Millions in funding for research projects on linguistic nuances in international surveys
Stefan Dahlberg, professor of political science at Mid Sweden University, has been granted almost SEK 7 million for a three-year project that studies how the meaning of words and translations affect responses in country-comparative surveys.
To be exact, Stefan Dahlberg has received SEK 6,745,722 from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund.
"It feels very fun and honorable. I have previously received funding from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund, but only for research infrastructure, so this is the first time I have received a full-scale project grant," says Stefan Dahlberg, adding:
"It's a great recognition, not least because the project concerns an area that has long been a methodologically blind field in the social sciences.
The difference between "happy" and "happy"
The money goes to a three-year research project called "Comparing across the board: on the impact of linguistic nuances in country comparative studies." The project investigates how linguistic nuances and translation differences can affect the responses in international surveys. The goal is to understand how the emotional strength of words, such as the difference between "happy" and "happy", can distort comparisons between countries.
"We combine language technology and survey methodology: with the help of language models, we analyse the meaning and intensity of words in different languages and then test the effects through survey experiments in Finland, Switzerland and South Africa, among other countries," Stefan explains.
The project is being carried out in collaboration with, among others, Dorothée Behr (GESIS, Germany), Sebastian Lundmark (University of Gothenburg) and Joakim Nivre (Uppsala University), and will start in January 2026.
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