Maija Hirvonen

Research projects

• NewWorkTech (From the margins to the masses: Standard practices and innovative uses of technology in augmenting different abilities in the world of work). Horizon Europe research and innovation action, 2024-2027.
• LINDA (Using Language to Interpret Nonstructured Data). Emil Aaltonen Foundation, PI: Tuomas Virtanen, 2021-2023.
• GUIDE (Guided Audio Captioning for Complex Acoustic Environments). Jane & Aatos Erkko Foundation, PI: Annamaria Mesaros, 2022-2023.
• MeMAD (Methods for Managing Audiovisual Research). Horizon Europe research and innovation action, 2018-2021 (at University of Helsinki).
• MUTABLE (Multimodal Translation with the Blind, Academy of Finland). Research Council/Academy of Finland, 2017-2020.

Institutional responsibilities 

• Head of German (language, culture and translation) in the BA and MA program of Languages and in the MA program of Multilingual Communication and Translation Studies
• Director of Langnet (Finnish Network of Doctoral Programmes in Language Studies), 2024-2027
• Co-leader of TACCU (Tampere Accessibility Unit) 
• Co-leader of MULTI (Multimodality in Translation and Interpreting research group) 
• Former Chair of Plural (Multidisciplinary Research Centre for Languages and Cultures)

Teaching and supervision 

• advanced level courses in German linguistics, translation studies, and accessibility 
• supervision of MA and PhD students, postdocs

Expert in accessibility (especially audio description), multimodal and intermodal translation and interpreting, blind-sighted interaction, socio-cognitive interaction studies, and language-based machine perception

• Member of the European-wide Network on Inclusive Communication in Higher Education (NIICTE)
• Member of the audio description board assigned by the Cultural Service of the Visually Impaired in Finland (Näkövammaisten kulttuuripalvelu ry)
• Associate Partner in the GreenerAge project (ERASMUS+ consortium Climate-Change and Environmental Literacy for Urban Citizens 55+, led by Tampere University)

Previously 

• Vice Chair of Young Academy Finland (Nuorten tiedeakatemia), membership in YAF in 2017-2021

Areas of expertise and research interests

- intermodal translation (audio and video description, audio captioning, multisensory interpreting, environmental description)

- accessibility

- multimodality in translation and interpreting

- multimodal interaction, asymmetrical interaction

- shared cognition

- human-informed artificial intelligence

- multimodal machine translation

- media culture, film studies

- cognitive linguistics

Translation Studies (translation process research, media and cultural accessibility, intersemiotic translation)

Linguistics (pragmatics, semantics, conversation analysis, cognitive linguistics)

Cognitive Science (4E cognition, shared/team cognition)