All the researchers of the Languages Unit belong to Plural. You can find the full list here
Some of our members have provided more detailed information about their research areas, which you can find below. If you are interested in collaboration or supervision from other members, please reach out to them directly with your inquiry.
Daria Dayter is an Associate Professor for English Linguistics. Her research interests include corpus linguistic and discourse analytic studies of digital English, as well as interpreting studies and discourse of persuasion. She is the founder of the OSSO international research group.
Laura Eilola, PhD, is a university teacher of Finnish language and culture. She studies language use and learning in interaction and is especially interested in the role of multimodality, embodiment, and digitality in interaction.
Maija Hirvonen (professor in German language, culture and translation) studies accessibility, multimodality and intermodality (especially from image/sound to language) as well as social interaction and shared cognition (esp. between blind and sighted people). She also conducts multidisciplinary research on machine perception and human-informed AI. Hirvonen is leads the MULTI research group and is co-leader and founder of TACCU research and education unit.
Sari Hokkanen, PhD: sociology of translation and interpreting, affect, ethnographic methods
Tuija Kinnunen: My research focuses on multilingual communication and the societal role of translation and interpreting. I have examined translation and interpreting in legal settings, and more recently, crisis communication. My work also addresses issues of linguistic accessibility.
Kaisa Koskinen’s core areas of expertise are the ethics and sociology of translation. She studies the spaces of translation, affects, translator training, retranslation, and the translation practices of institutions such as the European Commission and Tampere City Council.
Niina Lilja is a professor of professional communication. Her research explores the multimodality of interaction, multilingual practices, and the use and learning of second languages in everyday and work interactions.
Mikhail Mikhailov: corpus studies, especially parallel corpora, translation technology, contrastive studies, terminology
Liisa Mustanoja, PhD, is a university lecturer in Finnish Language at Tampere University. She is a sociolinguist, whose research is brought together by her interest in individuals and their language use in the changing world. Mustanoja’s research subjects include, among other things, colloquial Finnish of Tampere region, idiolectal shifts, the methodology of real-time studies as well as (most recently) war-time correspondence.
Olga Nenonen, PhD, studies Finnish-Russian bilingualism . Her research topics include language development of both children and adults as well as the phonetic, lexical, grammatical and pragmatical features of bilingual speech. Her other research subjects are Russian didactics, modern Russian culture and language as well as Russian language outside of Russia.
Dr Arja Nurmi studies variation and change in English, particularly within the framework of historical sociolinguistics. Other research interests include multilingualism and translating multilingual texts. Her research is mainly corpus-based.
Mary Nurminen’s focus is on how non-translators use raw machine translation in their everyday lives. In December 2021, she defended her dissertation on the topic and plans to continue research in the area.
Maarit Piipponen (university lecturer in English literature): her research focuses on constructions of gender, ethnicity, mobility and spatiality in crime fiction narratives.
Eliisa Pitkäsalo’s research interests include translating multimodal texts, the interaction between word and image in comics and the potential of comic-style communication from the viewpoint of accessibility.
Johannes Riquet’s research interests include spatiality, literary and cultural geography, phenomenology, mobility and diaspora, travel writing, cinema and visual culture, the Arctic, island narratives, and railway fiction.
Markku Salmela studies literature and culture mostly from spatial perspectives. His research interests include city literature, landscape studies, American literature, postmodernism, waste studies and the various links between literature and geography.
Dieter Hermann Schmitz, Lic.Phil., studies the use of literature in university teaching, the didactical questions related to it and the role of literature in modern philology as well as practical applications. He defines literature in its broadest sense as an aesthetic form of narrative.
Maija Tervola, PhD, is a university teacher of Finnish language and culture. She studies Finnish as a second language, i.e. S2 language skills and the adequacy of language skills. In particular, her research focuses on the Finnish language skills of university students and doctors.
Mattia Thibault is a Professor in Translation in the Creative Industries at Tampere University and has a PhD in Semiotics and Media (Turin University). His research interests include semiotics and translation, extended realities, speculative research, and playfulness in the built environment (real and digital). He is the leader of the InterReality Research Group which focuses on the relations between different “virtual” spaces (digital or possible) and their connections with the “real” world.
Elina Vasu is a University Lecturer in English Linguistics. Her research interests include teaching and learning second-language speech, and second-language speech intelligibility, comprehensibility, accent, and fluency. (In-service) teacher training is an important part of Elina Vasu’s work.
Anu Viljanmaa: interpreting studies, interpreter’s professional listening competence, interaction in interpreter-mediated communication, listening in interpersonal communication, listening filters, emotions in interpreting, dialogue interpreting, public service interpreting, court interpreting, qualitative interviews, qualitative content analysis