Alpo Honkapohja

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Academic interests

Historical Linguistics, Middle English, Manuscript Studies, Corpus Linguistics, Digital Humanities, Abbreviations, Medieval Medicine, Lexicology, Multilingualism, Dialectology, Historical Phonology

Background

I am originally from Finland and did my undergraduate studies at the University of Helsinki. I moved to Switzerland in 2011 for my PhD and to work on a corpus project called Corpus of Medieval Latin from Anglo-Saxon Sources (MLASS). My PhD had to do with Middle English manuscripts and was eventually published as a monograph Alchemy, Medicine and Commercial Book Production: A Codicological and Linguistic Study of the Voigts-Sloane Manuscript Group (Brepols, 2017).

In 2017, I moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where I initially worked on a Corpus Approach to Manuscript Abbreviations (CAMA) hosted by the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics (AMC). From 2020 to 21, I was employed with another corpus project, From Inglis to Scots: Mapping Sounds to Spellings (FITS), and also a Teaching Fellow, teaching linguistics and Finnish for Brits over Zoom and Teams.

Teaching

  • ENG1103 - Gruppe 1 (General American), Onsdager 12:15 - 14:00

Grants

  • 2021: European Council: Marie Skłodowska Curie Individual Fellowship 
  • 2019: British Academy: Neil Ker Memorial Fund, for archival work
  • 2017: Swiss National Science Foundation: Advanced postdoc mobility

Appointments

  • 2019-present: Helsinki Society for Historical Lexicography (HSHL), board member
  • 2013-2017. History of the English Language, University of Zurich, module co-ordinator
  • Referee: Routledge Annotated Bibliography of English Studies (ABES), Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, Studia Neophilologica, University of Vienna: Reinforcing Women in Research (REWIRE) MSCA IF Cofund programme, ISLE 2014 conference, ICEHL 2018 conference

Positions held

  • 2020-21: Teaching Fellow, University of Edinburgh
  • 2017-20: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh
  • 2015-16: Substitute Lecturer, University of Lausanne
  • 2013-17: Postdoctoral Research Assistant, University of Zurich
  • 2011-13: Assistant, University of Zurich

Partners
 

Dr. Imogen Marcus, Edgehill University

Dr. Lori Jones, University of Ottawa

Prof. Jukka Suomela, Aalto University

Tags: English Language, English, Language history, Writing systems, Dialectology, Manuscript culture, Middle Ages

Selected publications

Monograph

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2017. Alchemy, Medicine, and Commercial Book Production: A Codicological and Linguistic Study of the Voigts-Sloane Manuscript Group (Texts and Transitions, 9). Turnhout: Brepols.

Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters

Benjamin Molineaux, Alpo Honkapohja, Joanna Kopaczyk, Vasilios Karaiskos, Rhona Alcorn, Bettelou Los and Warren Maguire. 2023. “A grapho-phonologically parsed corpus of medieval Scots: Variation across time” Corpora: EUP.

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2022. “Tracing the Early Modern John of Burgundy: manuscripts and lexicon” In Genre in English Medical Writing, 1500-1820. Eds. Irma Taavitsainen, Turo Hiltunen, Jeremy J. Smith and Carla Suhr. Cambridge: CUP, Pages 68-88.

Honkapohja, Alpo and Jukka Suomela. 2022. "‘Lexical and Function Words or Language and Text Type?" Abbreviation consistency in an aligned corpus of Latin and Middle English plague treatises. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. Oxford University Press. Volume 37, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 765–787.<https://academic.oup.com/dsh/article/37/3/765/6401180?login=true>

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2021. “Digital Approaches to Manuscripts Abbreviations: where are we at the beginning of the 2020s?” Digital Medievalist.<https://journal.digitalmedievalist.org/article/id/7025/>

Honkapohja, Alpo and Aino Liira. 2020. "Abbreviations and Standardisation in the Polychronicon: Latin to English, and Manuscript to Print." In Laura Wright (ed). The Multilingual Origins of Standard English. Berlin: De Gruyter, Mouton, Pages 269-316.

Honkapohja, Alpo and Lori Jones. 2020. “From Practica Phisicalia to Mandeville’s Travels: Untangling the Misattributed Identities and Writings of John of Burgundy”. Notes and Queries, Volume 67, Issue 1, March 2020, Pages 18–27

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2019. "Functions of Punctuation in Six Latin and English Versions of the Plague Treatise by John of Burgundy." In Claudia Claridge & Merja Kytö (eds) Punctuation in Context: Past and Present Perspectives. Bern: Peter Lang

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2019. “The Brief Rise and Fall of a Superscript Abbreviation for the First Person Singular Pronoun in the West Midlands between 1250 and 1500”. Notes & Queries. Oxford University Press. Volume 66, Issue 4, December 2019, Pages 502–508

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2019. “Anchorites and Abbreviations: a corpus study of abbreviations of Romance and Germanic lexicon in the Ancrene Wisse.” Current Explorations in Middle English. Stenroos, Merja et al. (eds). Bern: Peter Lang

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2018. "‘Latin in recipes?’ A corpus-based approach to abbreviations as language independent elements in the Voigts-Sloane Sibing Group of Middle English medical manuscripts." In Janne Skaffari, Päivi Pahta & Laura Wright (eds.) Multilingual Practices in Language History: English and Beyond. De Gruyter Mouton.

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2013. "The Trinity Seven Planets." Scholarly Editing: The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing 34. <http://www.scholarlyediting.org/se.index.issues.html>

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2013. "Manuscript abbreviations in Latin and English: History, typologies and how to tackle them in encoding." Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English Volume 14: Principles and Practices for the Digital Editing and Annotation of Diachronic Data<http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/series/volumes/index.html>

Biber, Douglas, Bethany Gray, Alpo Honkapohja & Päivi Pahta. 2011. "Prepositional modifiers in early English medical prose: a study on their historical development in noun phrases." In: Päivi Pahta & Andreas H. Jucker (eds.). Communicating Early English Manuscripts. Cambridge: University Press, 197-211.

Honkapohja, Alpo, Samuli Kaislaniemi & Ville Marttila. 2009. "Digital Editions for Corpus Linguistics: Representing manuscript reality in electronic corpora." In: Andreas H. Jucker, Daniel Schreier & Marianne Hundt (eds.). Corpora: Pragmatics and Discourse. Papers from the 29th International Conference on English Language Research on Computerized Corpora (ICAME 29). Ascona, Switzerland, 14-18 May 2008. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 451-74.

Non-peer-reviewed book chapters:

Chevalier, Sarah, Anne Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja, Marianne Hundt, Gerold Schneider and Olga Timofeeva. 2016. "Introduction". In Chevalier, Sarah, Anne Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja and Olga Timofeeva (eds.). New approaches to English Linguistics: Building Bridges (Studies in Language Companion Series). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Pfenninger, Simone E., Olga Timofeeva, Anne-Christine Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja, Marianne Hundt & Daniel Schreier. 2014. "At the crossroads of language change, variation, and contact." [introduction to the volume] In Pfenninger, Simone, E, Olga Timofeeva, Anne Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja, Marianne Hundt & Daniel Schreier (eds.) Contact, Variation and Change in the History of English (Studies in Language Companion Series). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1-7.

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2011. "Multilingualism in Trinity College Cambridge Manuscript O.1.77." In: Jacek Fisiak & Magdalena Bator (eds.). Foreign Influences on Medieval English. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 25-45.

Co-edited volumes:

Los, Bettelou; Chris Cummins, Lisa Gotthard, Alpo Honkapohja, and Benjamin Molineaux. 2022. English Historical Linguistics: Historical English in Contact. (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 359). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Chevalier, Sarah; Anne Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja and Olga Timofeeva (eds.). 2016. New approaches to English Linguistics: Building Bridges (Studies in Language Companion Series). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Pfenninger, Simone, E; Olga Timofeeva, Anne Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja, Marianne Hundt & Daniel Schreier (eds.). 2014. Contact, Variation and Change in the History of English (Studies in Language Companion Series). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

McConchie, RW; Alpo Honkapohja & Jukka Tyrkkö (eds.). 2009. Selected Proceedings of the 2008 Symposium on New Approaches in English Historical Lexis (HEL-LEX 2). Somerville: Cascadilla Press.

Corpora:

From Inglis to Scots (FITS): Mapping Sounds to Spellings. (forthcoming). Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics (AMC). University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Medieval Latin from Anglo-Saxon Sources. (forthcoming). University of Zurich. Prof. Olga Timofeeva, PhD (Project Leader) Dr. Anne Gardner, Dr. Alpo Honkapohja

Helsinki Corpus TEI XML Edition. 2011. First edition. Designed by Alpo Honkapohja, Samuli Kaislaniemi, Henri Kauhanen, Matti Kilpiö, Ville Marttila, Terttu Nevalainen, Arja Nurmi, Matti Rissanen and Jukka Tyrkkö. Implemented by Henri Kauhanen and Ville Marttila. Based on The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (1991). Helsinki: The Research Unit for Variation, Contacts and Change in English (VARIENG), University of Helsinki.

Middle English Medical Texts (MEMT). Compilers: Irma Taavitsainen, Päivi Pahta, Martti Mäkinen. Other team members: Carla Suhr, Maura Ratia, Turo Hiltunen, Alpo Honkapohja, Jukka Tyrkkö and Minna Vihla

Early Modern English Medical Texts (EMEMT). Compilers: Irma Taavitsainen, Päivi Pahta, Martti Mäkinen, Turo Hiltunen, Ville Marttila, Maura Ratia, Carla Suhr, Jukka Tyrkkö. Other team members: Anu Lehto, Alpo Honkapohja, Raisa Oinonen.

Popular publications, teaching materials and translations:

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2015. "I hear a tone, I gotta go: Suomalaista rock-musiikkia" [I hear a tone, I gotta go: Finnish rock-music]. In Nevalainen, Terttu, Matti Rissanen & Irma Taavitsainen (eds.) Englannin aika: elävän kielen kartoitusta. University of Helsinki: teaching materials. <http://hdl.handle.net/10138/153953>

Honkapohja, Alpo. 2013. "Grímmr karvaposken saaga" [The Saga of Grímmr the Hairycheek]. In: Helga Hilmisdóttir, Kirsi Kanerva & Sari Päivärinne (eds.) Egill Yksikätinen: Muinaissaagoja Pohjolasta [Egill the One-handed: Ancient Sagas from the North]. Helsinki: Finn Lectura, 87–97. [a translation from Old Norse to Finnish]

Aalto, Sirpa, Alpo Honkapohja, Kirsi Kanerva, Eevastiina Korri, Karoliina Kouvola, Ilkka Leskelä & Philip Line. 2013. "Sörlin tarina tai Hedinnin ja Högnin Saaga" [The Story of Sörl, or the Saga of Hedinn and Högn]. In: Helga Hilmisdóttir, Kirsi Kanerva & Sari Päivärinne (eds.) Egill Yksikätinen: Muinaissaagoja Pohjolasta [Egill the One-handed: Ancient Sagas from the North]. Helsinki: Finn Lectura, 125–136. [a translation from Old Norse to Finnish]

Published Sep. 23, 2021 4:54 PM - Last modified Feb. 6, 2023 11:59 AM