SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

Start of programme: September

The MPhil/PhD in Linguistics is a research training programme which combines foundational and advanced courses in the core areas of linguistics, training on research methods and research work leading to a dissertation. The Department is strongly research-oriented, and through a combination of courses, advanced seminars and individual supervision, aims to provide the intellectual discipline, knowledge and skills required of a well-rounded researcher.

Supervision is offered in theoretical, descriptive and comparative linguistics, translation and language pedagogy. Depending on the research topic, it may also be possible to arrange joint supervision with specialists in other departments.

Research in the department

Research interests of the faculty are wide-ranging and span the world's languages, from Chinese to Arabic, Swahili to Korean, Mongolian to Japanese. This focus on Oriental and African languages, combined with the unparalleled access to the considerable language and regional expertise of other SOAS researchers constitutes a unique resource for the study of theoretical, comparative and descriptive linguistics.

Some recent research theses

Mahmoud Fathulla Ahmad – The Tense and Aspect System in Kurdish
Ian Pickett – Some Aspects of Dialect Variation Among the Nomads in Syria and Lebanon

Current PhD topics

• Question formation in Bantu
• Word order in South Asian languages
• Causal adverbs in Cantonese
• The phonology of Tone languages
• On pitch accent phenomena in Standard Japanese
• Focus and Predication in Hausa
• A study of Chinese reflexives

Academic Staff and Their Research Areas

Professor Peter Austin BA(AS) PHD(ANU)
Märit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics; Director, Endangered Languages Academic Programme
Typology, morpho-syntax, language documentation and description, historical linguistics, Lexical-Functional grammar, computer-aided linguistic analysis, Austronesian languages, Australian Aboriginal languages

Dr Wynn Chao BA(NYCITY) PHD(UMASS)
Lecturer in Linguistics
The syntax-semantics interface; language universals and typology; psycholinguistics; Chinese; Romance languages

Dr Monik Charette MA(QUEBEC & MCGILL) PHD(MCGILL)
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
Phonological theory; morpho-phonology; Altaic languages; French Dialectology; phonetics

Dr Noriko Iwasaki PHD(ARIZONA)
Lecturer in Linguistics
Second language acquisition (grammatical development, impact of study abroad), psycholinguistics (language production, cognition and language), language testing, Japanese

Dr Defeng Li PHD(ALBERTA)
Reader in Translation Studies
Cognitive approach to translation process, corpus-based translation studies, translation curriculum and material development, specialized translation (commercial, financial and journalistic), second language acquisition and teaching, experimental translation studies, qualitative research methodology

Dr Friederike Lüpke MA(KÖLN) PHD(KUN)
Lecturer in Language Documentation and Description
Language documentation and description, contact linguistics, anthropological linguistics, syntax-semantics interface, argument structure, Ajami writing in Africa, Niger-Congo languages, Mande languages, Atlantic languages, Jalonke (Fuuta Jalon, Guinea), Bainouk (Casamance, Senegal)

Dr Irina Nikolaeva PHD(LEIDEN)
Lecturer in Endangered Languages
Syntax, morphology, information structure, typology, lexicalist theories of grammar, Construction Grammar, documentation of endangered languages, Palaeosiberian linguistics, Uralic languages, Altaic languages, Tundra Nenets (northwestern Siberia)

Professor Itesh Sachdev BSC(BRISTOL) PHD(MCMASTER)
Professor of Language and Communication
Social psychology of language and intergroup relations, intercultural communication, identity (minority and majority), bi-multilingualism, multiculturalism, language attitudes and motivations

Professor Peter Sells BA(LIVERPOOL) PHD(UMASS)
Professor of Linguistics
Korean and Japanese grammar and linguistic theory, negation and modality in Korean, Japanese historical syntax, Austronesian syntax, the syntax-semantics interface, the morphology-syntax interface