. After completing his PhD, Henrik Rahm has worked as a university teacher and researcher in Malmö, Kristianstad and Lund. Henrik Rahm started his appointment as professor of Swedish at Karlstad University on 1 July 2024.
"I have always had an interest in language in social contexts, says Henrik Rahm. The subjects I have researched cover a wide variety of areas – journalism, advertising, official documents, annual reports, to mention a few examples. As a linguist, I analyse discourses by studying language use such as choice of word, grammatical structure, text structure and text interaction in relation to communication, organisation and ideologies. I often do research in collaboration with researchers from other disciplines and sometimes also from other countries as I am passionate about internationalisation. As such, the research findings are used both in courses and research in linguistics as well as other disciplines."
Henrik Rahm is currently involved in several multidisciplinary projects – one with a focus on small modular reactors (SMR) in Sweden together with researchers from strategic communication, as well as a project on constructions of economic crimes in court proceedings together with researchers from business administration.
"In addition, a lucky coincidence is an ongoing collaboration with ties to Värmland together with researchers from three disciplines in Lund and Málaga about The Wonderful Adventures of Nils and its impact on language change, education and teaching in Sweden, Spain and Greece."
Henrik Rahm’s interest in internationalisation stems from his and his family’s love for travelling and exploring new places, cultures and cuisines. Not surprisingly, he also likes to cook, preferably on the outdoor grill, and to make use of berries and fruits from the garden. He is also a happy amateur musician and plays the mandola in the ensemble Skånska mandoliner.