The Doctoral Programme for Language Studies (HELSLANG) covers a wide range of linguistic fields, including various synchronic and diachronic approaches to language, translation studies and language technology. The focal areas are: Language and interaction, Linguistic structures and context, Language contacts, change, variation and multilingualism, Meaning, texts and society, Turning points in translation and interpretation theory and practices, and Language technology and corpus linguistics.

The programme offers courses on various aspects of linguistic theory and methodology. The main languages of instruction are Finnish, English and Swedish in accordance with the language policy of the University of Helsinki. Due to the nature of the Programme also other languages are possible. In supervision the language of the doctoral student’s subject is often used.