Programme description
Our PhD Interpreting Studies programme will enable you to undertake a significant piece of original research under the supervision of our academics.
The Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies (CTIS) at Manchester has the largest concentration of translation and interpreting studies specialists in the country and attracts visiting scholars and postgraduate students from a wide range of countries and backgrounds.
CTIS provides an excellent environment for research and organises regular scholarly events for the benefit of postgraduate students. These include a series of weekly seminars which attract a large national audience of researchers, students and practitioners. The seminars, delivered by invited speakers, form an important part of students' initiation into scholarly research, while also offering valuable opportunities for informal contact with leading academics.
The Centre also provides specialist research training for doctoral students in the form of masterclasses. Interpreting specialists who have delivered masterclasses include Robert Barsky (Vanderbilt University, USA), Ebru Diriker (Bogazici University, Turkey) and Michaela Wolf (University of Graz, Austria).
International conferences and symposia which CTIS has organised in Manchester and in which PhD students have participated include:
- Research Models in Translation Studies II (2011);
- Citizen Media: New Mediations of Civic Engagement (2013);
- New Perspectives on Translation: Insights into the Performative and Cognitive Work of Translators (2014);
- Researching Translation in the Context of Popular Culture: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives (2015);
- Genealogies of Knowledge: Translating Political and Scientific Thought across Time and Space (2017);
- International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting (IPCITI) (2018).
Find out more about our research , our staff and what our current postgraduate research students are working on.
Special features
Graduate School
All of our postgraduate students become members of the Graduate School when you start at Manchester. It has dedicated facilities for students and offers opportunities to collaborate with other postgraduates.
REF 2014
In the 2014 REF, Modern Languages and Linguistics at Manchester, the unit of assessment that includes Interpreting and Translation Studies, had more than 70% of research outputs rated at 4* (world leading)/3* (internationally excellent).
These results place Modern Languages and Linguistics at Manchester at a highly impressive 3rd out of 57 submissions, nationally, based on research power (calculated by 4* and 3* times number of staff submitted).
Additional programme information
Equality, diversity and inclusion is fundamental to the success of The University of Manchester, and is at the heart of all of our activities.
We know that diversity strengthens our research community, leading to enhanced research creativity, productivity and quality, and societal and economic impact.
We actively encourage applicants from diverse career paths and backgrounds and from all sections of the community, regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation and transgender status.
All appointments are made on merit.
The University of Manchester and our external partners are fully committed to equality, diversity and inclusion.
Teaching and learning
The PhD is the major postgraduate research degree. It involves three years of full-time study or six years of part-time study and the preparation of a thesis of not more than 80,000 words that makes a significant contribution to knowledge.
A satisfactory PhD topic is one that a suitably qualified and properly supervised student can bring to completion within the permitted timeframe.
Previous theses on interpreting include:
- Interpreters' Institutional Alignment and (Re)Construction of China's Political Discourse and Image: A Corpus-based CDA of the Premier-Meets-the-Press Conferences
- Investigating Note-Taking in Consecutive Interpreting, Using the Concept of Visual Grammar
- Healthcare Interpreters' Perception of their Position in the Field of Public Service Interpreting in Spain: A Bourdieusian Perspective
- Dialogue Interpreting as Intercultural Mediation: Integrating Talk and Gaze in the Analysis of Mediated Parent-Teacher Meetings
- Modelling Competence in Community Interpreting: Expectancies, Impressions and Implications for Accreditation
- Interpreting and Translation Policy in UK Asylum Applications
Please note that all PhD students are required to undertake research training as part of their PhD programme.
Facilities
Manchester is home to one of the UK's five National Research Libraries - one of the best-resourced academic libraries in the UK and widely recognised as one of the world's greatest research libraries.
Find out more about libraries and study spaces for postgraduate research students at Manchester.
We also have one of the largest academic IT services in Europe - supporting world-class teaching and research. There are extensive computing facilities across campus, with access to standard office software as well as specialist programmes, all connected to the campus network and internet.
Every student is registered for email, file storage and internet access. If more demanding computer access is required, our specialist computing division can provide high-end and specialist computing services.
The Graduate School offers dedicated state of the art facilities to research students, including common rooms and workstations.
Find out more about facilities for Translation and Intercultural Studies students.