Kaisa S. Pietikäinen first joined the Department of Professional and Intercultural Communication in 2018 as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2022 she was hired at the department as Associate Professor of English language. 

Dr Pietikäinen has a PhD degree in English philology from the University of Helsinki (2017) and an MA degree in Cross-Cultural Communication and Media from Newcastle University (2012). Before her academic career, she worked several years in the advertising industry as a copywriter. 

Dr Pietikäinen’s research interests revolve around the use of English along with other languages and semiotic means in intercultural settings. She has published in several prestigious journals and publications (e.g., Journal of Pragmatics, Applied Linguistics, The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca) on topics such as English as a lingua franca, conversation analysis, pragmatics, and multilingualism. 

Her current research project Digital collaboration platforms as learning environments in multilingual business communities investigates how and what kinds of linguistic and multimodal practices are acquired and developed on digital platforms at a multinational IT company. The project provides novel insights into how contemporary multilingual workforce juggles between multiple parallel tasks and online communication channels while acquiring, using and adapting linguistic, discursive and multimodal practices. The project answers a call for a holistic research approach that takes multilingualism into consideration in second language acquisition studies, while engaging with the entirety of semiotic forms which contribute to meaning-making. 

Dr Pietikäinen is also involved in several international research collaborations such as a pedagogical project between NHH and WU Vienna University of Economics and Business entitled The best of both worlds: an online intercultural collaboration between NHH and WU Vienna. The project brings English for Business Communication students from both institutions together for a virtual intercultural negotiation session, training students’ skills in intercultural pragmatics and English as a business lingua franca. 

TEACHING AREAS 

English business communication, intercultural communication, English as a business lingua franca