www.swansea.ac.uk Postgraduate Prospectus 2012

MODERN LANGUAGES AND TRANSLATION66RESEARCH DEGREES – MODERNLANGUAGES AND TRANSLATIONModern Languages at Swansea encompasses theacademic areas of French, German, Hispanic Studies,Italian, and Translation, specialising in literature,cinema, and the practice and theory of translation.The Department of Languages, Translation and Mediawelcomes proposals for postgraduate research projectsthat complement staff research interests.Research degrees in Modern Languages and Translation will:• provide you with new and specialised research skills• prepare you for a career in academic research and teaching• equip you with skills relevant for a rewarding career in a rangeof other diverse fields, including translation, interpreting,teaching, management, and international business• enable you to deepen your knowledge of your area ofspecialist interest.The Department benefits from extensive library holdings andmaintains a large collection of audio-visual materials. All researchstudents are provided with a networked PC and workspace indedicated research student rooms. Translation PhD students haveaccess to a computer-based language laboratory, a satellite TVand video-editing lab, an advanced Translation and Mediacomputing lab and a more specialised Translation Researchfacility housing the latest digitisation, corpus analysis and computerassistedtranslation tools.Research StrengthsFrenchAreas of special interest and expertise include the following:• Medieval Literature, especially women writers• Eighteenth century drama, fiction and literary ideas (includingThéâtre de la foire, the plays of Marivaux, Diderot)• Nineteenth and twentieth century novelists (Balzac, Zola, Proust)• Women’s writing and Gender (Simone de Beauvoir, MargueriteDuras, Françoise Sagan)• Drama of the twentieth century• Politics and literature (eighteenth, nineteenth and twentiethcenturies)• Politics and religion• Area Studies (history of social and political ideas, propagandaand literary discourse)• Colonialism and postcolonialism, relating in particular to Algeria,Indochina, and Francophone Africa• War and Culture studies.GermanMuch of our activity in German is concentrated in the Centre forContemporary German Culture which has produced more than adozen PhDs since its foundation in 1993. Current topics are:‘Intercultural Encounters in the Writings of Michael Roes’ (AHRCfunded); and ‘The Trope of the Good German in American andGerman Film since 1990’.The Centre’s focal points include:• Women’s writing• Turkish-German writing• German-Jewish writing• German writing from Eastern and Central Europe• Baader Meinhof and the Novel• Crime FictionWe have also specialists on Germany’s two recent NobelLaureates, Günter Grass (1999) and Herta Müller (2009).Other specialisms include:• Ballads and popular culture from the seventeenth century tothe present day• Romanticism, particularly Hoffmann• Nineteenth century realism, particularly Stifter and Fontane• Nietzsche• The German-language Modernist novel, particularly Broch,Kafka, Thomas Mann, Musil, and the Canettis.Current PhD topic: ‘The Literary Dream in German CentralEurope,1900-1925: A Selective Study of the Writings of Kafka,Kubin, Meyrink, Musil, and Schnitzler’.SpanishAreas of special interest and expertise include the following:• Golden-age literature• Nineteenth and twentieth century poetry• Twentieth century Spanish theatre• Catalan poetry• Catalan theatre• Contemporary Spanish film• National and regional identity in post-Franco Spain• Literary translation.ItalianStrengths in Italian are mainly in the twentieth and twenty-firstcenturies and include:• Narrative, esp. Eco• Crime fiction in the 1930s• Contemporary theatre, esp. Pirandello and Fo.Spanish AmericaResearch in this area is conducted throughthe Centre for Comparative Research intothe Americas in collaboration with staff andresearch students in American Studies.Areas of special interest are:• Twentieth century prose and poetry• Women’s writing and gender;feminist theory• Contemporary Spanish American film• Spanish American nation building• Twentieth century Argentine literatureand culture• Twentieth century Chilean literatureand culture.TranslationStaff research interests in Translation covera range of themes,including:• Literary Translation• Translation Theory (including non-Western)• History of Translation• Comparative Translation Studies• Corpus-based Translation Analysis• Translation and the Lexicon• Computer-based Lexicography andTerminographyResearch opportunitiesMA by Research/MPhil, PhDDistance PhD programme in AppliedLinguisticsRAE2008French: 35% of research rated world-leading(4*) or internationally excellent (3*)German: 50% of research rated worldleading(4*) or internationally excellent (3*)Italian: 40% of research rated internationallyexcellent (3*)Hispanic Studies: 45% of research rated worldleading(4*) or internationally excellent (3*)Linguistics: 60% of research rated worldleading(4*) or internationally excellent (3*)Welsh: 65% of research rated world-leading(4*) or internationally excellent (3*)• Translation Processes: Psycholinguisticsof translation, translation workflows• Comparative translation software analysis.Applications are encouraged for full-time orpart-time research towards a PhD in any ofthese areas and relating to any of thelanguages taught (including Catalan,Chinese, English, French, German, Italian,Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Welsh).Current PhDs include two AHRC-fundedprojects on comparative morphology(English/French) and German Translationsof Shakespeare’s Sonnets.Research Institute for Arts and HumanitiesThe Research Institute for Arts and Humanities(RIAH) supports two major Research Centres:the Richard Burton Centre for the Study ofWales, an interdisciplinary forum that focuseson the cultural and historical traditions in theWelsh and English languages; and theCallaghan Centre for the Study of Conflict.RIAH supports a wide range of otherresearch groups, which provide a focus forspecialist projects, postgraduate research,grant applications, seminar series, andcontact with external partners.ProfessorsD F ConnonJ E PreeceD J GeorgeA RothwellAcademic and research staff 35D A G LargeD G WaltersPostgraduates 213Entry requirementsNormally a good Honours degrees (firstclassor 2:1) and a Master’s degree in amodern language.English Language requirement:IELTS 6.5 (with a minimum of 5.5 in eachcomponent) or Swansea Universityrecognised equivalent.Scholarships and BursariesA range of postgraduate scholarships andbursaries is available. For details, please visitwww.swansea.ac.uk/scholarships/PostgraduateThere are a number of other flourishingresearch groups in Modern EuropeanLiteratures and Cultures, including:• GENCAS, the Centre for Research intoGender in Culture and Society• MEICAM, Modern European Ideologies,Conflict and Memory• TRAM, Translation Research andMultilingualism.For further information about RIAH, visit:www.swansea.ac.uk/artsandhumanities/riahAll research students in Languages,Translation and Media belong to theGraduate Centre in the College of Arts andHumanities. The Centre provides pastoral aswell as administrative support and is alsoresponsible for research skills training andsupport, and facilitating a lively intellectualenvironment for the College's postgraduateresearch community of 200 students.Further informationWebsite: www.swansea.ac.uk/languagesContact the Admissions Tutor:Email: COAHGradCentrePGRAdmissions@swansea.ac.ukTel: +44 (0)1792 295926Visit the University:see page 182 for detailsApplications can be made online at:www.swansea.ac.uk/applyonline – seepages 184 – 185 for further informationFor details of the Master’s coursesavailable in Modern Languages andTranslation, please see page 124.67RESEARCH DEGREES – MODERNLANGUAGES AND TRANSLATION