Mikko Laitinen
ProfessorMikko is now on leave of absence from Linnaeus University.
Professor of English Linguistics.
I’m a corpus linguist by training, and my research focuses on variation and change in English. I’m particularly interested in understanding what happens in the new global English uses, that is to say when people use English as a resource in their daily lives in countries like Sweden. Despite this focus on present-day variability, my work builds on the notion that one can only understand language by knowing where it comes from. We’ve just started a project here at Linnaeus on “Global English uses in Sweden” in which we combine historical linguistics and variationist sociolinguistics together with some research insights from the English as lingua franca paradigm. We are currently building a new corpus infrastructure for empirical study of global uses of English in Sweden and elsewhere in the expanding circle. I also have an interest in historical sociolinguists, and one particular area of interest is digitizing a set of early nineteenth century pauper letters from England.
My research groups
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Data Intensive Digital Humanities The research area Data Intensive Digital Humanities within Linnaeus University Centre for Data Intensive Sciences and Applications (DISA) is a network that brings…
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Linnaeus University Centre for Data Intensive Sciences and Applications The DISA research centre at Linnaeus University focuses its efforts on open questions in collection, analysis and utilization of…
My completed research projects
Publications
Article in journal (Refereed)
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Taipale, I., Laitinen, M. (2022). Individual Sensitivity to Change in the Lingua Franca Use of English. Frontiers in Communication. 6. 1-15.
Status: Published -
Tyrkkö, J., Levin, M., Laitinen, M. (2021). Actually in Nordic tweets. World Englishes. 40 (4). 631-649.
Status: Published -
Laitinen, M. (2020). Empirical perspectives on English as a lingua franca (ELF) grammar. World Englishes. 39 (3). 427-442.
Status: Published -
Laitinen, M., Fatemi, M., Lundberg, J. (2020). Size matters : digital social networks and language change. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. 3. 1-15.
Status: Published -
Lundberg, J., Laitinen, M. (2020). Twitter trolls : A linguistic profile of anti-democratic discourse. Language sciences (Oxford). 79. 1-14.
Status: Published -
Alissandrakis, A., Reski, N., Laitinen, M., Tyrkkö, J., Lundberg, J., et al. (2019). Visualizing rich corpus data using virtual reality. Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English. 20.
Status: Published -
Auer, A., Laitinen, M. (2018). Mobility, Variability and Changing Literacies in Modern Times (Preface). Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 119 (2). 13-20.
Status: Published -
Laitinen, M., Lundberg, J., Levin, M., Lakaw, A. (2017). Utilizing Multilingual Language Data in (Nearly) Real Time : The Case of the Nordic Tweet Stream. Journal of universal computer science (Online). 23 (11). 1038-1056.
Status: Published -
Laitinen, M. (2014). 630 kilometers by bicycle : observations of English in urban and rural Finland. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. (228). 55-77.
Status: Published -
Laitinen, M. (2013). Sociolinguistics in Finland : A brief overview of the discipline. Sociolinguistica : Internationales Jahrbuch fuer Europaeische Soziolinguistik. 27 (1). 187-203.
Status: Published -
Laitinen, M. (2011). Contacts and variability in international Englishes : Compiling and using the Corpus of English in Finland. Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English. 6 (1).
Status: Published -
Laitinen, M. (2010). Describing ‘orderly differentiation’ : compiling the corpus of English in Finland. English Today. 26 (1). 26-33.
Status: Published -
Laitinen, M. (2008). Sociolinguistic patterns in grammaticalisation : he, they, and those in human indefinite reference. Language Variation and Change. 20 (1). 155-185.
Status: Published -
Laitinen, M. (2008). Demythologizing generic expressions and common-number pronouns in English. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 108 (5). 703-707.
Status: Published
Conference paper (Refereed)
- Kucher, K., Fatemi, M., Laitinen, M. (2021). Towards Visual Sociolinguistic Network Analysis. Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP '21) : Volume 3: IVAPP, Online Streaming, February 8-10, 2021. 248-255.
- Fatemi, M., Kucher, K., Laitinen, M., Fränti, P. (2021). Self-Similarity of Twitter Users. Proceedings of the 2021 Swedish Workshop on Data Science (SweDS). 1-7.
- Lundberg, J., Nordqvist, J., Laitinen, M. (2019). Towards a language independent Twitter bot detector. Proceedings of 4th Conference of The Association Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries : Copenhagen, March 6-8 2019. 308-319.
- Laitinen, M., Lundberg, J., Levin, M., Martins, R.M. (2018). The Nordic Tweet Stream : A Dynamic Real-Time Monitor Corpus of Big and Rich Language Data. DHN 2018 Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries 3rd Conference : Proceedings of the Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries 3rd Conference Helsinki, Finland, March 7-9, 2018. 349-362.
- Alissandrakis, A., Reski, N., Laitinen, M., Tyrkkö, J., Levin, M., et al. (2018). Visualizing dynamic text corpora using Virtual Reality. ICAME 39 : Tampere, 30 May – 3 June, 2018 : Corpus Linguistics and Changing Society : Book of Abstracts. 205-205.
- Laitinen, M., Levin, M., Lakaw, A. (2015). Advanced non-native English on a continuum of Englishes : Charting new data sources. From data to evidence : big data, rich data, uncharted data : 19-22 October 2015, Helsinki.
- Laitinen, M. (2015). From diachrony to typology : testing typological profiling on advanced non-native data. Changing English 2015: Integrating cognitive, social & typological perspectives, 8-10 June, 2015, Helsinki.
- Laitinen, M. (2015). A historical linguist exploring ELF. The Eighth International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca, August 25-27, 2015, Beijing.
- Auer, A., Laitinen, M., Gordon, M., Fairman, T. (2014). An Electronic Corpus of Letters of Artisans and the Labouring Poor (England, c. 1750‐1835) : Compilation Principles and Coding Conventions. RECENT ADVANCES IN CORPUS LINGUISTICS: DEVELOPING AND EXPLOITING CORPORA. 9-29.
- Laitinen, M. (2014). “Tyranny of writing” and English corpus linguistics : What to do with the new mediated and vernacular genres?. .
- Laitinen, M. (2013). Ongoing grammatical changes and global Englishes. Changing English: Contact & variation, 2013.
Book (Refereed)
- Leppänen, S., Pitkänen-Huhta, A., Nikula, T., Kytölä, S., Törmäkangas, T., et al. (2011). National Survey on the English Language in Finland : Uses, Meanings and Attitudes. Helsinki, Research Unit for Variation, Contacts and Change in English.
Chapter in book (Refereed)
- Laitinen, M., Lundberg, J. (2020). ELF, language change and social networks : Evidence from real-time social media data. Language Change : The Impact of English as a Lingua Franca. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 179-204.
- Laitinen, M., Levin, M., Lakaw, A. (2019). Charting New Sources of elf Data : A Multi-Genre Corpus Approach. From Data to Evidence in English Language Research. Leiden, Brill Academic Publishers. 326-350.
- Laitinen, M. (2018). Placing ELF among the varieties of English : Observations from typological profiling. Modelling World Englishes in the 21st century : Assessing the interplay of emancipation and globalization of ESL varieties. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 109-131.
- Nevalainen, T., Laitinen, M., Nevala, M., Numi, A. (2018). Changes in different stages : From nearing completion to completed. Patterns of Change in 18th-century English : A sociolinguistic approach. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 251-256.
- Palander-Collin, M., Laitinen, M., Sairio, A., Säily, T. (2018). From incipient to mid-range and beyond. Patterns of Change in 18th-century English : A sociolinguistic approach. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 246-252.
- Laitinen, M., Säily, T. (2018). Google Books : A shortcut to studying language variability?. Patterns of Change in 18th-century English : A sociolinguistic approach. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 225-235.
- Laitinen, M. (2018). Indefinite pronouns with singular human reference : Recessive and ongoing. Patterns of Change in 18th-century English : A sociolinguistic approach. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 137-158.
- Laitinen, M., Lundberg, J., Levin, M., Lakaw, A. (2017). Revisiting weak ties : Using present-day social media data in variationist studies. Exploring Future Paths for Historical Sociolinguistics. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 303-325.
- Laitinen, M. (2017). What happens to ongoing change in multilingual settings? : A corpus compiler’s perspective on new data and new research prospects. Challenging the Myth of Monolingual Corpora. Leiden, Brill Academic Publishers. 58-79.
- Laitinen, M. (2016). Ongoing changes in English modals : On the developments in ELF. New Approaches in English Linguistics : Building Bridges. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 175-196.
- Laitinen, M., Levin, M. (2016). On the globalization of English : Observations of subjective progressives in present-day Englishes. World Englishes : New theoretical and methodological considerations. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 229-252.
- Laitinen, M. (2016). Ongoing changes and advanced L2 use of English : Evidence from new corpus resources. Corpus Linguistics on the Move : Exploring and Understanding English through Corpora. Leiden, Brill Academic Publishers. 59-84.
- Laitinen, M. (2015). Päivitys 2014. Englannin aika : Elävän kielen kartoitusta : The Time of English : Charting a Living Language. Helsingors, Helsingfors universitet. 190-192.
- Laitinen, M., Zabrodskaja, A. (2015). Dimensions and dynamics of sociolinguistic landscapes in Europe. Dimensions of Sociolinguistic Landscapes in Europe : Materials and Methodological Solutions. Frankfurt, Peter Lang Publishing Group. 11-25.
- Laitinen, M. (2015). Englannin käyttöä ja väärinkäyttöä : Kielentutkija ja oikeakielisyys : Use and abuse of English. Englannin aika: Elävän kielen kartoitusta : The Time of English : Charting a Living Language. Helsingfors, Helsingfors universitet. 172-190.
- Laitinen, M. (2015). English on the move : What’s beyond modernity and internationalism?. Dimensions of Sociolinguistic Landscapes in Europe : Materials and Methodological Solutions. Frankfurt, Peter Lang Publishing Group. 105-124.
- Laitinen, M. (2015). The Oxford English Dictionary. Englannin aika. Elävän kielen kartoitusta : The Time of English. Charting a Living Language. Helsingors, Helsingfors universitet. 194-194.
- Laitinen, M., Auer, A. (2014). Letters of Artisans and the Labouring Poor (England, c. 1750–1835) : Approaching Linguistic Diversity in Late Modern English. Contact, Variation, and Change in the History of English. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 187-212.
- Laitinen, M. (2014). Early nineteenth-century pauper letters. Letter Writing and Language Change. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- Laitinen, M. (2012). Typological hierarchies and frequency drifts in the history of English. The Oxford Handbook of the History of English. New York, Oxford University Press. 633-642.
- Laitinen, M. (2009). You was/were variation and English normative grammars in the eighteenth century. The language of daily life in England (1400-1800). Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 199-217.
Collection (editor) (Refereed)
- Auer, A., Laitinen, M. (2018). Mobility, Variability and Changing Literacies in Modern Times : Special issue of Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, Bulletin of the Modern Language Society, volume 119. Helsinki, Modern Language Society of Helsinki. 172.
- Laitinen, M., Zabrodskaja, A. (2015). Dimensions of Sociolinguistic Landscapes in Europe : Materials and Methodological Solutions. Frankfurt, Peter Lang Publishing Group. 297.
Article, book review (Refereed)
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Laitinen, M. (2022). Sofia Rüdiger and Daria Dayter (eds.), Corpus approaches to social media (Studies in Corpus Linguistics 98). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2020. Pp. vi + 210. ISBN 9789027207944.. English Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. 27 (1). 209-214.
Status: Published
Article in journal (Other academic)
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Bravo, G., Laitinen, M., Levin, M., Löwe, W., Petersson, G. (2017). Big Data in Cross-Disciplinary Research : J.UCS Focused Topic. Journal of universal computer science (Online). 23 (11). 1035-1037.
Status: Published
Conference paper (Other academic)
- Laitinen, M., Tyrkkö, J., Levin, M., Lakaw, A., Fatemi, M., et al. (2019). Americanization in the Nordic Contexts on Twitter. Presented at ICAME 40 2019. Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
- Laitinen, M., Levin, M., Lakaw, A. (2014). Ongoing grammatical change and the new Englishes : Towards a set of corpora of English uses in the expanding circle. .
- Laitinen, M. (2013). Ongoing changes and global Englishes : Exploring new corpus resources. ICAME 34, English corpus linguistics on the move: Applications and implications, Santiago de Compostela, Book of Abstracts, 22-26 May 2013. 193-194.