Matti Rissanen

Matti Juhani Rissanen (23 June 1937 in Viipuri – 24 January 2018 in Vantaa) was a Finnish professor emeritus and researcher in English linguistics.[1][2] Rissanen worked at the University of Helsinki as a docent of English philology 1969–1970, an assistant professor 1970–1977 and as a professor 1977–2001.[3] He was also chair of the university's language centre.

In 1991, Rissanen published Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, a seminal English-language corpus of historical texts, of which Rissanen was editor-in-chief.[4] He has been characterised accordingly as 'a pioneer in English historical corpus linguistics'.[5]

In 1995, Rissanen founded, and became the first director of, the English linguistics research unit Varieng at the University of Helsinki,[6] and in 1998 was president of the Societas Linguistica Europaea.[7]

He received a range of honours and awards. He became an honorary doctor at the University of Uppsala, Sweden (2001); was elected to the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters; and he became an honorary member of the Modern Language Society (2005), the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, and the Japan Association for English Corpus Studies (2006).[8] In 2012, Rissanen received the Alfred Kordelin Prize, comprising a €30,000 research grant.[9]

Major works
  • The uses of one in Old and Early Middle English, PhD thesis. 1967
  • Problems in the translation of Shakespeare's imagery into Finnish : with special reference to Macbeth. Mémoires de la Société néophilologique de Helsinki 36. Helsinki 1971
  • Corpus-based studies of diachronic English, ed. by Roberta Facchinetti and Matti Rissanen. Lang, Bern - New York 2006

References
  1. http://dbgw.finlit.fi/matr/tiedot.php?id=9045.
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20160616225833/https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/varieng/matti-rissanen.
  3. Helsingin yliopiston opettaja- ja virkamiesluettelo 1918-2000, englantilainen filologia.
  4. Jukka Tyrkkö, 'Helsinki Corpus of English Texts', in Corpus Resource Database (14 October 2011).
  5. 'In memoriam: Matti Rissanen' (24 January 2018).
  6. 'In memoriam: Matti Rissanen' (24 January 2018).
  7. "Presidents and Annual Meetings of the Societas Linguistica Europaea". Retrieved 28 July 2012.
  8. 'In memoriam: Matti Rissanen' (24 January 2018); https://tuhat.helsinki.fi/portal/en/persons/matti-rissanen(7a2f33ca-9a3a-4d2e-a570-edfc1168d61f)/prizes.html.
  9. Matti Rissaselle Kordelinin tunnustuspalkinto, Nykykielten laitos 6.11.2012
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