LINGUISTICS: the Study of the Language Faculty

Research MA LINGUISTICS: the study of the language faculty Contents

1 Research MA Linguistics p. 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Headlines 1 2 Linguistics at Utrecht 2.1 The Field of Linguistics 2 2.2 Linguistics at Utrecht 3 2.3 Research environment 4 2.4 Utrecht specifica 4 2.5 Facilities for Dutch and international students 5 3 People and Publications 3.1 Core Publications 6 3.2 Dissertations 9 4 Degree programme 4.1 Programme Overview 11 4.2 Internship 12 4.3 Master’s Thesis 12 4.4 MA Linguistics schedule 13 4.5 Career prospects 14 5 Admission 5.1 Admission Requirements 15

5.2 Admission Procedure: Application 15 5.3 Admission Procedure: Enrolment 16 5.4 Funding 16 6 Contact 17 3

1 Research MA Linguistics

1.1 Introduction This Utrecht University Research Master programme Linguistics is intended for students with a linguistically oriented BA degree, with both talent and curiosity about language. The focus of this programme is man's cognitive capacity for language, in other words, the way language is shaped in our brain and shaped by our brain. The programme offers courses in a wide variety of perspectives to study the language faculty: acquisition (first and second), discourse studies, phonetics, phonology/morphology, psycholinguistics, semantics/computational linguistics, and syntax. From these tracks, the student chooses a major and a minor.

The two-year research MA Linguistics programme includes courses in a very wide range of linguistic subdisciplines. Taking the study of the cognitive faculties underlying the structure and use of human language as central, we focus on the following (partly subsequent) questions: What constitutes knowledge of language? How is it acquired? How is it put to use?

The programme covers first and second language acquisition and experimental psycholinguistics, phonetics, computational linguistics, discourse studies and language variation, all studied with a focus on language and language structure (syntax, phonology, semantics). The programme is the right choice for you if you are curious about the way language is structured and about the way it functions, and you want to put this curiosity into action by learning about how the human language faculty influences these domains.

1.2 Headlines Programme duration: 2 years (full-time) Number of ECTS: 120 Teaching language: English Starting dates: 1 September and 1 February Application deadlines: 1 March and 15 October Degree: Master of Arts (equivalent to MPhil) Annual tuition fees: €1750 for EU citizens, € 9.100 for non-EU citizens Additional yearly costs: appr. € 500 (+living costs, travel etc) Responsibility: UiL OTS Programme Director: Prof Dr Eric Reuland 4

2 Linguistics at Utrecht

2.1 The Field of Linguistics Linguistics tries to put to the test generally accepted views on language, and come up with new questions and new answers, sometimes showing that generally accepted views are wrong. They are guided by issues like the following:  If a child is dyslexic, is there any point in teaching her to read at an earlier age? But, if so, how do we know which children will turn out to be dyslexics?  Language is one of the prime properties distinguishing us as humans from other species. But is so, what is so special about language? How did language emerge? How is the structure of language reflected in the structure of our brains and vice versa? How do the various components of language interact?  Dialect variation is generally assumed to be quite limited, perhaps only limited to the lexicon and pronunciation. We are in the process of finding that the syntactic variation found in (Dutch) dialects is substantial and might have substantial consequences for language acquisition of standard language, and the 'bilingual' status of dialect speakers.  While language is not only used for communication, it is one of its prime uses. And while communication is possible without language (gestures, signs, pictures, etc.), it is arguably a necessity for communication of complex content. Still, some complex messages are easier to understand than others. We try to find out why people have a hard time understanding some but not all discourse by relating discourse structure and discourse processing. The general way of thinking about communication developed in linguistics is crucial to appreciate the role communication plays in many circumstances we can think of.  Bilingualism (or more) is rapidly becoming a pervasive factor in language communities. What does that mean for education, the problems of aging, etc.  It seems very practical to be able to communicate with computers by using spoken language instead of a keyboard, but in order to improve the computer's communicative skills we need to think about how we want it to ´listen´. Do we teach it the way we listen ourselves, and then the question arises how that functions, or do we devise a computer-specific listening programme? If so, do we want to make it sensitive to the difference in clarity of pronunciation between men and women?

Experimental linguists addressing such questions need to work on the basis of theories and models of the language faculty that are developed by others working in the fields of syntax, phonology and morphology, as well as semantics and computational linguistics. The theories may be about how language functions in the brain, what model of utterances we should base experiments on, how sensory functions interact with the language-oriented bit of the brain, what kind of computer modelling of speech production achieves the mimicry of natural language, how the meaning of utterances influences the way they are processed by the brain, how the meaning of utterances itself is influenced by utterances preceding them or the real world environment in which they are pronounced, etc. The list is endless, which means there will always be something to discover for you! 5

2.2 Linguistics at Utrecht Becoming a student of the Utrecht University Linguistics programme means satisfying your curiosity about some very specific aspect of language, taken in a broad sense. You may be interested in, for example, the kind of mistakes second language learners make; the ways in which dialects differ from standard language; questions like: What are the properties all languages share, and what are the limits to their variation? What kind of evolutionary event could have given rise to language? Which linguistic means make texts more coherent? What is the interplay between world knowledge and knowledge of language in the way we process language? How can the medium (written, oral, hypertext) influence the linguistic means with which we communicate? Potential interests include the way children learn to put the right stress on words with the amazing speed that they do; the physical properties of speech sound; whether we can make multilingual search engines, etc. All these questions belong to the research area covered by courses in the MA Linguistics curriculum. It follows from this huge variety in research questions that there is also a wide variety in research methods used to study them. Our linguists have at their disposal a psycholinguistics/ phonetics lab (including recording studios and soundproof listening booths); an acquisition lab (baby lab); an eye-tracking lab; Unix technical support, etc. We conduct experiments, and develop abstract theories, make video registrations of speech behaviour, develop computer programmes, etc etc. Many of these methods are also taught in this programme. Some of these research questions can be studied within a narrowly defined field, others require expertise from a wider array of linguistic or related domains. For this reason, it makes sense to choose subjects from different sub-areas of linguistics. For example, if you want to specialise in the field of language acquisition by children, your major track will be Language Acquisition. However, you will also take courses in phonology or syntax in order to become an all-round acquisition researcher. It might even be useful to choose subjects outside the domain of linguistics proper. For example, as a future specialist in the field of language, logic and computer science, you will take a course in logic.

2.3 Research environment

There is no way to educate researchers without integrating them into a research environment. For this reason, members of UiL OTS include roughly 20 full professors, 10 post docs, 40 PhD students as well as the 50 MA students we have at any particular moment, which including further teaching/research selects staff amounts to approximately 150 linguistics researchers altogether. MA students are encouraged to participate in the summer and winter schools organised by LOT (National Research School Linguistics), and to attend work to Autumn conferences. Apart from this, students may profit from the large number of short-term visitors coming to the Institute, enhancing exposure to ideas and developments from all over the world.

At almost all stages of the curriculum, you are encouraged to participate in ongoing research projects at the Institute: in advanced courses, in your internship and of course in the preparation and writing of the Master’s Thesis. Apart from teaching you about the content of the project and linguistics in general, this also provides you with a unique opportunity for participating in the research life of PhD students, research fellows and other researchers. Such an experience can really stimulate you to try to find your own limits and continue to be an inspiration for you throughout your career.

UiL OTS is internationally renowned as a linguistic research institute. The high research and teaching standards are partly due to the extremely active international co-operation policy pursued by the Institute, and by individual researchers and research groups. We have many international teaching staff, in addition to research fellows and PhD students. Foreign students from, a.o, Cameroon, China, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Russia, Serbia and Slovenia comprise a little under half our total student body. Members of UiL OTS present at international conferences and summer schools, and they participate in co-operation with researchers from linguistics/communication/cognitive science departments at many universities (Berlin, Budapest, Delhi, Edinburgh, Geneva, Hyderabad, Leipzig, London, MIT, Moscow, Paris, St Petersburg, Rutgers, UCLA, UCSC, Verona/Trieste, and many others). Research MA and PhD students at UiL OTS are enrolled in the Graduate School of Humanities of Utrecht University.

2.4 Utrecht specifica The MA Linguistics students have their own common room to study and gather socially, located in the main building of the research institute. They have access to the research institute's top quality laboratory facilities (the lab actually occupies what was originally built as the vault of the bank housed in the building), and of course to the excellent library and computer facilities available to all students of the Faculty of Humanities.

The Faculty of Humanities of Utrecht University is the largest of its kind in the Netherlands. It includes philosophy, theology, language departments in Dutch, English, German, Romance languages, Celtic languages, near Eastern languages, and departments in history, musicology, history of art, literature, and of course linguistics. Except for the philosophy and theology departments, the faculty is located in the Utrecht city centre. All buildings, including the library, are at walking distance from each other and from the railway station.

Utrecht is a city with a rich history that can be traced back to Roman times -- its name is a derivate of the Latin for "Last Crossing", which refers to Utrecht's Roman border town status as a Rhine crossing. Relative to its size (approximately 300.000 inhabitants), it has the largest historical (16th and 17th- century) city centre of any Dutch city. The city occupies a central position in the national railway system, and can be reached from Schiphol airport (Amsterdam) by train within 35 minutes. 7

2.5 Facilities for Dutch and international students Due to its high level of experience receiving researchers from abroad, MA students find a warm welcome at UiL OTS. The graduate programme coordinator gets in touch with you as soon as you have been accepted, and monitors the enrolment process, of course with the help of faculty and University services like the Foreign Relations office, the Housing and the Admissions offices. Utrecht University offers assistance in immigration procedures and finding student housing if you have been accepted and you comply with the relevant enrolment deadlines. During the compulsory introductory week in September, you receive a thorough introduction to the Institute, the faculty and the University as a whole, including introductory presentations on all courses by their respective instructors. Two UiL OTS faculty members (Sergio Baauw and Maaike Schoorlemmer) have been designated to perform individual tutoring while you are in the programme, whereas Eric Reuland is available for advice on individual programme design.

The Boswell Institute offers affordable Dutch courses to Utrecht University students.

Preceding the first (introductory) week of term in September (the first full week in September), UiL OTS organises linguistics courses in the Utrecht Summer School, which our new MA students can attend free of charge. These courses, conducted during the two weeks preceding the introduction, have proved particularly useful in introducing new students to the kind of linguistics taught in this programme.

The UiL OTS main building (Janskerkhof 13a) houses state-of-the-art laboratories for sound recording, eye-tracking, a baby lab, as well as a common room for our students to work and socialise. All facilities, lecture rooms, library, computer rooms and labs are within walking distance of each other.

3 People and Publications

3.1 Core Publications

Avrutin, S. (2006) Weak Syntax. In Y. Grodzinsky and K. Amunts (eds.), Broca's Region , Oxford Press, New York , 49-62.

Baauw, S. & Delfitto, D. (2005). New views on reflexivity: Delay effects in acquisition, cross-modular Principle B and reflexive clitics in Romance. Probus , 17(2), 145-184.

Barbiers, S. (2005). Variation in the morphosyntax of ONE. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 8(3), 159-183.

Bernardi, R. and M. Moortgat (2007). Continuation semantics for symmetric categorial grammar. In Daniel Leivant and Ruy de Queiros (eds.) Proceedings 14th Workshop on Logic, Language, Information and Computation Springer LNCS 4576, 2007, 53-71.

Botha, R.P . & C. Knight (eds) (2008) The Cradle of Language . Oxford University Press

Cheng, L.L.S. and N. Corver (Eds.). (2006). WH-movement: moving on. [Foreword by Noam Chomsky]. Cambridge , Massachusetts : the MIT Press.

Corver, N. (2008). Uniformity and diversity in the syntax of evaluative vocatives. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 11, 43-93.

Corver, N.F.M . & Zwarts, J. (2006). Prepositional numerals. Lingua 811-835.

De Bree, E. , F. Wijnen & W. Zonneveld (2006). Word stress production of three-year-old children at risk for dyslexia. Journal of Research in Reading 29 (3), 304-317.

Eijck, J, van (2007). Sequentially indexed grammars. Journal of Logic and Computation.

Everaert, M. & Riemsdijk, H. van (2006). The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, volumes 1-5. Malden , MA : Blackwell Publishing.

Evers-Vermeul, J . & T. Sanders (2008). The Emergence of Dutch connectives: how cumulative cognitive comlexity explains the order of acquisition. Journal of Child Language.

Gualmini, A. & S. Crain (2005). The Structure of Children's Linguistic Knowledge. Linguistic Inquiry , 36, 463-474. 9

Guasti, Maria Teresa, Gennaro Chierchia, Stephen Crain, Francesca Foppolo, Andrea Gualmini and Luisa Meroni (2005). Why Children and Adults Sometimes (but not always) Compute Implicatures. Language and Cognitive Processes , 20, 667-696.

Halle , Morris & Ora Matushansky (2006). The morpho-phonology of Russian adjectival inflection. Linguistic Inquiry 37.3, 351-404.

Holleman, B.C. & Chessa, A.G. (2007). Answering attitudinal questions. Modeling the response process underlying contrastive questions. Applied Cognitive Psychology 21(2), 203-225.

Janse, E. , Nooteboom, S. & Quené, H. (2007). Coping with gradient forms of /t/-deletion and lexical ambiguity in spoken word recognition. Language and Cognitive Processes 22 (2), 161-200.

Kager, R. (2007). Feet and metrical stress. P. de Lacy (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology, 195-227. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Kager, R. (2008). “Lexical irregularity and the typology of contrast”, in K. Hanson & S. Inkelas (eds.), The Nature of the Word: Essays in Honor of Paul Kiparsky . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kamalski, J., Sanders, T. & Lentz, L. (2008). Coherence marking, prior knowledge and comprehension of informative and persuasive texts: Sorting things out. Discourse Processes .

Kampen, J. van (2005). Language specific bootstraps for UG categories. International Journal of Bilingualism , 9(2), 253-278.

Koornneef, A. W. & Van Berkum, J. J. A. (2006). On the use of verb-based implicit causality in sentence comprehension: Evidence from self-paced reading and eye tracking. Journal of Memory and Language 54(4 ), 445-465.

Mak, W.M. , Vonk, W & Schriefers, H. (2007). Discourse structure and relative clause processing. Memory and Cognition 36 (1), 170-181.

Matushansky, O . (2008). On the attributive nature of superlatives. Syntax 11, 26-90.

Moortgat, M. (2007) . Symmetries in natural language syntax and semantics: the Lambek-Grishin calculus. Daniel Leivant and Ruy de Queiros (eds.) Proceedings 14th Workshop on Logic, Language, Information and Computation (WoLLIC'07) . Springer LNCS 4576, 2007, 264-284.

Nouwen, R. . & Geurts, B (2007). At least et al.: the semantics of scalar modifiers. Language 83 (3), 533-559.

Nouwen, R. . (2007). On dependent pronouns and dynamic semantics. Journal of Philosophical Logic 36 (2), 123-154. 10

Ouden, H. den , L. Noordman & J. Terken (2008). Prosodic realizations of global and local structure and rhetorical relations in read aloud news reports. Speech Communication .

Pander Maat, H. & T. Sanders (2008). Local and global determinants of forward prominence of discourse referents: two corpus studies. Linguistics.

Philip, W.C.H. (2004). Clarity of Purpose in L1 Acquisition Research: A Response to Ken Drozd's 'Leanability and Linguistic Performance'. Journal of Child Language 31 (2).

Quené, H . & Port, R.F. (2005). Effects of timing regularity and metrical expectancy on spoken-word perception, Phonetica 62 (1), 1-13.

Quené, H. & Van den Bergh, H. (2008). Examples of mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects and with binomial data. Journal of Memory and Language , in press.

Reuland, E. Forthcoming. Anaphora and Language Design . Cambridge , Mass. : MIT Press.

Ruys, E.G. ( 2004) A Note on Weakest Crossover, Linguistic Inquiry 35, 124-140.

Stukker, N. , T. Sanders & A. Verhagen (2008). Causality in verbs and in discourse connectives: Converging evidence of cross-level parallels in Dutch linguistic categorization. Journal of Pragmatics 40. 7, 1296-1322.

Swart, H.E. de & Farkas, D. (2007). Article choice in plural generics. Lingua, 117 (9), 165-167.

Swart, H.E. de , Winter, Y. & Zwarts, J. (2007). Bare nominals and reference to capacities, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 25 (1), 195-222.

Thije, J. ten & L. Zeevaert, (eds.) (2007). Receptive Multilingualism. Linguistic analyses, language policies and didactic concepts. Amsterdam : Benjamins.

Unsworth, S . (2007). L1 and L2 acquisition between sentence and discourse: Comparing production and comprehension. Lingua 117 , 1930-1958.

Unsworth, S., A. Gualmini & C. Helder (2008). Children's interpretation of indefinites in sentences containing negation: A re-assessment of the cross-linguistic picture. Language Acquisition 15.4.

Wijnen, F . & Kaan, E. (2006). Dynamics of semantic processing: The interpretation of bare quantifiers. Language and Cognitive Processes 21 (6), 684–720.

Winter Y. (2005). Cross-Categorial Restrictions on Measure Phrase Modification. Linguistics and Philosophy 28.2, 233-267.

Zonneveld, W. (2007). Dutch 2nd Singular prosodic Weakening: Two Rejoinders. Linguistic Inquiry 38 (4), 737-748. 11

Zwarts, J. (2005). Prepositional Aspect and the Algebra of Paths. Linguistics and philosophy 28 (6), 739-779.

3.2 Dissertations

Amiridze, Nino (2006). Reflexivization Strategies in Georgian.

Asbury, Anna (2008). The Morphosyntax of Case and Adpositions.

Bree, Elise de (2007) Dyslexia and phonology: A study of the phonological abilities of Dutch children at-risk of dyslexia.

Capelletti, Matteo (2007). Parsing with Structure Preserving Categorial Grammars.

Escudero, Paola. (2005). Linguistic Perception and Second Language Acquisition.

Evers-Vermeul, Jacqueline (2005). The Development of Dutch Connectives; Change and acquisition as windows on form-function relations.

Gehrke, Berit (2008). Ps in Motion. On the semantics and syntax of P elements and motion events.

Grillo, Nino (2008). Generalized Minimality. Syntactic underspecification in Broca's aphasia.

Heeren, Willemijn (2006). Perceptual development of phoneme contrasts in adults and children.

Hof, Sanne van 't (2006). From Text to Talk. Answers and their uptake in standardised survey interviews.

Kamalski, Judith (2007). Coherence Marking, Comprehension and Persuasion. On the processing and representation of discourse.

Kerkhoff, Annemarie (2007). Acquisition of Morpho-Phonology. The Dutch voicing alternation.

Khomitsevich, Olga (2007). Dependencies across phases. From sequence of tense to restrictions on movement.

Mahanta, Shakuntala (2007). Directionality and locality in vowel harmony with special reference to vowel harmony in assamese.

Mulder, Gerben (2008). Understanding Causal Coherence Relations.

Rakosi, Gyuri (2006). Dative experiencer predicates in Hungarian.

Rossum, Maya van (2005). Prosody in alaryngeal speech. 12

Sadeh Leicht, Oren (2007). The psychological reality of Grammar.

Sevcenco, Anca (2006). Terms of binding.

Slioussar, Natalia (2007). Grammar and Information Structure. A study with reference to Russian. .

Stukker, Nienke (2005). Causality marking across levels of language structure. A cognitive semantic analysis of causal verbs and causal connectives in Dutch.

Unsworth, Sharon (2005). Child L2, Adult L2, Child L1: Differences and Similarities. A study on the acquisition of direct object scrambling in Dutch.

Vasic, Nada (2006). Pronoun Comprehension in Agrammatic Aphasia : The Structure and Use of Linguistic Knowledge.

Vermaat, Willemijn (2006). The Logic of Variation. A cross-linguistic account of wh- question formation.

Vinokurova, Nadja (2005). Lexical categories and argument structure. A study with reference to Sakha.

Visser, Mario van de (2006). The marked status of ergativity.

Vlachou, Evangelia (2007). Free choice in and out of context: semantics and distribution of French, Greek and English free choice items. .

Wijk, Judith van (2007). The Acquisition of the Dutch Plural

Wilsenach, Carien (2006). Syntactic Processing in Developmental Dyslexia and in Specific Language Impairment: A study on the acquisition of the past participle construction in Dutch. 13

4 Degree programme

4.1 Programme Overview You start the programme by taking the compulsory courses during the first semester covering all tracks of the programme. The tracks are the following:  Acquisition (1st, 2nd, bilingualism)  Discourse studies  Phonetics  Phonology and Morphology  Psycholinguistics  Semantics and Computational Linguistics  Syntax At the end of the second block (first semester), you choose one track as your major. Throughout your first and second years, you take a total of three 7.5 ECTS courses in your major, as well as the matching Research Methods course (there are two such courses, each shared by several tracks).

In your first year, you also take a course from a different track (your minor). Throughout the second semester, you take the research seminar course, concluded with a paper, which aims to introduce students to the unifying principles of the linguistics taught across the different tracks. You conclude your first year with a term paper, which prepares the ground for a more specialised topic that you can then concentrate on in your second year.

Apart from a further course in your major and your methods course, in your second year you do an internship. The internship can focus either on fundamental or on experimental or applied research. In the first part of the second year, you choose a topic and write a research plan for your master's Master’s Thesis, which you will spend the second semester writing.

Courses usually require attendance twice a week, in addition to reading and doing assignments. The programme items without class attendance (term paper, MA thesis and also internship) involve close collaboration with an individual supervisor. Throughout the two years, you gather ECTS points for courses, papers and the internship. For a passing grade (a requirement for receiving any credits) in compulsory introductions, research seminar, most minor courses and the term paper you receive 5 ECTS, in a major course 7.5 ECTS. The internship yields 15 ECTS and the Master’s Thesis 30 ECTS. The total is 120 ECTS, which is the requirement for receiving the MA Linguistics diploma. 14

4.2 Internship During the internship, you become acquainted with actual research practice by participation in a research project carried out by a senior researcher (or a PhD student) at UiL OTS. Depending on your major track, the internship may involve a literature study, preparation of and participation in experiments, oral and written presentations etc. You may either co-operate with a project leader to develop your own partial project, or accept one of the partial projects offered by a project leader in their project. You are encouraged to spend your internship at other research groups in and outside the country, or to involve researchers from those research groups in your internship project. In such a case, it is obviously a good idea to start organising the internship at an early stage in the first semester or even before the summer, so that you may carry out the internship in the second half of the semester without any delays. In many cases, the topic of the internship will develop into the topic of the Master’s Thesis. Projects currently running at the Institute and open to internships include:  a comparison of language acquisition by children with Specific Language Impairment and dyslexia;  a number of projects on different types of aphasia (impaired language ability);  ordering of acquisition steps in first language acquisition;  the range of cross-linguistic variation in the expression of anaphoric relations;  the relationship between acoustic and form properties of words mediated by phonological representation;  the unexpectedly low performance of foreign language learners in their writing;  the way chunks of sentences of different types relate to each other and inherit properties from each other;  a study of the effects of ageing on speech perception and their underlying causes;  the effect of argument structure on adult language processing;  the relevance of cognitive principles for discourse phenomena like connectivity and coherence;  a study of the way conflicting influences on the interpretation of a sentence are resolved.

4.3 Master’s Thesis Writing a Master’s Thesis is the major objective of the second year of the Linguistics programme, on which you spend the entire fourth semester. The topic of the Master's Thesis should be integrated in ongoing research at UiL OTS, and is chosen in consultation with one of the Linguistics instructors. Each thesis is supervised by one or more instructors, and always graded by at least two. In all cases, and whatever the major track studied, students are expected to make a genuine contribution to the advancement of the knowledge in the field. 15

4.4 MA Linguistics schedule numbers refer to ECTS credits Year 1 (60) Semester 1 Semester 2

Foundations of Language Acquisition and Major (7.5) Major (7.5) Linguistics (5) Linguistic Theory* (5)

Foundations of Phonology* Neurocognition of Language Major (5) Term paper (5) (5) (5)

Foundations of Foundations of Syntax (5) Research Seminar* (2.5) Research Seminar (2.5) Semantics & Pragmatics (5) Year 2 (60) Semester 1 Semester 2 Major or Minor (7.5) Research Internship Master's Thesis Methods*/Typology* (15) (30) (7.5) *course descriptions on the next page Full course descriptions and examples of concrete schedules can be found on the Internet (see last page). 16

4.5 Career prospects The MA Linguistics is a research master programme, which means it offers a two-year programme designed to optimally prepare you for a career in research (PhD) or research-related jobs in government and industry. (Note that most master programmes in the humanities in this country are one-year programmes!)

The MA Linguistics programme prepares those who want to pursue an academic career for application to PhD programmes. If this is your aim, you will leave with a research proposal in hand ready for use in applications of that type, or easily adaptable to them. If, after completing this degree, you decide to leave academia, you are fully equipped to apply for positions where your thorough knowledge, research abilities and insight in the structure and use of language are relevant. Here you might think of trainee positions in the field of education, language technology, advisory positions in first and second language teaching and policy-making, or junior project research positions in research institutes, industry or government.

The MA thesis may take the form of a proposal for a research project for application to a PhD programme. Also, it could be a proposal for a research driven project, in which case the thesis will be a follow-up on an internship in a field of applied or experimental linguistics, like for example computational linguistics, discourse studies, phonetics, but also language acquisition. The University encourages its MA graduates to enrol in its own PhD programmes. Out of 18 PhD students who were accepted into the UiL OTS PhD programme in the combined years 2006 and 2007, 9 are Utrecht MA Linguistics graduates. PhD students at UiL OTS receive generous year-round grants from the Institute, allowing them to work on their dissertations in comfort. Financial security is a well-known factor in the success rate of PhD programmes around the world. 17

5 Admission

5.1 Admission Requirements The MA Linguistics is a selective programme. All applicants are evaluated with respect to the following requirements:

 Knowledge of linguistics testified by a BA in linguistics or a related field, which includes written work (to be included in the application). "Related fields" include psychology, information science, a language degree, speech therapy, etc. Its linguistic component should comprise at least 45 ECTS. You can also apply with a BA from Utrecht University College or Roosevelt Academy, provided your credits include all linguistically oriented subjects available in the curriculum. The same applies to other liberal arts colleges, subject to evaluation in individual cases.  Interest in scientific research This may show from a specific academic interest you express in your letter of motivation, academic or non-academic activities you have undertaken alongside or as part of your BA course, etc.  Excellent academic record Your academic record should show a 80% score (A-) at least in the relevant subjects, particularly the written work.  Good English A TOEFL score of 600 is a requirement for admission to the programme, except if you are an English native speaker, or if you have an English-taught BA diploma, a BA in English language or a Dutch VWO diploma. A (phone) interview may be part of the admission procedure, partially intended to evaluate your (communicative) English skills.

5.2 Admission Procedure: Application

If you are interested and you think you are eligible for admission, you go to one of the following websites: http://www.internationalmasters.uu.nl/ (applicants with non-Dutch qualifications) Click on Admissions, and read through all the information available there, which includes deadlines, procedure details and information about grants. Under "application procedure", you will find the online application form and instructions on how to fill it in. If possible, print the instructions using the link at the very bottom of the webpage. Your application will involve the submission of hard copies of several documents, so please make sure you send them to the address indicated for this purpose, which may vary depending on your situation (whether you have a Utrecht, a Dutch or a foreign BA diploma, and whether or not you are resident in the Netherlands). Applying for admission to this programme, as well as any other programme at Utrecht University, involves paying an (advance) admissions fee of €50.

http://www.masters.uu.nl/ (applicants with Dutch qualifications) Practische zaken ->Aanmelding en Inschrijving

5.3 Admission Procedure: Enrolment If you are accepted, you receive a letter of acceptance and an enrolment package including enrolment forms, application forms for housing and visas, instructions for paying the tuition fees (please consult the website for details), and general information about Utrecht University and life in the Netherlands (the "Utrecht Feel at Home" package). In order to benefit from the Utrecht Feel at Home services (assistance in finding housing and visa applications), please make sure you observe any relevant deadlines. Your enrolment is valid only once you have met your tuition fee obligations (payment in instalments is possible).

5.4 Funding Linguistics is one of the prestige Master programmes of Utrecht University, which means applicants may apply for an Excellence Grant covering living costs and sometimes partial tuition fees as well. Each year, the Institute itself offers a limited number of partial tuition fee waivers and living cost grants to foreign students, the Reinhart Grants. Please indicate your interest in a Reinhart Grant in your application.

If you plan to apply for a Huygens grant from Nuffic, please aim for the earlybird deadline (1 December for entrance in September the following year).

Students who have received Dutch government funding for obtaining their Dutch BA are normally entitled to a total of five years of such funding, covering the entire duration of the programme. In some situations, EU students are also eligible for Dutch government funding. 19

6 Contact

For any questions regarding your specific situation please approach the MA Linguistics Coordinator:

Dr Maaike Schoorlemmer [email protected] UiL OTS [email protected] Janskerkhof 13a 3512 BL UTRECHT the Netherlands

Tel.: + 31-30-253 6006 Fax: + 31-30-253 6406 http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/MA_index.html