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.

1991 saw the publication of the 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]

In the recollection of his former student and colleague Matti Kilpiö, Rissanen's 'optimism [...] was infectious, his energy unfailing'.[10]