Liisa Tiittula

Liisa Maria Tiittula
Born October 28, 1950, Tampere

PhD 1990 (Linguistics) Academy of Sciences, Berlin
Master of Arts 1984, Licentiate 1985 (General Linguistics), University of Helsinki
Master of Science (Economics and Business Administration) 1975, Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration

Professor of German Language 2010–, University of Helsinki
Professor of German Language (teaching area: the theory and practice of translation) 1995–2010, University of Tampere
German language assistant, lecturer and acting associate professor; assistant professor in Applied Linguistics and business communications, 1975–95, Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration
Research fellow 1990–91, senior research fellow 1998–99 and 2005–06, Academy of Finland
Research fellow 2003–04, University of Tampere Centre for Advanced Studies
Visiting professor (Translation Studies) 2011–12, Karl Franzens University, Graz

Docent in Applied Linguistics 1992–, Helsinki School of Economics
Docent in German language and culture (area of expertise: intercultural communication) 1994–, University of Tampere

Research themes:
Literary translation, speech-to-text interpreting, subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, institutional interaction, multimodality, Finnish-German business communication

Publications, research projects and other academic activity

Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters 2009–

Photo: Mika Federley
Written by Liisa Tiittula
Translated by Matthew Billington

The Joy of Collaboration

At its best research means the joy of collaboration and shared discoveries. It is collaboration within a group or with another researcher. Pirkko Nuolijärvi and I have shared many interesting projects, the latest concerning spoken language in literature written in Finnish, both original and translated. The research was motivated by our love for the Finnish language, literature, and translation.

As a young graduate student at the Institute of German Language in Mannheim, Germany, I already had the opportunity to participate in many projects, and to learn not only how to conduct research but also how to share expertise. Studies on multimodality have proved interesting projects, and their analysis and article meetings have given rise to a compilation book.

I coordinate the TraST research community (Translation Studies and Terminology), where researchers of translation, interpretation and terminology focusing on different areas and using different methods can find each other and perhaps join forces to tackle entirely new research challenges.

By Written by Liisa Tiittula, translated by Tomi Setälä, revised by Matthew Billington