MA Linguistics

This course is designed to equip students with advanced skills in conducting and presenting linguistic research. It covers the ethical issues in working with and managing data from human subjects, and strategies of presenting and writing up linguistic research. In particular, three lectures will address the technical aspects of planning a dissertation project, writing a research proposal, and oral dissemination of dissertation research.

The unit aims to:

• equip students with the relevant skills for designing a research project compliant with ethical guidelines, and to write a research proposal;
• consolidate and provide further practice in the writing conventions and main academic genres in linguistics;
• develop strategies for effective dissemination of the research design and of preliminary findings in an oral presentation.

• Planning your MA dissertation
• Writing a research proposal
• Research ethics in Linguistics
• Writing a research paper
• Linguistic data in sociolinguistics
• Presentation workshop for the MA Dissertation

• 5 x 2-hour sessions (lectures and seminars)
• 2 x 4-hour sessions for presentation workshops
• 2 x 4-hour assessed presentations
• independent study

On Blackboard, students will find slides for the individual sessions and links to information about ethical approval.

Submission of summative pieces of work will be via Turnitin on Blackboard.
 

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• design a research project that addresses a concrete research question, and contextualise this with the existing literature on the topic
• address ethical issues arising in linguistic research and design a research project compliant with ethical guidelines
   

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• identify, delineate and develop a research topic appropriate to the scale of a project
   

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• select and apply appropriate and ethical methods of data collection
• communicate their research design and findings in the form of an oral presentation
• write a research proposal

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• summarize and present original research findings in a concise and effective manner
• proposal writing skills
• presentation skills
   

Oral Feedback on Group Project. 

Oral and Written Feedback for Presentation. 

Written Feedback on Research Proposal.

Rice, Keren. 2006. Ethical issues in linguistic fieldwork: An overview. Journal of Academic Ethics 4.123-155.

Readings for individual sessions TBC by the individual tutors