Research projects
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Ongoing research projects at the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies
Åslaug Ommundsen | CODICUM (2025-2030) The project will investigate the significance of the medieval manuscript book in shaping Northern Europe between c. 1000 and 1500, focusing on a unique collection of over 50,000 parchment book fragments found in five Nordic countries. Funding: EU/ERC |
| Jill Walker Rettberg Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Digital Narrative | AI STORIES (2024-2029) The project explores how narrative archetypes shape AI outputs. Funding: EU/ERC |
| Kari Kinn Professor, Scandinavian linguistics | Norwegian across the Americas (2020-2027) This research project investigates the Norwegian language as spoken across the Americas – and how it has developed over generations. Funding: Norwegian Research Council (Norges Forskningsråd, FRIPRO Unge forskertalenter) |
Completed research projects
Adult Acquisition of Norwegian as a second language (ALAN) (2021-2025)
Project leader: Ann-Kristin Helland Gujord
Project financing: Forskningsrådsprogrammet Forskerprosjekt for fornyelse
Immigrants' competence in the language that applies to they live in is a prerequisite for access to education, the job market and for participation in society on an equal footing with other citizens. The overall purpose of the project is to provide more knowledge about second language development among refugees and immigrants with low education from their home country.
Machine Vision (2018-2024)
Project leader: Jill Walker Rettberg
Project financing: EU/ERC
The project's goal is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding how everyday use of machine vision affects us as a society and as individuals. In addition to theoretical and historical work, the project group will use aesthetic analysis of computer games, stories and digital art that thematize or make use of machine vision, as well as ethnographic fieldwork with users and developers to create a rich humanistic understanding of how the 21st century machine vision changes our understanding of the world around us. See the project home page.
Revisjon av Bokmålsordboka og Nynorskordboka (Revisjonsprosjektet) (2018-2023)
Project leder: Margunn Rauset
Project financing: Kulturdepartementet
Project owner: Språkrådet og Universitetet i Bergen
During the five-year period between 2018–2023, a group of dictionary editors will go through Bokmålsordboka and Nynorskordboka from A to Å. This first thorough revision of the two Norwegian standard dictionaries in over 30 years is a collaboration between the University of Bergen and the Language Council.
Transformations of Medieval Law (2018-2021)
Project leader: Helen F. Leslie-Jacobsen
Project financing: Trond Mohn Foundation
The project will research the later manuscripts and versions of the Landslov in order to gain an insight into the development of the law from the end of the Middle Ages onwards. See project homepage.
Norsk Ordbok a–h (NO-AH)
Project leader: Gyri Smørdal Losnegaard
Project financing: Kulturdepartementet
Project owner: Universitetet i Bergen
The University of Bergen, in collaboration with Volda University College, is responsible for completing the digital edition of the Norwegian Dictionary and for revising the content of the oldest parts of the dictionary, the alphabetical features A to H. Until now, only those parts of the dictionary that were written and published in the 2000s have been available in the online edition. In the project NO-AH, a complete and updated online dictionary is developed with the user in focus. The work takes place in close collaboration with the Audit Project, which is the second major dictionary project at LLE, and with the Language Collections, which manages the dictionary and the resources associated with the dictionary. See NO-AH website.
Strafferettens fortellinger (2016-2019)
Project leader: Frode Helmich Pedersen
Project financing: Forskningsrådsprogrammet Samfunnsutviklingens kulturelle forutsetninger (SAMKUL)
The project is complete. The primary goal of the interdisciplinary project is to contribute to a better understanding of the role of narratives in Norwegian criminal cases by means of narratological theory and analysis. See the project website.
Norsk i akademia / Norwegian in Academia (NINjA)
Project leader: Ann-Kristin Helland Gujord
Project financing: Prosjektet blir gjennomført med fou-delen som ligger i stillingene for ansatte ved norskursene.
The purpose of the project is to map the place of the Norwegian language among international employees at Norwegian universities and colleges. See the project website.
Negotiating History: Photography in Sámi Culture
Project leader: Sigrid Lien
Project financing: Forskningsrådets program for samisk forskning II
The project is complete. The goal of the interdisciplinary project was to study the role and position of photographs of Sámi and Sámi culture in the past, and how it is today. See the project website.
From manuscript fragments to book history
Project leader: Åslaug Ommundsen
Project financing: Bergen Forskningsstiftelse og Universitetet i Bergen
The project is complete. The project took a closer look at the handwriting culture around 1100–1300, and which international contacts and impulses had the greatest impact in Norway during this period. See the project website.
Contact information
For more information about the projects, contact the responsible researcher.
For infomation about ERC grants at UiB, please contact Senior Adviser Katie Anders.