My best moments at the University of Helsinki are connected to activities with different people: students, teachers, postgraduate students, colleagues and administrators. I have always enjoyed teaching and supervising students because there is always something for me to learn. Writing with my colleagues has also been very rewarding.

I have also enjoyed working in administrative positions because they have given me new perspectives on life at the university. Currently I am the Head of the Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies. The best part about it is the cooperation between experts at the department and the faculty, and the fact that I have become at least acquainted with subjects and people of this multilingual department.

One significant memory comes from when I was studying at the University of Helsinki. I started writing my dissertation on the subject of Nordic languages. I collected the material but the methodological perspective was shrouded in mist. At the same time I was attending Orvokki Heinämäki’s general linguistics lectures on semantics and pragmatics, where he presented the principles upon which interaction is generally considered to rest.

While listening to his explanation of Paul Grice’s Maxims of Conversation, I realised I now had the tools to understand the emergence of changes in meaning in 17th century Swedish. This understanding happened over weeks and months but I still remember the buzzing in my ears the instant I had a concrete ‘Eureka!’ moment during one lecture. I remember Lecturer Heinämäki with great appreciation and warmth, since with her knowledge she opened a completely new and unknown part of linguistics to me.