Postgraduate Prospectus

Linguistics | www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics
MA Teaching English as a Foreign
Language•
If you intend to become a professional
teacher of English but have little or no prior
teaching experience, then our MA Teaching
English as a Foreign Language offers you
vocationally-relevant training through
teaching practice and allows you to plan,
execute and reflect on real teaching. Our
core module, in both terms, is on materials
and methods of language teaching
together with practice of teaching real
classes. At least 20 other ELT/TESOL
modules are normally available as options.
Unlike our other courses, MA Teaching
English as a Foreign Language can only
accommodate a limited number of students,
so early application is advisable.
MA Varieties of English•
On this course you explore the variety
that exists in English, both geographically
and socially, as English is spoken by
hundreds of millions of people around
the world, as a first, second and additional
language. We consider how English came
to be spoken in many parts of the world,
the structural (phonological, morphological,
syntactic) differences between different
varieties of English, and the relationship
that this variation has to its speakers’
gender, ethnicity, regional origins and
other social factors.
We approach this diversity of English
within the framework of variationist
sociolinguistics, both theoretically and
methodologically, equipping you with the
skills to ask broader questions about the
nature of language variation and change,
as well as actually design and conduct
research yourself on some aspect of
variation in English. Our specialist options
include: pidgin and creole linguistics,
sociophonology, and language and gender.
MRes Analyzing Language Use•†
This course, which forms part of our
accredited Doctoral Training Centre of the
ESRC at Essex, provides tailored support
for the researcher-in-training in the analysis
of language use in diverse forms in
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different contexts. You gain familiarity with
contemporary work in sociolinguistics and
related fields such as conversation analysis,
and acquire the theoretical and practical
skills to pursue original research.
MRes Experimental Linguistics•†
This course, which forms part of our
accredited Doctoral Training Centre of
the ESRC at Essex, provides tailored
support for the researcher-in-training at the
interface of theoretical and experimental
work in linguistics. You choose from a range
of modules across all our core areas of
linguistics, and in psycholinguistics and
language acquisition, including modules
on experimental design and quantitative
research methods.
MRes Linguistics•
This course provides tailored support for
the researcher-in-training, in any of our
areas, with a range of subject-specific
and research-support graduate modules
available, according to the nature of your
dissertation project and newly developed
professional development training
modules. Language modules may be
taken as needed.
Compared to our MA courses, all our
MRes programmes offer flexibility and
fewer taught modules with an emphasis
on your dissertation and individual research
assignments. You must have a draft
research proposal at your application
stage and a supervisor is assigned to
you to guide your choice of modules
and work on your dissertation.
Diploma
If your first degree is in a subject other than
linguistics, we offer a full-time, nine-month
Diploma in Linguistics with English for
Academic Purposes.
If you obtain a Diploma with Merit or
Distinction, it may be possible for you to
automatically register for one of our taught
courses, so over the two years you gain a
thorough training in linguistics.
Research study
We have a large and thriving graduate
community, and provide an active and
stimulating environment for graduate study
with over 130 full and part-time research
students. We have a strong research group
culture, and our graduate students are
encouraged to take part in our weekly
Departmental Seminar which regularly
features eminent outside speakers. We
organise two conferences annually that
are specifically for our graduate students
to present work and gain valuable
conference presentation practice. There is
also an opportunity to publish your work in
our Essex Graduate Student Working
Papers in Linguistics series.
We aim to provide you with work and
storage space, including laboratory facilities
and access to online bibliographies, corpora
and other resources. Essex has excellent
library holdings in all areas of linguistics,
with online access to many periodicals
and resources. We have open access
computing labs running many software
packages that our research students need
in their work. We also have a number of
resources for conducting linguistic research
in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and
language acquisition.
Research degrees
You can study and investigate any of the
areas of language study covered by our
taught courses and we offer PhD•, MPhil•
and MA by supervised research•, and the
Integrated ‘new route’ PhD• which
combines training with supervised PhD
research. Our two kinds of research
degree are:
n
Our four-year route (the Integrated
‘new route’ PhD) where your first year
is a preparatory MRes year, so you take
six training modules and write an
assessed MRes dissertation. In your
second year, you embark on your
research topic and writing your thesis.
This programme is ideal if you wish
to develop your knowledge of existing
research and improve understanding
of research methods before embarking
on independent research.