MA in Linguistics
Manchester, United Kingdom
DURATION
1 up to 2 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
Request earliest startdate
TUITION FEES
GBP 23,500 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* UK students: £11,000 per annum | international students: £23,500 per annum
Introduction
A specialist master's offering a thorough grounding in the full breadth and depth of linguistic theory.
Course overview
- Gain a thorough grounding in the full breadth and depth of linguistic theory.
- Access innovative resources, including psycholinguistics and phonetics laboratories with facilities for signal analysis, speech synthesis, laryngography and electropalatography.
- Build the necessary intellectual skills to plan and carry out independent research.
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
Each year the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures offer a number of School awards and Subject-specific bursaries (the values of which are usually set at the Home/EU fees level), open to both Home/EU and international students. The deadline for these is early February each year.
For University of Manchester graduates, the Manchester Alumni Bursary offers a £3,000 reduction in tuition fees to University of Manchester alumni who achieved a First within the last three years and are progressing to a postgraduate taught master's course.
The Manchester Master's Bursary is a University-wide scheme that offers 100 bursaries worth £3,000 in funding for students from underrepresented groups.
Postgraduate 1+3 funding is available from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for students to pursue postgraduate study through a master's (one year) leading into a PhD (3 years). It requires a project proposal as part of the application.
Curriculum
Our MA Linguistics master's course is a flexible programme that aims to explore the breadth and depth of linguistics.
It builds on the widest range of teaching and research expertise, covering all aspects of theoretical and descriptive linguistics, including:
- phonetics
- phonology
- morphology
- syntax
- semantics
- pragmatics
- discourse and conversation analysis
- typology
- historical linguistics
- sociolinguistics
- cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics
- computational and corpus linguistics
- field linguistics
- the documentation and description of endangered languages.
Our teaching staff work on various practical applications of linguistics (eg language codification and language policy, institutional language, language in the community, forensic linguistics).
Our internationally-recognised expertise encompasses a breadth of languages, including English and other Germanic languages, Romance languages, Polish, Amerindian languages, languages of South Asia, indigenous languages of Australia and historical languages such as Old English.
You will receive a solid foundation for linguistic study in four out of five core units:
- Grammatical Theory (compulsory);
- Phonetics and Phonology (compulsory);
- Semantics and Pragmatics;
- Sociolinguistics;
- Psycholinguistics.
The remainder of the course allows you to make the most of what our staff have to offer.
You can take a variety of course units in different areas, including Forensic Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, Language Development, Language Policy.
Course unit details
You will undertake units totalling 180 credits. Mandatory, core and optional units combine to make 120 credits, with the remaining 60 credits allocated to the dissertation.
This MA consists of the following elements:
- mandatory core course units - Research Methods (15 credits); Introduction to Grammatical Theory (15 credits), Phonetics and Phonology (15 credits),
- and at least two of the following core course units: Semantics and Pragmatics (15 credits), Psycholinguistics (15 credits) and The Sociolinguistics of English (15 credits).
- optional course units (45 credits altogether);
- dissertation (60 credits).
Subject to Programme Director approval at the beginning of the academic year, it might be possible to waive some of the mandatory course unit requirements and replace them with optional units, if you can provide evidence of relevant previous knowledge and competencies. In borderline cases, you may be asked to take a proficiency test in Welcome Week.
One or two optional course units may be taken from a list of enhanced Level 3 undergraduate course units in Linguistics and English Language, which supplement the MA-specific course units on offer or from a list of MA course units available in other related subjects areas. Some optional course units may take the form of Directed Reading units, which are individual or small group seminars about set readings on a particular topic. These are available after consultation with an appropriate member of staff and the Programme Director. Please note that individual optional units that are part of our programme may not be available in any given year.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
Studying Linguistics will equip you with a range of sought-after transferable skills, including written and oral communication skills, computing skills, intercultural awareness and research methods.
This course will also develop skills that will be useful in undertaking postgraduate research.
Career destinations for our graduates include language teaching, language policy, speech and language therapy, publishing and communications.
The University has its own dedicated Careers Service that you would have full access to as a student and for two years after you graduate. At Manchester, you will have access to a number of opportunities to help boost your employability.