Linguistics and English Language Newsletter 2016

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS NEWSLETTER MARCH 2016

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Hello! I am delighted to share with you some of the exciting opportunities provided by the Linguistics and English Language department here at The University of Manchester.

As an LEL student, you will have the option to study Single Honours English Language or Linguistics, English Language and English Literature, English Literature and Linguistics, or otherwise English Language or Linguistics partnered with a Modern Foreign Language.

All of our courses are supplemented by our excellent facilities, such as our Phonetics lab, our Psycholinguistics lab and our extensive resource collection. For example, our students are given the opportunity to work on rare English manuscripts held in the John Rylands Library in Deansgate.

A degree at Manchester will allow you to realise your potential, and will very likely represent the most fruitful and constructive years you will ever spend. Take a look through this magazine for further highlights of our courses, news and events. I hope to see you next year!

Delia Bentley Admissions Tutor

1 CONTENTS Studying with us

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Online Dialect Maps

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Modern Foreign Languages and Multilingual Manchester

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Residence Abroad

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Career Choices

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Department News and Events

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Contact Us

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Studying with us Students on our English Language courses will be introduced to a broadly chronological journey into the English language, from the Anglo Saxon period through to the present day, while learning to look at language in a new way.

Students on our Linguistics courses will learn to analyse the sounds, words and grammar of human language and to reflect on the fascinating similarities and differences between some of the 6-7,000 languages that exist on the globe.

Our students are taught through a mixture of formal lectures, seminars and tutorials. Our programmes are assessed in various ways, which may include examinations, presentations and coursework. Coursework may include library research, linguistic fieldwork and data collection, or web-based research. In your final year, you can choose to write a dissertation.

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4 Online Dialect Maps Under the supervision of Dr Laurel MacKenzie, our students study the sounds, grammar and vocabulary of contemporary English. “Do you say bap, roll or bun?”, “Do four and for sound different or the same?”, “Can you say give it me or is it not good English?” Asking questions such as these, students investigate how their language varies in the UK. They then report the results of their research in online dialect maps, which are publicly available on the web. You could take part in this endeavour, contributing to our understanding of the English language!

5 Bap, Roll or Bun?

‘Give it me?

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English Language or Linguistics with a Modern Foreign Language At Manchester you can study English Language or Linguistics alongside a Modern Foreign Language: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian or Spanish. We are one of the leading centres for languages in the UK and practical study of the language is at the heart of all these programmes.

Whereas Year 1 requires you to split your subject evenly (50%50%), in Years 2 and 4 you may choose to focus on one subject more than on the other (40%-60% split) in a way that suits your desired focus.

If you study English language or Linguistics and a Modern Foreign Language, in Year 3 you will have the opportunity to develop your language skills abroad. And remember, French, Spanish and Portuguese are not just spoken in Europe: you can immerse yourself in these languages much further afield!

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Multilingual Manchester 

We host the Multilingual Manchester Programme, which aims to promote awareness of language diversity, to document the many smaller languages spoken in Greater Manchester and to identify and respond to language needs in the city. You can play a role in this!

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Residence abroad All LEL students have the option to spend some of their time studying either in an English-speaking University in Europe or in an English-speaking country worldwide.

Not only do you have a choice in where you go, but also in what you do while abroad. You can study, teach English or do an internship, and usually mix and match these possibilities. If you choose to work, our superb Careers Service provides a database of reliable foreign companies where our students have already had very positive experiences. If you are interested in studying abroad, check out our list of possible destinations.

9 Notes from Alberto Moron Hernandez, an LEL Student at UMass Amherst— “When I heard that the nearby Hampshire College (Massachusetts) would be hosting their first interdisciplinary hackathon I signed up without hesitation.

This being the first hackathon I had ever attended I was not quite sure what was in store. Held on the last weekend in February, Hamp Hack exceeded all of my expectations. Our team had great fun building projects with technologies we’d never come across before... Despite our initial qualms about having to learn C# in an evening we were soon in awe of being able to communicate with our computers by simply wearing this ‘mind-reading’ diadem. Our idea of developing a mind-controlled YouTube interface was borne out of a desire to make something that would have a ‘real world’ application – in this case helping people with physical disabilities navigate the web… But what have I been getting up to on weekends when I have not traded sleep for code?

For one, attending a rally held by Bernie Sanders at UMass in mid-February was quite the experience...Additionally, I visited Boston with a group of friends who are here on an exchange from Stirling… we also ventured north on an ice cream pilgrimage to the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Vermont.”

You can read more student accounts of what life for our students across the globe on our student run Manchester on the Road blog.

10 What next?

A discussion with recent graduates.

What kind of work can you go into after graduating with a Linguistics or English Language degree?

Some graduates from our department have recently come back to talk about the career path they're on now, and give their advice to current students on how to follow in their footsteps.

- Naomi Proszynska (Linguistics, 2013) MSc student in Speech and Language Sciences at UCL Training to become a Speech and Language Therapist, or to go into related research - Danielle Whisker & Kim Lees (both English Language, 2013) Editorial assistants at Elektra Media, an educational publishing services company - Rebekah Hayes (Linguistics, 2012) Marketing & Communications Officer at St Christopher's Fellowship, a children's charity providing care and support for young people

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- Sophie Koonin (Linguistics, 2013) MSc student in Computer Science at Birkbeck College Going on to join the Technology Graduate Scheme at John Lewis - Benjamin Rhodes (BA Linguistics 2010, MA Linguistics 2012) Trainee teacher at the Sheffield College (Maths and English) Working toward a PGCE in Post-16 Education

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Department News and Events Our undergraduate student Louise Middleton and lecturer Dr Wendell Kimper were interviewed by the Daily Mail, talking about whether rappers are better linguists than Shakespeare. “...linguists from Manchester have found that rappers, such as Eminem and London-based Akala, are actually more adept at creating lyrics and prose than the 16th century poet. By studying rap lyrics, the experts said that traditional and complex rhyming comes so easy to hip-hop artists, the skill is almost 'second nature' to them.”

Lifespan and Styles The latest issue of the open access journal Lifespans and Styles: Undergraduate Working Papers on Intraspeaker Variation is guest-edited by our own Dr Laurel MacKenzie, and features papers by Manchester undergrads Bei Qing Cham and Hollie Barker. Cham’s paper deals with lifespan change in David Attenborough’s t-glottalling and vowel production, while Barker’s paper investigates the vowels of Ringo Starr from a second dialect acquisition perspective.

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You can find more news of the finest quality from the Department over at their blog https://manling.wordpress.com/

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CONTACT US ug-languages@manchester.ac.uk delia.bentley@manchester.ac.uk Undergraduate Admissions Office School of Arts, Languages and Cultures Room A19, Samuel Alexander Building The University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PT United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)161 275 3187