About
Mats Thelander is a Professor of Modern Swedish (specifically contemporary Swedish, "nusvenska") at Uppsala University's Department of Scandinavian Languages. With a career spanning since 1987, he has established himself as a leading scholar in Scandinavian linguistics. His institutional affiliations include significant roles such as former head of the Department of Scandinavian Languages (1990-95) and former president/dean of the Board of Teacher Education and Teacher Education Research at Uppsala University (1998-2005).
Thelander earned his BA in 1970 from Uppsala University with studies in English, Scandinavian languages, Phonetics, and Statistics. He completed his PhD in Scandinavian languages at Uppsala University in 1979, was appointed Associate Professor of Modern Swedish in 1981, and became Professor of Modern Swedish in 1987.
Professor Thelander's research has primarily focused on socio-dialectology, theory of variational linguistics, historical stylistics, corpus linguistics, and language planning. His work bridges historical and contemporary linguistic analysis, examining how language varies across social contexts and evolves over time. He has led a significant research project on Swedish drama dialogue from the early 18th century onwards, involving multiple colleagues from his department. Currently, he is collaborating with the English Department to create a joint corpus of English and Swedish drama texts from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries for contrastive studies in historical pragmatics, a project that began in 2010 and is financed by the Faculty of Linguistics at Uppsala University. His scholarship demonstrates a consistent engagement with language variation processes, standard language phenomena, and language planning issues across Nordic contexts.
Thelander's extensive service includes membership in multiple prestigious academies and leadership roles in national language institutions. He served as president of the Swedish Language Council from 1999 to 2007 and was a scientific expert in a parliamentary committee on language planning from 2000-2002. His international collaborations include participation in networks such as the Copenhagen-based Standard Language Ideology in Contemporary Europe (SLICE) and the Helsinki-based "Swedish in Finland" project.
- Working member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities
- Working member of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture
- Working member of the Societas Litterarum Humaniorum Regia Upsaliensis
- Working member of the Royal Society of Sciences at Uppsala
- Honorary member of the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland
- Former president of the Swedish Language Council (1999-2007)
Professor Thelander has been actively involved in academic mentoring, currently supervising two PhD students and having guided 30 students to successfully complete their PhD examinations. His leadership extends to collaborative research projects, including his decade-long leadership of a research project on Swedish drama dialogue. He has served in various institutional roles, including as head of department and as a member of quality assessment groups. His external collaborations include membership in international research networks such as the Copenhagen-based network on Standard Language Ideology in Contemporary Europe (SLICE) and the steering committee of the Helsinki-based project "Swedish in Finland."
Thelander leads research teams focused on Scandinavian language studies through his long-running project on Swedish drama dialogue. He has chaired the Adolf Noreen Society for over 20 years while serving as chief editor of the journal Språk och stil (Language and Style). His departmental leadership roles have involved overseeing academic teams within the Department of Scandinavian Languages at Uppsala University, and he continues to contribute to collaborative research initiatives examining language variation across Nordic contexts.
