Language, Discourse & Communication, option of joint PhD with HKU/NUS

The School offers extensive research training and supervision on a range of themes including the dynamics of language and literacy within globalisation and intercultural contact, and we focus on language, literacy and discourse in everyday interaction, in education, literature, and popular culture, in new & mass media, and in medical and workplace settings.

There is a particular emphasis on rigorous interdisciplinary and critical perspectives with staff and students working in and across a range of disciplines.

We also run MPhil and PhD programmes in Education Research and Interdisciplinary Policy Studies. We are home to a range of research projects, funded by research councils (ESRC and AHRC) and major charities (e.g. Wellcome, Leverhulme and Nuffield).

Current/ recent PhD topics include:

‘The co-construction of ageing identities: a linguistic ethnography of older women’s talk and practices in a hair salon’; ‘The Development of Metaphor Comprehension in Arabic-Speaking Children’.

The Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication offers a supportive, lively and cutting-edge research environment that will compliment the support MPhil/PhD students receive from their departments and their partner organisation. All students are allocated two supervisors, who will work with you through your studies.

The Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication runs a number of seminar series, some in collaboration with other parts of the University of London. These include: LDC Seminars; LDC Research Days; Research workshop in language and literacy (RWLL); Micro-Discourse Analysis data sessions (MDA); Cross-London Seminars in Culture & Communication (XLS); Language, Mind & Society. Students are also encouraged to participate in the training provided by the College-wide Social Science Doctoral Training Centre.