Päivi Pahta

Päivi Pahta completed her doctorate in English Philology in 1998 at the University of Helsinki, where she also did her MA, studying English Philology, Russian Language and Culture, General Linguistics, and Education. Her main research areas are historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, multilingualism, scientific discourse, and corpus linguistics. She has published over 100 research articles, 20 books, and three digital text corpora. Her most important publications contribute to a long-term historical view on language practices in multilingual contexts, and on the development of English as the language of science and medicine, using both qualitative and quantitative methods.

Pahta is Professor of English Philology at Tampere University (2007- ), where she has also held various leadership positions with responsibilities in research development, infrastructure, ethics, and policies in a broad range of disciplines. She served as Dean in three multidisciplinary faculties in 2016-2023. She has been a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters since 2015 and currently serves as the Academy’s Board Member and Secretary of the Section of the Humanities. She is also President of the Modern Language Society of Helsinki.