Postgraduate Prospectus

www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics | Linguistics
Tony Lilley OBE, BA London, CertEd
(TEFL) Bangor, MA Essex (Senior
Lecturer)
ELT, ESP and the role of applied
linguistics in language teaching, language
testing and teacher development
Peter Patrick, BA Georgia, PhD
Pennsylvania (Professor)
Language variation and change; creoles
and language contact; North American
and Caribbean Englishes; sociolinguistics
and urban dialectology; legal and medical
discourse
Bojana Petric, BA MA Yugoslavia, PhD
Budapest (Lecturer)
Applied linguistics; ELT; academic writing;
ESP; intercultural communication
Andrew Radford, BA PhD Cambridge
(Professor)
Syntax, including the acquisition of syntax
by monolingual children, bilingual children
and children with specific language
impairment
MA Phonology•
MA Phonology examines universal and
language-specific patterns of sound, and
provides you with the theoretical machinery
for their formalisation. You survey the main
aspects of phonology: auto segmental
architecture, distinctive features and their
geometry, syllables, metrical structure,
interaction with morphology, prosodic
domains and their hierarchy, principles and
parameters, and constraints. We engage
the dilemma of rules and derivations vs
output constraints (cf Optimality Theory)
and offer a range of options including
sociophonology, psychological dimensions
of speech and phonological disorders.
Karen Roehr, MA Hamburg, PhD
Lancaster (Lecturer)
Second language acquisition, especially
instructed language learning,
metalinguistic knowledge and individual
learner differences; first language
acquisition and cognitive-functional
theories of language
Louisa Sadler, BA Sussex, MA PhD
Essex (Professor)
LFG; HPSG; computational linguistics;
the morphology-syntax interface; Welsh
Phil Scholfield, BA Cambridge, CertEd
(TEFL) Bangor (Senior Lecturer)
Vocabulary in the reading, writing and
learning activities of learners of English;
learner strategies; empirical methods in
language research
Andrew Spencer, BSc Sussex, PhD
Essex (Professor)
Morphological theory; the
morphology-syntax interface; argument
structure and lexical semantics; Slavic
linguistics; the languages of the former
Soviet Union
MA Psycholinguistics and
Neurolinguistics•
This course provides a thorough grounding
in research on human language processing
and the representation of language in the
brain and language disorders. You
investigate similarities and differences
in the processing of sounds, words and
sentences, look at different kinds of
language impairment (for example, aphasia,
specific language impairment or Williams
Syndrome) and investigate the relevance of
data from human language processing and
language disorders to our understanding of
the nature of language, for example, on
issues such as the modularity of language.
MA Sociolinguistics•
This course gives you the theoretical
and analytical tools to understand and
evaluate current work in sociolinguistics,
and prepares you to undertake original
research. We familiarise you with
the foundations of contemporary
sociolinguistics (language variation
and change, discourse, multilingualism
and ethnography of speaking) and offer
modules in some of its most prominent
sub-disciplines (variation theory,
socio-pragmatics, conversation analysis,
language contact, language and gender,
and language rights). You gain first-hand
experience of data collection and learn
both quantitative and qualitative methods
of analysis.
MA Sociolinguistics of the Arab World•
This course provides a foundation in the
sociolinguistics and language variation of
Arabic and should interest you if you plan
to pursue a doctorate by research on topics
in Arabic linguistics, as we provide you with
the necessary grounding in the external
and internal histories of the language. You
will learn the theoretical and analytical tools
to evaluate and understand current issues
in Arabic sociolinguistics, and be prepared
to undertake original research. You gain
first-hand experience of data collection
and training in methods of analysis. Our
core modules include those focusing on
sociolinguistic theory and sociolinguistic
methods, and variation in Arabic and the
sociolinguistics of Arabic-speaking
communities.
MA Syntax•
If you have little or no previous background
in syntactic theory, then our MA Syntax
gives you a good grounding in the most
influential current models within generative
syntax: Chomsky’s minimalist programme
on the one hand, and lexical-functional
grammar (LFG) and head-driven phrase
structure grammar (HPSG) framework
on the other. We also offer specialised
modules which bring you up-to-date with
recent research in more specific areas of
syntax, or in areas which impinge on syntax
(eg morphology and semantics).
Postgraduate Prospectus 2012 | 155