university of york phd linguistics

Postgraduate

Application for PhD in Applied Linguistics

When would you like to start this programme.

• 2024 July, full-time
• 2024 July, part-time
• 2024 September, full-time
• 2024 September, part-time
• 2025 January, full-time
• 2025 January, part-time
• 2025 April, full-time
• 2025 April, part-time
• 2025 July, full-time
• 2025 July, part-time

Have the following documents ready

You will need to upload the following documents when you apply:

• Academic transcript
• Research proposal or outline of academic interests

You can also choose to upload:

• Your CV (curriculum vitae)
• Copy of a language certificate
• Personal statement

Graduate Admissions

Linguistics & applied linguistics.

In the one-year MA program you can move quickly toward your goals in a creative and welcoming environment. You can opt for a program in the linguistics field or in the applied linguistics field. The program focuses on the broad study of language and society, language variation and change and second language pedagogy.

The objectives of the PhD program are to educate candidates in linguistics and applied linguistics. The program approaches the study of language from a variety of perspectives, with a primary focus on language in its social context. Students may concentrate their research in any number of areas, ranging from core linguistics (phonetics/phonology and syntax), through sociolinguistics (discourse analysis, language contact and language variation and change), to applied linguistics (language policy and planning, issues of culture and identity, and language pedagogy). The different approaches of faculty interests provide students with the opportunity to conduct research that bridges fields within the program.

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Degrees Offered

Program component(s).

• Course work only
• OR Major research paper

Minimum Required GPA

Deadline - fall (all applicants), english proficiency requirement.

Duolingo scores are accepted for Summer 2021, Fall 2021 and Winter 2022 entry only.

• Qualifying examination(s)
• AND Dissertation proposal
• AND Dissertation

Deadline - Fall (Full-time Applicants Only)

Number of recommendation(s).

• 2 recommendation(s)

Other Requirements

• Statement of interest, 
• Course list
• Resumé or CV
• Sample of written work (max. 1,500 words)

Two additional documents are required of Applied Linguistics Field applicants only:

• Letter of employment
• Summary of teaching experience

Ways to connect with the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Program Supports

Have a program-related question.

Contact the graduate program assistant: yorku.ca/gradstudies/program-contacts/

Have an admission related question? Contact the Graduate Admissions Team

By phone: 416-872-9675

By email:   [email protected]

Upcoming graduate webinars/in-person events for Future Students: futurestudents.yorku.ca/events/graduate

York University Office of Admissions Bennett Centre for Student Services 99 Ian Macdonald Blvd Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 CANADA 

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Graduate Programs in Linguistics & Applied Linguistics

Located in Canada’s largest city, the Graduate Program in Linguistics & Applied Linguistics at York University is well known for the excellence of its faculty, students and teaching. Faculty research and supervision interests cover a broad spectrum of areas in the two offered fields of Linguistics & Applied Linguistics.

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Take your love of linguistics and applied linguistics to the next level with our MA program.

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Our flagship offering for students intent on pursuing advanced graduate studies.

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Graduate Program

The Ph.D. program in Linguistics is for students interested in a career in research. Students receive a solid training in the fundamentals of phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, neurolinguistics, language acquisition, and computational linguistics (see faculty groupings and links to personal pages below). Subsequently, students attend advanced courses and engage in creative research, presented in two qualifying papers and a dissertation. The program has a foreign language requirement.

All students have the opportunity to serve as a teaching assistant for one or more undergraduate courses, and are strongly encouraged to do so, though this is not a requirement of the program.

Our department does not offer any courses in applied linguistics. For such courses at NYU, please contact the TESOL Program in NYU's Steinhardt.

Students may only enroll in the Fall semester.

Phonetics and Phonology

Neurolinguistics

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Language Acquisition

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PhD Linguistics / Overview

Year of entry: 2024

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• Bachelor's (Honours) degree at 2:1 or above (or overseas equivalent); and 
• Master's degree in a relevant subject – with an overall average of 65% or above, a minimum mark of 65% in your dissertation and no mark below 55% (or overseas equivalent)

Full entry requirements

Apply online

Please ensure you include all  required supporting documents  at the time of submission, as incomplete applications may not be considered. 

Application Deadlines 

For consideration in internal funding competitions, you must submit your completed application by  12 January 2024. 

If you are applying for or have secured external funding (for example, from an employer or government) or are self–funding, you must submit your application before the below deadlines to be considered. You will not be able to apply after these dates have passed. 

• For September 2024 entry:  30 June 2024 
• For January 2025 entry:  30 September 2024

Programme options

Programme overview.

• Access expert supervision across an exceptional breadth of research areas in Linguistics.
• Join a vibrant and lively international centre for Linguistics with an active postgraduate research community.  
• Alongside an exceptionally large cluster of experts on English language, we have particular strengths in Romance, Germanic, and Austronesian languages, as well as the languages of Latin America and Africa.
• 92% of our research activity was recognised as 'world leading' or `internationally excellent' REF2021.

We will be conducting our Humanities PGR virtual open week in October 2024. Find out more about future events and postgraduate research sessions by signing up for our email alerts. 

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2024, the tuition fees are as follows:

• PhD (full-time) UK students (per annum): £4,786 International, including EU, students (per annum): £21,500
• PhD (part-time) UK students (per annum): £2,393

Further information for EU students can be found on our dedicated EU page.

Please note for the majority of projects where experimentation requires further resource: higher fee bands (where quoted) will be charged rather than the base rate for supervision, administration and computational costs. The fees quoted above will be fully inclusive and, therefore, you will not be required to pay any additional bench fees or administration costs.

All fees for entry will be subject to yearly review and incremental rises per annum are also likely over the duration of the course for UK/EU students (fees are typically fixed for International students, for the course duration at the year of entry). For general fees information please visit: postgraduate fees . Always contact the department if you are unsure which fee applies to your project.

Scholarships/sponsorships

There are a range of scholarships, studentships and awards to support both UK and overseas postgraduate researchers, details of which can be found via the links below.

To apply University of Manchester funding, you must indicate in your application the competitions for which you wish to be considered. The deadline for most internal competitions, including AHRC NWCDTP and School of Arts, Languages and Cultures studentships is 12 January 2024. 

All external funding competitions have a specified deadline for submitting the funding application form and a separate (earlier) deadline for submitting the online programme application form, both of which will be stated in the funding competition details below.  

For more information about funding, visit our funding page to browse for scholarships, studentships and awards you may be eligible for.

• ESRC North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP) PhD Studentships - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• AHRC North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP) PhD Studentships - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• School of Arts, Languages and Cultures PhD Studentships 2024 Entry - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• China Scholarship Council - The University of Manchester (CSC-UoM) Joint Scholarship Programme - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• School of Arts, Languages and Cultures New Generation PhD Studentships - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• President's Doctoral Scholar (PDS) Awards - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• Trudeau Doctoral Scholarships 2024 Entry
• Commonwealth PhD Scholarships (High Income Countries)
• Humanities Doctoral Academy Humanitarian Scholarship 2024 Entry
• Commonwealth PhD Scholarships (Least Developed Countries and Fragile States)

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Programmes in related subject areas

Use the links below to view lists of programmes in related subject areas.

• Linguistics and English Language

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You can find regulations and policies relating to student life at The University of Manchester, including our Degree Regulations and Complaints Procedure, on our regulations website .

• The Graduate School >
• Graduate News >
• Novel global study using investigators as participants finds shared acoustic relationships among the world’s languages and music

Novel global study using investigators as participants finds shared acoustic relationships among the world’s languages and music

By Bert Gambini

Release Date: May 15, 2024

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A University at Buffalo psychologist is part of a global research team that has identified specific acoustic relationships that distinguish speech, song and instrumental music across cultures.

The study published in the journal Science Advances , which involved experts in ethnomusicology, music psychology, linguistics and evolutionary biology, compared instrumental melodies along with songs, lyrics and speech in 55 languages. The findings provide an international perspective supporting ideas about how the world’s music and languages evolved into their current states.

“There are many ways to look at the acoustic features of singing versus speaking, but we found the same three significant features across all the cultures we examined that distinguish song from speech,” said Peter Pfordresher, PhD , a professor of psychology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, and one of the 75 contributors to a unique project that involved the researchers assuming the dual roles of investigator and participant.

The three features are:

• Singing tends to be slower than speaking across all the cultures studied.
• People tend to produce more stable pitches when singing as opposed to speaking.
• Overall, singing pitch is higher than spoken pitch.

The exact evolutionary pressures responsible for shaping human behaviors are difficult to identify, but the new paper provides insights regarding the shared, cross-cultural similarities and differences in language and music − both of which are found in highly diverse forms across every human culture.

Pfordresher says the leading theory, advanced by the paper’s senior author, Patrick Savage, PhD, senior research fellow at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, is that music evolved to promote social bonding .

“When people make music, and this is the case around the world, they tend to do so collectively. They synchronize and harmonize with each other,” says Pfordresher. “The features we found that distinguish music from speech fit well with that theory.”

Think about tempo as a mechanism to encourage music’s social aspects. Being in sync becomes more difficult as tempo increases. When the tempo slows, the rhythm becomes predictable and easier to follow. Music becomes a more social enterprise.

It’s the same with pitch stability, according to Pfordresher.

“It’s much easier to match a stable pitch with someone else, to be in sync with the collective, than is the case when a pitch is wavering,” he says.

Similarly, it’s possible that the higher pitches found in singing happen as a byproduct of songs being produced at a slower rate.

“Slower production rates require a greater volume of air in the lungs,” explains Pfordresher. “Greater air pressure in the vocal system increases pitch.”

Conversational speech, in contrast, is not synchronized. Conversations generally alternate between people.

“I would speculate that conversational speech is faster than song because people want to hold on to the stage. They don’t want to provide false cues that they’ve finished, in essence handing the conversation off to another speaker,” says Pfordresher. “Pausing in a conversation or speaking slowly often indicates that it’s another person’s turn to speak.”

The study’s novel structure, with its investigators as participants, is part of the increasingly global nature of music cognition research. Savage and Yuto Ozaki, PhD, the lead author from Keio University in Japan, recruited researchers from Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific, who spoke languages that included Yoruba, Mandarin, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Ukrainian, Russian, Balinese, Cherokee, Kannada, Spanish, Aynu, English and dozens more .

“First, we used this structure to counteract the unfortunate tradition of extractive research in cross-cultural musical studies in which researchers from the developed world collect, or extract, data from a culture in the developing world, and use the data to promote their own success,” says Pfordresher.

The second reason has more to do with the validity of the data.

“Our analyses require annotation of syllable and note onsets in songs and speech from around the world,” says Pfordresher. “No single investigator knows all of these languages. By having each investigator participate and thus check their own annotations, we add additional validity to our study.”

Each investigator-participant chose a song of national significance from their culture. Pfordresher selected “America the Beautiful.” Savage chose “Scarborough Fair.” Ozaki sang the Japanese folk song “Ōmori Jinku.”

Participants sang the song first; performed an instrumental version next on an instrument of their choice; and then recited the lyrics. They also provided an explanation for their choice as a free-form speech condition of the study. All four conditions were recorded and then segmented.

To avoid the possibility of bias creeping into the data, Pfordresher explained that not all investigators were involved in generating the study’s initial set of hypotheses. All of the authors looked at the data, but did so to make sure there were no differences between the initial group and those others.

“We do hope to follow up this study with other research that has authors from around the world sample data from within their cultures,” says Pfordresher.

Media Contact Information

Bert Gambini News Content Manager Humanities, Economics, Social Sciences, Social Work, Libraries Tel: 716-645-5334 [email protected]

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PhD in Linguistics

University of york, different course options.

• Key information

Course Summary

Tuition fees, entry requirements, similar courses at different universities, key information data source : idp connect, qualification type.

PhD/DPhil - Doctor of Philosophy

Subject areas

Linguistics

Course type

While the majority of your time is spent conducting your own research, you are also part of the life and culture of the Department.

In year 1 you undertake research training with your fellow students and staff, giving you invaluable insights into academic and research life as well as helping you to develop both general and subject-specific research skills. You might also audit some Masters-level classes to enhance your knowledge and skills. This training programme is designed at an individual level in consultation with the supervisor(s).

Throughout your three years you also engage with other researchers through Departmental seminars, activities organised by research groups, specialised training events, conferences, and collaborative events with national or international research partners.

You have access to top quality research facilities. We have dedicated laboratories for psycholinguistics (including eye tracking equipment, head turn facility, e-prime, Matlab) and forensic speech science (providing access to authentic forensic case materials, automatic speech recognition software, and speech analysis software). We also have a brand new professional-level recording suite. All postgraduates in Language and Linguistic Science have access to the facilities available in the Humanities Research Centre.

Your research progress is monitored through regular meetings with your supervisor(s), biannual meetings of your full thesis advisory panel, and a formal review each year with an independent progression panel.

UK fees Course fees for UK students

For this course (per year)

International fees Course fees for EU and international students

Typically you’ll need at least the equivalent to a UK upper second-class (2:1) honours degree and, in some cases, a Masters degree. Actual requirements vary by course.

English Language and Linguistics MA

University of westminster, london, mphil/phd in modern languages and applied linguistics, manchester metropolitan university, master's by research in modern languages and applied linguistics, ma applied linguistics, space syntax: architecture and cities mres, ucl (university college london).

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Costs and Financial Aid

Information for part-time graduate students, affordable excellence..

As the State University of New York (SUNY) flagship, Stony Brook's tuition rate is among the most affordable of all top-tier universities in the nation. SUNY tuition and fees are nearly 15% lower than the national average for public universities and 50% lower than private institutions. 

This value also extends to out-of-state graduate students enrolled in fully online programs who receive a discounted tuition rate with a savings of more than 40%. ( Restrictions apply .)

Cost of Attendance*

Tuition and fees as of fall 2023.

• Part-time New York State residents pay $1,832.49 for a three-credit course (or $18,324.90 for the complete 10-course program).
• Out-of-state Online students pay $2,114.49 for a three-credit course (or $21, 122.90 for the complete 10-course program).**

View Per-Credit Rate Tables

.......................... The Small Print

* Tuition rates are set by the State University of New York Board of Trustees and are subject to change without notice. The cost of books and other learning materials are not included in the cost listed above.

**Students who do not live or work in NY and are matriculated in a fully online master's programs may be eligible for this special rate. Please refer to the guidelines for out-of-state students in fully online programs before applying.

Paying For Your Master's Degree

Part-time students pay for their tuition and learning materials through loans  (federal and private), employer reimbursement programs, student employment,  veteran’s programs, scholarships, and  time-option payment plans offered through the University. Here are some options for you to explore.

This University program allows you to make equal and consecutive monthly payments towards your semester balance. You can choose to whether to enroll each semester. Since the plan is not a loan, there are no interest or finance charges, but there is a $50 fee.

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Columbia University graduate in zip ties rips diploma during ceremony amid Gaza protests

N EW YORK — A Columbia University graduate in zip ties and a keffiyeh ripped their diploma on stage at the social work graduation ceremony amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests at the beleaguered Ivy League school.

Video of the protest, which went viral Sunday night after the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine posted the clip on social media, showed the master’s program graduate cross the stage with their hands above their head, before tearing the degree in two and tossing it behind them.

The protester then held up their graduation cap, reportedly decorated with the name of a Palestinian prisoner, Mohammad Natsheh, during the Friday evening event. University officials twice this semester summoned the NYPD to arrest pro-Palestinian campus protesters, who were placed in the plastic handcuffs the graduate wore.

“Thousands of Columbia graduates and their families have already celebrated at Class Day ceremonies that started on Friday and concluded successfully with virtually no disruption,” a Columbia spokesperson said in a statement.

“We join in the excitement of the remaining graduates who will celebrate their incredible achievements at their own Class Days and graduation events the rest of this week and as they start their next chapter.”

Last week, Columbia announced the cancellation of its university-wide commencement, citing security concerns after weeks of campus protests over the war in Gaza that culminated with the takeover of an academic building, Hamilton Hall.

School-level graduation ceremonies are continuing as scheduled but were relocated from main campus to Columbia’s athletic complex several miles north. The undergraduate college graduation will be held Tuesday.

There were other protests and disruptions during Columbia graduation ceremonies over the weekend, including a PhD student walkout and students who crossed the stage with Palestinian flags, including one that said “divest from genocide.”

Another graduate adorned their cap to say: “Acknowledge the Class of 2024 of Gaza and those who will never graduate.”

An estimated 15,000 Columbia students were expected to receive diplomas this semester, including many undergraduates whose high school graduations were canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. Several seniors who face disciplinary action related to the pro-Palestinian protests are not eligible to complete their degrees.

Columbia has requested the NYPD remain on campus through May 17, once all school-level ceremonies have ended.

©2024 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Breaking news, anti-israel student protesters take over cuny graduate center, rename it after bombed-out gaza university.

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Dozens of anti-Israel student protesters took over CUNY Graduate Center’s library Tuesday night and “renamed” it after a university in Gaza destroyed by airstrikes.

The demonstrators hung Palestinian flags as well as banners and signs inside the Mina Rees Library on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue with their new name for it: “The Al Aqsa University Library” — after the oldest public university in Gaza, which has been near-flattened by Israel’s bombardment of the territory.

“Disclose. Divest. We will not stop, we will not rest,” the roughly 30 students chanted as they stood and sat inside the building lobby, according to a clip shot by an independent video journalist .

Another 50 protesters stood outside the doors of the public university but were blocked from entering.

Inside the university building, the student protesters read the names of 94 Palestinian professors recently killed during the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Organizers said they took over the library building — and “de-occupied” it — as part of the push to demand CUNY divest $8.5 million from weapons, tech and surveillance companies “complicit in zionist settler-colonialism and genocide of the Palestinian people.”

The protesters are also demanding CUNY drop all charges against students who were arrested during a police raid on a City College encampment.

“From New York to Palestine, protesting is not a crime,” they chanted in the lobby. “From CUNY to Palestine, protesting is not a crime.”

CUNY Graduate Center President Joshua Brumberg met with the student protesters in the lobby to try to negotiate a deal.

The students said they would leave the building if he could meet two immediate demands — he publically back amnesty for all pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at any CUNY demonstration and he grant amnesty to all the protesters in the library Monday night.

But Brumberg only agreed to the latter, so the students remained, according to the organizers.

Several hours later, an agreement was reached and the protesters dispersed, a CUNY Graduate Center spokesman told The Post Wednesday.

“Last night a group of demonstrators entered the CUNY Graduate Center lobby to make a series of demands, which were enumerated in a message disseminated by the Doctoral and Graduate Student Council,” the rep said.

“After several hours of discussion, an amicable resolution was reached, and the demonstrators left peacefully.”

No arrests were made.

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Cognitively Stimulating Jobs May Protect Against Dementia

People with a history of cognitively stimulating occupations during their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s had a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia after age 70, according to a new study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, The Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center , and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. The findings highlight the importance of cognitive stimulation during midlife for maintaining cognitive function in old age.

The study is the first to fully advance the association between cognitively stimulating occupations and reduced risk for MCI and dementia with objective assessments rather than subjective evaluations. The results are published in Neurology .

“Our study highlights the importance of mentally challenging job tasks to maintain cognitive functioning in later life,” says Vegard Skirbekk , PhD, professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health  and the Columbia Aging Center , who initiated the project. First author Trine Holt Edwin from Oslo University Hospital, adds, “This study shows the importance of education and cognitively stimulating work life for cognitive health in older age.”

The researchers collected data from the Norwegian administrative registry and coupled it with occupational attributes of more than 300 jobs from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database17 of the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration. Routine task intensity (RTI) index was computed as a measure of occupational cognitive demands based on measures from O*NET. A lower RTI index indicates more cognitively demanding occupations. This research builds upon previous findings showing trajectories of occupational physical activity.

Group-based trajectory modeling identified four groups of distinct occupational cognitive demands according to the degree of routine tasks in p articipants’  occupations during their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. The researchers analyzed the link between these trajectory groups and clinically diagnosed MCI and dementia in participants in the HUNT4 70+ Study (2017-19). Additionally, the researchers accounted for important dementia risk factors such as age, gender, educational level, income, overall health, and lifestyle habits from assessments made in 1984-86 and 1995-97. 

Within age groupings, the researchers looked at such occupations as primary school teacher, salesperson, nurse and caregiver, office cleaner, civil engineer, and mechanic, among others.

After adjusting for age, sex, and education, the group with low occupational cognitive demands (the high RTI group) had a 37 percent higher risk of dementia compared to the group with high occupational cognitive demands.

“Education confounded most, but not all, of the association between occupational cognitive demands and MCI and dementia, suggesting that both education and occupational complexity matter for MCI and dementia risk,” says Edwin.

The findings advance the field in several ways, according to the authors. "First, occupational cognitive demands have often been assessed via retrospective, subjective evaluations. Additionally, our utilization of registry data on occupational histories strengthens the existing evidence,” says Yaakov Stern , PhD, in the Department of Neurology  at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons  and principal investigator of the project at Columbia.

“Overall, our study demonstrates that high occupational cognitive demands are related to lower risks of MCI and dementia in later life,” noted Skirbekk, indicating that both education and occupational cognitive demands play a crucial role in lowering the risk of later-life cognitive impairment. “However, we recommend the commissioning of further research to validate these findings to pinpoint the specific occupational cognitive demands that are most advantageous for maintaining cognitive health in old age.”

It is important to note that this study identifies associations rather than direct causation of dementia. Moreover, the study did not distinguish between different cognitive requirements within the same occupational category, nor did it consider the evolution of job responsibilities over the years. 

Co-authors are Asta Kristine Håberg, Ekaterina Zotcheva, Bernt Bratsberg, Astanand Jugessur, Bo Engdahl, Catherine Bowen, Geir Selbæk, Hans-Peter Kohler, Jennifer R. Harris, Sarah E. Tom, Steinar Krokstad, Teferi Mekonnen, and Bjørn Heine Strand.

The study was supported by a collaboration of the HUNT Research Centre (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)), Trøndelag County Council, Central Norway Regional Health Authority, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, and the Cognitive Neuroscience Division, Department of Neurology, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Media Contact

Stephanie Berger, [email protected]

Related Information

Meet our team, vegard skirbekk, phd.

• Senior Researcher, Columbia Aging Center