Linguistics

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 NINEDTP 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:

• Acquired Speech and Language Disorders
• Applied Linguistics and Communication
• Child Language
• Language Evolution, Acquisition and Development (LEAD)
• Experimental Phonetics and Phonology
• Linguistic Theory
• Language Variation and Change

Queen’s University Belfast hosts expertise across a broad range of areas, coordinated through the Centre for Research in Linguistics. Among other activities, the Centre sponsors international conferences as well as a student-led postgraduate conference where keynotes have been presented by scholars such as Deborah Cameron, Paul Kerswill and Ruth Wodak. The Centre shares and promotes activity in linguistics across the areas of English, Modern Languages and Education. Information about current research projects at Queen’s Belfast can be found here.