Niina Hynninen

Description of research and teaching

Research

My research interests include writing as a social practice, spoken interaction, academic and business English as a lingua franca, and language regulation. My current research branches out to two directions:

1. Investigation of the ways in which writing as well as language choice and quality are regulated by different actors along trajectories of writing for research publication in English
2. Investigation of the planning and execution trajectories of customer training in business context and the multiple linguistic, bodily, material and technological resources used in customer training interaction

The research on academic writing I conduct in the LaRA – Language Regulation in Academia research project (PI Anna Solin, funded by the Kone Foundation in 2015–2019), and partly also in collaboration with colleagues from Stockholm University.

The research on business communication I conduct in the GloBus – Translingual Communication Practices in Global Business research project. This project, which I co-lead with Tiina Räisänen from the University of Oulu, started with a pilot study in the spring of 2021, with funding from the GenZ strategic profiling theme at the University of Oulu (funded by the Academy of Finland).

I completed my doctoral dissertation on the topic of language regulation in English as a lingua franca (ELF) in 2013, and in 2016, I published a book based on the dissertation with De Gruyter Mouton. During my doctoral studies, I was actively involved in the ELFA – English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings research group. Currently, I am a member of the ELT Journal’s Editorial Panel, and a member of a number of research networks, for instance, the English as a lingua franca research network (ELF-ReN) of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) and the BAAL Literacies SIG. An important network in the Finnish context is the Finnish Association of Applied Linguistics, AFinLA. I started as an AFinLA board member at the beginning of 2025 and was the main editor of the AFinLA Yearbook 2023.

Teaching

I work as a University Lecturer in Applied English Linguistics for the BA Programme in Languages and the MA Programme in English Studies at the University of Helsinki. I teach various courses ranging from thematic courses in my expertise areas to thesis seminars and to more general courses in academic writing and spoken English. As an academic advisor, I also provide study guidance to our students.

To contact Niina, send email to niina.hynninen(at)helsinki.fi.