Ulla Tiililä
Humanist of the day

Ulla Tiililä

Ulla Tiililä is a multi-skilled person when it comes to official languages. She trains and consults in government agencies, but also works behind the scenes with administration development. Her work deals with new subject matters, and often innovative ones, in addition to her own research and supervising dissertation work in various fields. Tiililä is also an active populariser of science.

Ulla Tiililä

Ulla Marika Elisabeth Tiililä
Born July 7, 1963, Helsinki

BA 1993 and PhD 2007 (Finnish Language), University of Helsinki

Docent at the University of Helsinki 2014
Consulting officer and researcher at the Institute for the Languages of Finland (Kotus), 2005–
Part-time work as an hourly teacher, research assistant, (senior) researcher and instructor at Kotus
Member of the Selkokeskus (‘simplified language centre’) advisory committee
Member of the editorial board of Virittäjä academic journal
Member of the Langnet supervisor pool
Member of the preparatory group for Open Government Partnership Initiative at the Ministry of Finance, 2013–14
Member of the Ministry of Education and Culture’s official languages working group, 2013
Member of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health’s insurance physician organisation development group, 2013

Research themes combine genre and official language research
Principal investigator of various Kotus projects (Tekstualisoituva julkishallinto, Perustelut päätöksissä, Ideaalikieli ja kirjoittamisen käytännöt)

Awards and special achievements
Afinlandia Prize for an outstanding Doctor’s thesis in applied linguistics, 2004–07
August Ahlqvist, Yrjö Wichmann, Kai Donner and Artturi Kannisto Foundations’ Dissertation Award, 2008
Society for the Study of Finnish’s E. A. Saarimaa Foundation Board’s Stipend for articles about the standardisation of language, 1994

Written by Ulla Tiililä (Riitta-Ilona Hurmerinta, ed.)
Translated by Joe McVeigh

Working on administrative language at the Institute for the Languages of Finland is above all a question of influencing society. It not only requires expertise in language use but also knowledge of public administration as well as networking and contacts with various interest groups. Influencing society is therefore both the end and the means of our operations.

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As a scholar I feel I am more focused on the use of language than language itself. I specialise in textual research and written official texts, which I have studied inter alia from the perspective of dialogue. I have never understood the study of interactive communication as purely referring to oral communication. Dialogue is not far from intertextuality, which is a recurrent theme in my research, and intertextuality is related to the study of paraphrasing and rhetoric and the examination of power relations: what is taken from one text to be used in another and what it is used for.

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When I’m asked for my best memory at the university, the first thing that comes to mind are Auli Hakulinen’s lectures and her teaching and instruction in general. So the best memories are related to the intellectual side, to sources of inspiration and realisation. Dr Hakulinen managed to have an effect on me on every course where I participated.

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