The Graduate School of Language and Culture (GSLC) was launched in April 1989 as a master’s program with one major of language and culture, extended from the Department of Language and Culture, Osaka University, established in 1974. Two years later, in April 1991, a doctoral program was created to meet the further post-graduate study needs of the students in the master’s program. The GSLC is the first independent graduate school in the field, and includes experts from the areas of cultural, social and the natural sciences in order to develop an interdisciplinary educational research system. This is very much in response to the various issues in modern society concerned with advanced internationalization and informatization.
In 1991, Osaka University Association for Studies of Language and Society was founded by academic staff and students, and it started to publish its own academic journals from March 1992. In March 1994, the GSLC saw its first graduates from the doctoral program, along with the completion of the new school building. Collaborative projects in language and culture were started in 2000, and, since then, there have been over ten projects involving graduate students conducted and reported on every year.
In April 2005, the Department of Language and Culture was dismantled as part of a restructuring and expansion program, eagerly expected since the launch of the GSLC, and a new organization initiated featuring seven core programs, including two new ones.
In October 2007, following the consolidation of Osaka University and Osaka University of Foreign Studies, the GSLC underwent curriculum restructuring for Studies in Language and Culture, and the newly established Studies in Language and Society.
In April 2012, the Research Institute for World Languages was integrated into the GSLC, and the Studies in Japanese Language and Culture program was added.
