Brita Elisabeth Bergman (b. Jonsson, 30 March 1946) is a Swedish

emeritus professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

specializing in the

linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

of signed languages. She initiated a line of research in signed language linguistics at the Department of Linguistics at Stockholm University that is still being carried out to this day.

Biography and research

In 1971, Bergman wrote a term paper on a form of signed communication, Signed Swedish, encouraged by Professor Bengt Sigurd. Subsequently she worked on sign language as part of the project ''The Linguistic Status of Sign Language''. In 1972 she took a course on sign language. After the course, she was surprised to find that she could not understand what deaf people were signing, and that she had difficulty making herself understood. This turned out to be because she had learned a

manually coded language Manually coded languages (MCLs) are a family of gestural communication methods which include gestural spelling as well as constructed languages which directly interpolate the grammar and syntax of oral languages in a gestural-visual form—that ...

rather than a true

sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...

. She soon discovered that true sign languages are full-fledged natural languages. Bergman published the report ''Tecknad svenska'' ( Signed Swedish) in 1977 as part of the National Swedish Board of Education's report series (no. 28); an English version was published in 1979. The report provided in-depth discussion of the structure of signs and the use of (spoken)

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

grammar with signs, among other things. Early in her research, she came to the conclusion that

Swedish Sign Language Swedish Sign Language (SSL; ) is the sign language used in Sweden. It is recognized by the Swedish government as the country's official sign language, and hearing parents of deaf individuals are entitled to access state-sponsored classes that f ...

was the only language acquired by the deaf community outside of formal education, that is, that it must be considered the mother tongue of the deaf community. In 1991, Bergman was appointed Professor of Sign Language at Stockholm University, the world's first professorship in sign language research. Together with Lars Kruth, Bergman is often credited with the recognition of

as a national language of Sweden. In 1992 she was awarded the Lars Kruth Medal for her efforts in sign language research and advocacy on behalf of the deaf community. Her research was a decisive factor in the Riksdag's decision of 14 May 1981 to recognize Swedish Sign Language as a national minority language.Bergman, Brita, and Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen. 2010. Transmission of sign languages in the Nordic countries. In Diane Brentari (ed.), ''Sign languages'', 74--94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Honours and awards

* 2006: elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities * 2011: awarded H. M. The King's Medal (8th size, Order of the Seraphim ribbon) for significant contributions within the field of sign language research * 2013: elected member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

* 2015: awarded International Solidarity Merit Award Second Class by the

World Federation of the Deaf The World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) is an international non-governmental organization that acts as a peak body for national associations of Deaf people, with a focus on Deaf people who use sign language and their family and friends. WFD aims ...

Selected publications

* Bergman, Brita. 1979 (1977). ''Signed Swedish'' (''Tecknad svenska''). Stockholm: National Swedish Board of Education. * Bergman, Brita. 1983. Verbs and adjectives: Morphological processes in Swedish Sign Language. In James Kyle and Bencie Woll (eds.), ''Language in sign'', 3--9. London: Croom Helm. * Bergman, Brita and Östen Dahl. 1994. Ideophones in Sign Language? The place of reduplication in the tense-aspect system of Swedish Sign Language. In Carl Bache, Hans Basbøll and Carl-Erik Lindberg (eds.), ''Tense, Aspect and Action'', 397–422. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. * Crasborn, Onno A., Johanna Mesch, Dafydd Waters, Annika Nonhebel, Els van der Kooij, Bencie Woll and Brita Bergman. 2007. Sharing sign language data online: Experiences from the ECHO project. ''International Journal of Corpus Linguistics'' 12 (4), 535–562. * Liddell, Scott K., Marit Vogt-Svendsen and Brita Bergman. 2007. A crosslinguistic comparison of buoys: evidence from American, Norwegian, and Swedish Sign Language. In Myriam Vermeerbergen, Lorraine Leeson and Onno A. Crasborn (eds.), ''Simultaneity in signed languages: form and function'', 187–215. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergman, Brita Women linguists Linguists from Sweden Living people Academic staff of Stockholm University Year of birth missing (living people)