Toril Swan (19 October 1945 – 13 September 2022) was a
Norwegian linguist.
She was born in
Sandnessjøen
Sandnessjøen is a town and the administrative centre of Alstahaug Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. Sandnessjøen was granted special trading privileges in the late 1600s and it received town status in 1999. Sandnessjøen is located on ...
. After taking a bachelor's degree in philosophy at
Bates College in 1970, she graduated with the
cand.philol. degree from the
University of Oslo in 1978. Swan was hired as an associate professor at the
University of Tromsø in 1980, and received the
dr.philos.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...
degree from the same institution in 1987. Promoted to professor in 1990, she also served as
dean of the Faculty of Humanities from 1997 to 2002.
Swan was a dean at the
University of Stavanger
The University of Stavanger (Norwegian: ''Universitetet i Stavanger,'' UiS) is a university located in Stavanger, Norway. UiS was established in 2005 when the former Stavanger University College (''Høgskolen i Stavanger''; HiS) received univer ...
from 2002 to 2004 before moving to Bergen, though continuing on the faculty of the University of Tromsø until her retirement in 2016.
[ Swan was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters since 1997.][
In Bergen she became known as a figurehead in the Humanist Association. She was married to Leiv Egil Breivik.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swan, Toril
1945 births
2022 deaths
People from Alstahaug
Norwegian expatriates in the United States
University of Oslo alumni
Academic staff of the University of Tromsø
Academic staff of the University of Stavanger
Linguists from Norway
Norwegian women academics
Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters