Nationality Bolivian/Swedish Alma mater Uppsala University | Spouse(s) Jan Anders Nilsson | |
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Full Name Elsa Nadezhda Bravo Cladera Occupation Linguist, researcher, writer Children Andrés Fernando, Ernesto Ricardo | ||
Elsa Nadezhda Bravo Cladera (Russian pronunciation [nah 'DYEZH dah] Spanish pronunciation ['braßo kla'đera]; born 1944) is a Bolivian linguist, researcher and writer. She is a Doctor of Philosophy (Filosofie Doktor) in Romance Languages from the University of Uppsala.
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Parents
Nadezhda Bravo Cladera was born on 7 January 1944 in Oruro, Bolivia. It was her father that named her Nadezhda which means hope in Russian and has the diminutive "Nadya". Her father Fernando Bravo James (Potosí 1912– La Paz 1962) was a Bolivian politician, senior lecturer at the Universidad Técnica de Oruro and at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA) in La Paz. Her mother Elsa Cladera de Bravo (Oruro 1922– Fribourg 2005) was a Bolivian union leader and educator, leader of the teachers organisation in Bolivia, delegate at the "Asamblea del Pueblo" in 1971, engaged in the work for women's emancipation. Nadezhda has two younger sisters Emma Bolshia and María Alexandra.
Studies
She attended the Anglo American School in Oruro and when the family moved to La Paz Hugo Dávila Senior High School where she graduated as Bachelor in Humanities (1961). At the "Instituto Normal Superior Simón Bolivar" in La Paz she became a teacher of English and French languages (1966) for the Senior High School.
After Hugo Banzer's coup d'etat (1971) in Bolivia she was imprisoned. Thanks to a scholarship of the French Government, she studied at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon where she obtained her Licence ès Lettres de Linguistique (1973).
Nadezhda met her husband, Anders Nilsson, at the university of Besançon. "It was love that took her to Sweden". They have two sons: Andrés Fernando and Ernesto Ricardo. In Sweden she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree (Filosofie kandidatexamen) (1983) and a Master of Arts degree (Filosofie Magisterexamen) (1997), with a major in Spanish, at the University of Stockholm and her Doctor of Philosophy degree (Filosofie Doktorsexamen) in Romance Languages with a major in Hispanic Linguistics (2004) at the University of Uppsala. "She defended her thesis in Spanish with French guidance".
Work and Research
Bravo Cladera's main areas of research are dialogue studies, spontaneous conversations and discourse markers. She directs the linguistic project entitled "Spanish of Bilingual Youth of Stockholm" (Español de jóvenes bilingües de Estocolmo- EJBE). She is currently a founder member of the project Dialogue Studies at the "Asociación de Lingüística y Filología de América Latina" (ALFAL) Delegate of ALFAL for Belgium, England, Finland, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway and Sweden (Region Nord Europa); supervisor (ad-honorem) at the Higher University of San Andrés.
Her pedagogical experience in Bolivia with young people who have Aymara language or Quechua language as their mother tongue and have learned Spanish at school and whom she taught modern languages as English and French contributed to her interest in problems concerning bilingualism, and later in Sweden the experience with her sons, who grew up with two languages at home (Swedish and Spanish) increased her interest in research on bilingualism, languages and cultures in contact. For example, the corpus of her doctoral thesis is based in spontaneous conversations of bilingual youth (Spanish, Swedish) in Stockholm.
Nadezhda Bravo Cladera has been senior lecturer in Hispanic linguistics at Linköping University and Gävle University College and lecturer in hispanic linguistics at the University of Uppsala (1996–2007), where she has supervised more than 40 essays on language themes and even some in literature and economics. At the Stockholm Institute of Education and at Högskolan i Eskilstuna Västerås (actually Mälardalen University College) she has been lecturer in Early bilingualism and Children's literatur (1987–1995). She has also taught Spanish as modern language and as mother tongue at Huddinge Senior High School and Ingemundskola at Karolinska Institutet (1977–1999). At Huddinge Senior High School she was responsible editor of the school newspaper in Spanish "Periódico Latino". In Bolivia she taught English and French in Senior High Schools (1967–1971) and was lecturer in General Linguistics at the "Instituto Nacional de Estudios Lingûísticos" (INEL)(1971).
She is the author of several monoghaphs and articles on discourse markers, dialogue studies, bilingualism, languages in contact as well as other linguistic and pedagogical themes. She has been publishing manuals for her teaching in Spanish Phonetics, Linguistics and Pragmatics. In 2013 she publishes a biography about Elsa Cladera de Bravo, The purpose of this biography was make known a part of Bolivian history that is worth remenbering.
Honnors
Bolivia: In 2009 Dr. Nadezhda Bravo Cladera was declared Honorary Member of the "Instituto Boliviano de Lexicografía y otros Estudios Lingüísticos" (IBLEL) as a recognition of her valuable contribution in the field of linguistic research, by his Director Carlos Coello Vila.