The event started with light refreshments provided by the Languages Unit, with the presenters and the audience given a few minutes to mingle before the presentations began.
The book presentations started with Professor Johannes Riquet of the English Language Department talking about two of his recent publications. The first, titled The Mediated Arctic: Poetics and Politics of Contemporary Circumpolar Geographies, was published by Manchester University Press in September 2024 and consists of 11 chapters analysing the multiple relations between geography and cultural production that have long shaped – and are currently transforming – the circumpolar world. This volume edited by Prof. Riquet explores how twenty-first-century cultural practitioners imagine and poeticise various elements of Arctic geography, and in doing so negotiate pressing environmental, (geo)political, and social concerns.
Prof. Riquet then proceeded to present the volume Circumpolar Connections: Creative Indigenous Geographies of the Arctic which he edited together with his colleagues Liisa-Rávná Finbog, a Sámi Indigenous scholar, duojár, author, and curator, and Joan Naviyuk Kane, the author of ten collections of poetry and prose, her family roots being from Ugiuvak and Qawiaraq. The volume, which was published with Wesleyan University Press in April 2025, is an innovatively foundational book about experiences and conceptions of geography in the circumpolar world. It centers Arctic writers and artists as creators of space and disseminators of geographical knowledge emerging from Indigenous epistemologies, as well as demonstrates the diversity of indigenous art: poetry, prose, essays, paintings, photographs, and mixed media artworks. The languages of the book range from English and Russian to North Sámi, Kalaallisut, and Sakha. A unique work of art and academic thought, the volume is bound to reach out to global audiences, both within and beyond academia.
Creative Indigenous Geographies of the Arctic’
Professor Emeritus Klaus Laalo took over and presented his monograph Lapsenkielen Uudissanat (Neologisms in Finnish-speaking children’s language) published by Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura in 2024. As can be inferred from the title, the focus of this book is innovative derived words and compounds used by Finnish-speaking children. The monograph studies in depth various derivational models used by children, as well as compares the ways in which those models are used at different age stages.
The next book presented at the launch was the volume Translation im Kontext published in open access by FRANK & TIMME in 2024. The 146th volume of the series TRANSÜD. Arbeiten zur Theorie und Praxis des Übersetzens und Dolmetschens edited by Prof. Sigmund Kvam, Dr. Anastasia Parianou, Dr. Jürgen F. Schopp, Prof. Kåre Solfjeld, and Anu Viljanmaa was presented by Dr. Jürgen F. Schopp. Among the authors of the 15 chapters of the volume is Plural scholar Dr. Anu Viljanmaa, whose chapter Wenn der Kontext selbst erarbeitet werden muss: Kontextualisierung und Monitoring beim On-Demand-Telefondolmetschen addresses contextualization and monitoring in on-demand telephone interpreting as a specific form of remote interpreting.
After that, the floor was taken by Dr. Peter Slomanson who presented the volume New Research on Circum-Caribbean Creoles and Language Contact published by in open access Language Science Press in 2024. The volume, of which Dr. Slomanson is a co-editor together with Prof. Angela Bartens of Turku University and Kristoffer Friis Bøegh, a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University, features research papers dealing with creolised and partially restructured language varieties in the wider Caribbean region. Consisting of an engagingly written introduction and six chapters covering diverse geographies and aspects of creole languages, the volume aims both to validate new contact language research with this regional focus, as well as to stimulate further research on the fascinating language varieties that have developed and continue to thrive in the Caribbean region.
The English Language Department was also represented by the Director of Plural Research Centre, Professor Daria Dayter, who presented the volume Manipulation, Influence and Deception: The Changing Landscape of Persuasive Language which she co-edited with her long-term colleague and co-author Dr. Sofia Rüdiger, a postdoctoral researcher at Universität Bayreuth. The volume published in April 2025 by Cambridge University Press is a study of persuasive language that brings together cutting-edge research from a team of internationally acclaimed experts.
Each of the 14 chapters of the book offers empirical insights from a certain scholarly perspective (e.g., forensic linguistics, pragmatics, phonetics and human-robot interactions) and opens with a comprehensive introductory chapter, making the research accessible to readers without extensive background knowledge. Providing interdisciplinary approaches to the language of persuasion, the volume showcases various methodological approaches, such as conversation analysis, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis and experimental studies.
The discussion on linguistic methodology was continued by Dr. Mark Kaunisto who presented the volume which he co-edited with PD Dr. Marco Schilk of University of Hildesheim. The volume titled Challenges in Corpus Linguistics: Rethinking corpus compilation and analysis was published with John Benjamins in September 2024. The nine chapters of the book address problems relating to a variety of areas in corpus linguistics study, including corpus annotation, data variability, learner language, social media texts, and database utilization. Through critical overviews and research-based analyses, the nature of common pitfalls is discussed and solutions to existing problems are offered.
The focus shifted from linguistics and English studies when Dr. Saara Ratilainen of the Russian Language Department presented the volume Geopolitics and Culture: Narrating Eastern European and Eurasian Worlds published by Lexington Books in 2025 and co-edited by Professor Sanna Turoma, Dr. Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus of University of Helsinki, and Dr. Raatilainen herself. The introduction highlights the editors’ objective to apply a decolonising approach to the study of popular geopolitics and to venture beyond Anglophone spaces and discourses.
Inspired by geopolitics and culture, the 11 chapters of the volume address the link between geopolitical narratives, global and regional hierarchies, and popular cultural production in the Eastern European context. The research foci explored in the volume contributions range from literature and cinema to travel blogging and urban spaces.
The audience was also presented the volume Sprache der Gegenwart – Sprache für die Zukunft edited collaboratively by Plural scholars: Dr. Arja Nurmi, Prof. Maija Hirvonen, Dr. Marja Kivilehto, Dr. Dinah Krenzler-Behm, doctoral student Henrik Oksanen, Dr. Dieter Hermann Schmitz, and Dr. Anu Viljanmaa. The book was published by Société Néophilologique in Otober 2024 as the 111th volume in the Mémoires de la société Néophiloligique publication series. The volume, which includes 12 chapters and an introduction and which is available online, is based on the 57th Linguistics Colloquium which took place at Tampere University from September 21 to 23, 2022. The contributions, which are in German and English, reflect the conference theme, “Language of the Present, Language for the Future,” and cover a variety of topics: “newer” forms of linguistic communication, current linguistic developments in society, historical aspects of linguistic studies, comparative linguistics, language needs in business communication, foreign language teaching, and language change.
The last presentation was devoted to the volume Political Argumentation in Early America Informal Fallacies in Selected Debates 1789 to 1800 co-authored by Dr. Juhani Rudanko and Dr. Paul Rickman. The book, which was published with Palgrave Macmillan in 2025, investigates the language used by protagonists in four major political debates in the early history of the United States. The first of these concerns the controversy in the first United States House of Representatives in the summer of 1789 on whether a proposal for a bill of rights should be considered in an expeditious fashion or whether the issue should be left till much later. The second is the principal debate on whether a sedition act should be enacted in July 1798, and the third concerns the enactment of the Logan Act of 1799. The fourth investigates the elections for the Legislature of the State of New York in the spring of 1800, which was the key event affecting the outcome of the presidential election of 1800. Analysing each of these cases, the authors demonstrate how fallacy theory can be used as a critical tool in the examination of political argumentation.
The presentations of the diverse, topical, and fascinating research carried out by Plural members and their external co-editors and co-authors sparked lively discussions among those present at the book launch. The mutual agreement was that the event was a success and, circumstances permitting, is worth organising again in the future. We would like to extend our thanks to all the authors who presented their publications at this joint event and to everyone who attended it to support the presenters and to engage in thought-provoking debate. Last but not least, we are very thankful to the management of the Languages Unit for providing drinks and refreshments for the book launch: this helped make the event truly festive, and the spirit of celebration was definitely in the air!
