Postgraduate Language and Linguistics 2026-2027

This course introduces the theoretical frameworks used in analysing communication, enabling students to investigate social interaction, power relations, and the ways in which language is used in a variety of contexts. It provides a grounding in the precise analysis of language use, which will enable students to go on to investigate communication in a range of professional contexts during the MLitt programme.

The course aims to help students develop a theoretical and practical understanding of psychological, physiological and environmental factors that influence the well-being of language teachers and learners.   Course is an elective course for the MSc in TESOL.

This course opens up new ways for students to think about language by introducing them to the fundamentals of English linguistics. Students will learn how to identify and analyse the major "building blocks" of language in phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Examples for illustration and discussion will be drawn from varieties of English spoken in the British Isles and worldwide, with lectures and tutorials geared to providing students with an active vocabulary with which to discuss language, and essential tools with which to analyse its structure and function.

This course is intended to give students taking the Masters of Research in Linguistics advanced knowledge of a specific subfield of linguistic research. Students will attend an Honours level course offered in Language & Linguistics and complete a research paper in the relevant area on a topic to be agreed with the programme coordinator.

This course introduces students to a variety of qualitative approaches used in Linguistics, exploring their advantages and limitations through critical examination of existing work in the field. Methods covered include interviews, surveys, participant observation, case studies, focus groups, and corpus analysis. Particular attention is given to research planning and process, with consideration of how research questions are formulated and projects designed to address them. Throughout the course students will focus on issues of reliability, representativeness, and validity in qualitative linguistic research, while developing and reflecting on their own research interests and practice.

In this course a range of theories for exploring cultural norms and practices will be explored. Cultural Dimension Theory, Cross Cultural Pragmatics and Language socialization will be considered core areas of study. Other areas of relevance that will be covered and discussed include:  Social Identity Theory and Language, English as a Lingua Franca the effects of Globalisation on language policy and communication, Intercultural Communication in Specific Professional Contexts, Intercultural Communication in Health Care ”The case of migrant patients and native speaker Doctors/health care staff, Intercultural Communication in Business Meetings” overcoming cultural barriers and negotiating meaning.

This course will explore how the various approaches, methods and techniques for teaching English have evolved in relation to theories about language, learning and language acquisition. We will look at some of the practical implications of this as well as discuss some of the issues and debates relating to TESOL methodology. The course will consist of lectures, seminars, demonstration lessons and practical tasks.

The course combines practical, theoretical and analytical work, to enable students to engage with the concepts involved in literary translation, in terms of both theory and practice. Students will study theory and criticism of literary translations and will explore the dynamics between existing translations and their source texts. Students will also be engaged in translating creative writing and commenting on their own practice and choices.

Through a process of observation, delivery and reflection, learners will develop the ability to plan and teach coherent and structured lessons which meet stated aims and objectives. This will consolidate content covered in the TESOL methodology course.  

This course is a core course for the Dissertation route and an optional course for the TESOL Focussed Teaching Portfolio route. The course will provide an introduction to the theory and practice of quantitative research in TESOL.

This course will explore ways of collecting qualitative data in the TESOL context, including classroom observations, questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. There will also be some focus on analysing the structure of academic articles.

This course opens up new ways for students to think about language by introducing them to the fundamentals of English linguistics. Students will learn how to identify and analyse the major "building blocks" of language in phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Examples for illustration and discussion will be drawn from varieties of English spoken in the British Isles and worldwide, with lectures and tutorials geared to providing students with an active vocabulary with which to discuss language, and essential tools with which to analyse its structure and function.

This course is intended to give students taking the Masters of Research in Linguistics advanced knowledge of a specific subfield of linguistic research. Students will attend an Honours level course offered in Language & Linguistics and complete a research paper in the relevant area on a topic to be agreed with the programme coordinator.

This course introduces students to a variety of quantitative approaches used in Linguistics, exploring their advantages and limitations through critical examination of existing work in the field. Topics covered include experiment design, sampling techniques, graphing results, descriptive statistics, and basic inferential statistics. Particular attention is given to analysing quantitative data, with consideration of how research questions inform experimental design and choice of analysis. Throughout the course students will focus on issues of replicability, reliability, and validity in quantitative linguistic research, while developing and reflecting on their own research interests and practice.

This course leads to the production of a portfolio of reflective and informed pieces analysing both the student's own and others' teaching practice in line with what has been learned throughout the programme.  Students will gain hands-on teaching practice under the supervision of highly qualified personnel; the experience will then be analysed and related to relevant theory and methodology. Students will gain a sense of what planning and executing a programme of TESOL teaching will involve. This portfolio is a unique feature of the Aberdeen MSc in TESOL and gives a strongly practical flavour to the degree as a whole.

If you want to carry out in-depth research on a single topic within the field of TESOL, this is the course for you. You will be given regular support and supervision from experts in their fields on how your research should be carried out.

Students undertaking the MRes in Linguistics will submit a research dissertation of 18,000–20,000 words, based on an independent project to be agreed with the programme coordinator and supervised by a member of staff in Language & Linguistics.

This course requires students to prepare a 12,000 word dissertation. By the end of the course students will have learned how to understand, synthesize and present data in an intelligent and intelligible fashion. Through guidance and supervision they will develop their academic writing skills in order to write and present an extended dissertation on a topic relevant to the course.