Social phenomena are created using language, and language and culture have a pivotal role in the questions concerning social participation and justice. Plural, the Multidisciplinary Research Centre for Languages and Cultures aims to affect the society by the means of multidisciplinary research. The more diverse understanding of the world we have, the more real it is. The collaboration between researchers of language, translation, literature, culture, and other sciences provides diverse perspectives to the common cores of Plural’s research groups: social shift, change, and movement.
Among the research areas of Plural are language variation and change, language development and learning, multilingualism and -culturalism, the relationship of literature and society, participation, equality and well-being of language users, multilingual communication and translation and the questions relating to the relationship of language and work.
Plural was founded in 2009 to coordinate research activity of the School of Language, Translation and Literary Studies. Since then Plural has expanded to cover the variety of research done in the areas of language, translation, literature and culture under the current Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences (ITC).
As a linguistic term, “plural” or its variants refer to plurality. According to Oxford English Dictionary the word “plural” is derived from the Latin word “pluralis”, which is present, among others, in the writings of Roman rhetorician Quintilian in the meaning of “more than one”. One of the derivatives of the word is “pluralism”, the doctrine of multiplicity in philosophy. The word is also used to describe diversity, and in this meaning, pluralism refers to the different value systems in the society or the acceptance of these systems. Pluralism may well be the most important feature of contemporary communities or groups, and a key factor in scientific, social and economic progress.
Plural, the Multidisciplinary Research Centre for Languages and Cultures brings together researchers of language, translation, literature, and culture from the University of Tampere and their partners from other universities in Finland and abroad. Plural is organised into research groups that are introduced more closely here. More information on ongoing and finished projects can be found on the Projects menu. The members of the Plural Executive Board can be found in the Board menu and the coming events here. Plural is also on Facebook and Twitter @PLURAL_uta.