"Det är inte så att jag tänker på begreppet klarspråk varje dag": Klarspråksarbetet på två fakulteter vid Göteborgs universitet

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how communication officers work with plain language at two faculties at the University of Gothenburg. Edgar Schein's theory of organizational culture will be used to investigate how rooted the plain language work is in the organization. In addition, plain language is used as a framework that forms the basis of the entire paper.

To find out how communicators work with plain language, a case study applying three different methods is carried out: plain language analysis, interview and close study of documents. The material analysed is newsletters and external web texts from both faculties, policy documents and transcribed interviews.

The results show that plain language to some extent is part of the organizational culture at both faculties. In University policy documents there are guidelines for communication officers to write plain language, and the texts examined in this paper are written in plain language. A clear conclusion is that the university's requirement for communicating research results, and the academic culture within the university, make the plain language work mostly focused on research communication.