Linguistics - Faculty of Arts

Offered by the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics

Linguistics is the study of the structure and function of language and the uses of language in communication, including written, spoken and cyber contexts. Linguistics explores how languages differ and what they all share, and provides the techniques and principles to be adopted in the analysis and description of any given language. In addition, the linguistic study of language and language use in socio-cultural contexts contributes to our understanding of identities, social and cultural organisation, multiculturalism and multilingualism, institutions and power, as well as the creative functions of language in texts and discourses. Knowledge of linguistics is central to the study of languages (eg English, Australian Aboriginal languages, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish). Linguistics also offers students of anthropology, mathematics, philosophy, sociology, engineering, psychology, law, and computer science, useful insights into the nature of language in their particular area of interest. Examples of the practical applications of linguistics include communications within organisations, communications interfaces with electronic systems, the preparation of materials for language teaching, the documentation of endangered languages, the development of language policies in government and education, and in the areas of business, professional and technical communication, tourism, intercultural communication and speech therapy.

The school accepts suitably qualified candidates for research degrees in linguistics (PhD and MA). Monash staff in the Linguistics Program have expertise in a number of areas of linguistics, including:

anthropological linguistics
applied linguistics
Australian Aboriginal languages
Australian English
Austronesian languages
bilingualism and multilingualism
child language acquisition
cognitive linguistics
comparative and contrastive linguistics
computers in linguistic research
conversational analysis
cross-cultural communication
dialectology
discourse analysis
functional grammar
historical linguistics
language and discrimination
language description and documentation
language attitudes
language attrition
language contact
language ecology
language maintenance and shift
language planning and policy
language typology
literacy development
morphology and morphosyntax
new and other Englishes
phonetics (acoustic and articulatory)
phonology
politeness phenomena
pragmatics
prosody and meaning
second language acquisition
semantics
sociolinguistics
syntax.

In addition, there is close collaboration with linguists in other programs within the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics who may have skills not represented within the Linguistics Program. Co-supervision can be arranged where it will be beneficial to a postgraduate student.

Relevant course groups

Graduate Certificate
Graduate Diploma
Postgraduate Diploma
3937 Postgraduate Diploma in Arts (Research)
Masters degree by coursework
2846 Master of Arts by research and coursework
2695 Master of Arts (Research)
0020 Doctor of Philosophy

Contacts

Telephone: +61 3 9905 5409

Email: sally.riley@arts.monash.edu.au

Visit http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/linguistics/pgrad/index.php and http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/lcl/contact-us.php