Linguistics (Modern Languages) PhD

This course focuses on the research of a linguistic topic related of one or more modern languages.

Research overview

A PhD in linguistics (modern languages) allows you to research a linguistic topic related to one or more modern languages.

You can research any modern language but the school has particular expertise in French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian-Croatian, as well as expertise in Italian and Chinese.

The course is normally completed in three years full-time or six years part-time. You will follow a course of directed research under the supervision of your supervisors. This will lead to the completion of an 80,000-word thesis.

Research areas

Modern languages at Nottingham is a leading centre for research in French and Francophone studies, German studies, Russian and Slavonic studies, and Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies.

Our internationally-rated research spans eight interlinked, cross-disciplinary areas, with six collaborative research centres and groups and a peer-reviewed journal. Nottingham is also an important centre for the study of Contemporary China.

Our areas of expertise in linguistics include the following:

• Sociolinguistics (including language standardisation, historical sociolinguistics)
• History of linguistics (such as history of ideas about language, including the history of grammar-writing of particular languages)
• Pragmatics and interactional linguistics (including conversation analysis in workplace and institutional settings, politeness studies, intercultural communication studies)
• Discourse analysis
• Translation and interpreting studies
• Corpus linguistics (especially diachronic linguistics)
• Applied linguistics, especially foreign/second language education and its history
• Historical linguistics

Careers

Many of our postgraduates have chosen academic careers and are currently in full-time posts in the UK. Others have moved into the civil service, the cultural industries, the media, publishing, teaching or translation.

The research training all our postgraduates follow equips them with a range of key transferable skills, such as analytical thinking, time management, and presentation and research skills.