Dr. Ridjanović is professor emeritus of English and linguistics at the University of Sarajevo. He obtained his doctoral degree in linguistics at the University of Michigan in 1969 and taught at Sarajevo University's Department of English for nearly forty years. In 1984-85 he was a Fulbright visiting professor of Serbo-Croatian and linguistics at the Ohio State University. He has given invited lectures at universities in the former Yugoslavia, at the Zagreb Linguistics Circle, at the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and at Oxford University. He has published eight books (one in the U.S.) and over fifty papers and articles in local and international journals. He received several prizes for his scholarly publications, including the awards for the best non-fiction book published by the Svjetlost company in 1984 and the best-book prize at the International Book Fair in Sarajevo in 2004. He was among the pioneers of simultaneous interpretation in the former Yugoslavia and has since interpreted at over forty international gatherings, including the Dayton Peace Talks (as Certified US State Department Simultaneous Interpreter) and proceedings at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague.