Linguistics

The Linguistics Pathway is offered at Newcastle and Queen’s University Belfast

Language in the form of speech or signs is key to what it means to be human. Not only does this remarkable capacity drive our thought processes but it enables communication between individuals and societies. Language is also central to maintaining social relationships and for transferring information from one generation to the next. Linguistics is the scientific study of this uniquely human talent. In the Linguistics Pathway, we explore how language is structured, how this capacity evolved and how it is learned and exploited (across individuals and contexts as well as time and space). We also explore ways to tackle speech, language and communication disorders from both developmental and acquired perspectives.

The Linguistics pathway in NINE DTP is offered by scholars from Newcastle University and Queen’s University Belfast. At Newcastle, the pathway brings together expertise from the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, and the School of Modern Languages and at Queen’s Belfast participation is organised by the School of Arts, English and Languages.

Newcastle University’s community of researchers in Linguistics and Language Sciences forms one of the largest such units nationally and the environment it provides was key to UoA26 being awarded a score of 100 for ‘research power’ in REF2021. We have collective expertise across the disciplines of applied linguistics, clinical linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and theoretical linguistics, but it is also a platform for the cross-fertilisation of inter- disciplinary research and methodologies. Experimental Linguistics at Newcastle has dedicated space and facilities, including specialised hardware and software such as Ultrasound Tongue Imaging, Electro-palatography, Electro-glottography, E-prime, and corpora such as the Chinese Treebank, ICE suite and the Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English.

Our research in Linguistics and Speech and Language Sciences at Newcastle falls into seven primary themes, with research frequently cross-cutting among themes:

Linguistics at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) is centred in the Centre for Research in Linguistics (CRiL) within the School of Arts, English and Languages. CRiL brings together researchers working across English, Irish, French and Translation Studies, creating a vibrant interdisciplinary environment for doctoral work. Research strengths include clinical speech and language, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, historical linguistics, language policy, language variation and change, lexicography, onomastics, phonetics and phonology, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, syntax, and translation studies. The Centre actively promotes collaboration across disciplines and supports cross-School doctoral supervision.

Doctoral researchers at QUB benefit from participation in an active research community through CRiL, the wider School of Arts, English and Languages, and the University’s Graduate School. Research students have opportunities to engage in specialist training, collaborative research activities, postgraduate conferences and professional development activities that support both academic and non-academic career pathways.

As a partner in the NINE Doctoral Training Partnership, QUB contributes established expertise in linguistics training and supervision and offers a stimulating and supportive research environment for students whose projects address the social, cultural, and communicative dimensions of language.

Current and recent research includes projects on language policy and community languages; multilingualism and social inclusion; language and dementia; the linguistic heritage of Ireland and Scotland; digital resources for the study of medieval Irish; and the documentation and analysis of Irish English using both historical and contemporary speech data. Our research also explores the role of language in media, law and public debate, including work on crime reporting, social justice, political discourse and public policy. More broadly, we engage with questions of language, speech, identity, cultural heritage, health, media and communication. This breadth of expertise provides an intellectually diverse environment for doctoral projects that address the social and cultural dimensions of language. In REF 2021, linguistics research in the School of Arts, English and Languages was represented across two Units of Assessment, (Modern Languages and Linguistics, and English Language and Literature), reflecting the breadth of linguistic research undertaken within the School.