PhD Linguistics

Our PhD Linguistics programme enables you to carry out research in a field of linguistics that matches the interests of one of our members of staff.

The Department of Linguistics and English Language is an international centre for Linguistics, with 22 full-time members of staff and approximately 35 postgraduate research students.

We are virtually unique in the UK and beyond in the breadth of subject areas and theoretical approaches represented by our members, many of whom are internationally renowned scholars in their specialisms.

Our academics' areas of expertise include:

phonetics and phonology
morphology
syntax (lexical-functional grammar, role and reference grammar, construction grammar, and minimalism)
(formal) semantics
pragmatics
historical linguistics
dialectology
the linguistics of English
language contact
variationist sociolinguistics
child language acquisition
field linguistics and language documentation
typology
quantitative corpus-based approaches
forensic linguistics.
In our research, we combine the advancement of theoretical approaches with a strong concern for their empirical and methodological foundations.

Each member of staff also has a special interest in particular languages and language families, including major European languages, as well as lesser known languages of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Australia.

We do not, however, supervise projects with a focus on second language teaching and learning.

Joint supervision arrangements for interdisciplinary projects are available.

Find out more about our Linguistics research , staff members , and what our current postgraduate research students are working on.