1 | P a g e

PGT Dissertation Handbook

University of Essex Department of Language and Linguistics

Graduate Programmes Co-ordination (Linguistics)

2 | P a g e

Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3

Proposing the topic ....................................................................................................................................... 4

When do I start the process? ................................................................................................................ 4

How do I go about choosing my topic? ................................................................................................. 4

When and how do I submit my topic formally? .................................................................................... 5

The title of your topic............................................................................................................................ 5

The proposed dissertation topic ........................................................................................................... 5

What happens after I have submitted the title and abstract? ............................................................. 5

Dissertation Preparation ............................................................................................................................... 5

When and how do I go about meeting my supervisor? ........................................................................ 5

When do I next see my supervisor? ...................................................................................................... 6

Do I need to prepare anything for this meeting? ................................................................................. 6

Dissertation ................................................................................................................................................... 6

How does the supervision process work?............................................................................................. 7

What do I need to know about submission of the dissertation? .......................................................... 7

Further information .................................................................................................................................. 9

Guidelines for the preparation of the dissertation ................................................................................... 9

The Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ 10

The Literature Review ......................................................................................................................... 10

The Chapters ....................................................................................................................................... 12

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 12

Ethical Approval and Data Collection .......................................................................................................... 14

Finally, Six Key Tips...................................................................................................................................... 15

Sample Dissertation Proposal Form ............................................................................................................ 16

Resources .................................................................................................................................................... 18

Departmental Library (Spicer Library) .................................................................................................... 18

Academic offences (e.g., plagiarism) ...................................................................................................... 18

Other resources ...................................................................................................................................... 18

Planning a Masters Dissertation ............................................................................................................. 19

Developing a Research Proposal and Framing Research Questions ....................................................... 21

Seminar supported supervision .............................................................................................................. 22

3 | P a g e

MA dissertation topics 2016/2017 ............................................................................................................. 23

Introduction The PGT dissertation is a central component of the MA, MRes and 1

st Year NRPhD. Writing your MA and MRes dissertation is

your chance to research a topic of your choosing with the guidance of an experienced researcher; often, indeed, this is what

motivates students to take up graduate study in the first place and, in some cases, to carry on to do a PhD. At 16,000 words, the

dissertation represents a substantial piece of writing and is the equivalent of two to three academic journal articles of the type

you will have read during your programme. It therefore requires careful planning and research, and considerable determination

to stick to a carefully worked out timetable.

Your supervisor will help you to do this, but in the end, the planning, the research, and the determination to stick to a timetable

is your responsibility. This handbook will guide you through this process and further advice is available in your Departmental

Handbook. Here is a brief summary of the stages. Please note the timeline is only meant to give you a general idea of the

process; you will need to adjust this depending on your specific project, mode of supervision, and the advice given by your

supervisor:

Proposing the

topic

by February: Discuss a dissertation topic with a member of staff (see list of suggested topics at the

end of this handbook)

Fill in a Dissertation proposal form (available from the Departmental office, room

4.305; a sample form is included at the end of this document)

Secure the signature of the member of staff you have discussed your topic with, and

of your Programme Director (see Dissertation proposal form below)

March: Submit a signed Dissertation proposal form to the Graduate Administrator by 3 pm on

Friday of Week 23.

You will be notified who your supervisor is shortly after this deadline.

Dissertation

Preparation

Mid –March: Make sure you have planned the work you will do during the Easter period

Make sure you visit the library and gather the materials you might need to consult

during the Easter period

Mid/End-

March:

Meet your supervisor to discuss and/or refine your dissertation plan (before the

Easter period)

Dissertation End April-June: Any data gathering (if applicable) would normally have been completed by the end of

the Summer term.

Most of the work and the dissertation supervision will take place in the Summer term

July-August: During the summer months, staff usually work on their own research and take their

4 | P a g e

holiday; therefore you should discuss specific arrangements for this period with your

supervisor. Staff operate two systems of supervision: either all one-to-one supervision

or a combination of individual and group supervision. Individual staff information can

be found on the Departmental webpages; also see the link ‘MA Supervision

Arrangements.’

September: Dissertations should be handed in by 16.00 hrs on Friday of Week 50.

Proposing the topic Proposing the

topic

by February: Discuss a dissertation topic with a member of staff (see list of suggested topics at the

end of this handbook)

Fill in a Dissertation proposal form (available from the Departmental office, room

4.305, a sample form is included at the end of this document)

Secure the signature of the member of staff you have discussed your topic with, and

of your Programme Director (see Dissertation proposal form below)

March: Submit a Dissertation proposal form to the Graduate Administrator by 3 pm on Friday

of Week 23.

B

y

F

E

B

R

U

A

R

Y

When do I start the process? You should start thinking about a possible choice of topic as early as possible; at the latest by early in the

Spring term. The selection of a suitable topic is your responsibility, although you are provided with a list of

possible topics to help you make a choice; you could start by re-visiting your lecture notes and bibliographies.

During February, you must discuss a dissertation topic with a member of staff specialising in your topic and

have it approved by your Course Director. We want to ensure that what you have chosen can be done within

the period of time available (approx. four months), that you have not chosen a topic which is too broad, or

unfocused, or for which there is a problem in obtaining materials, e.g., library resources, corpus resources, etc.

If conducting experiments or undertaking fieldwork, you also need to ensure you will be able to find

participants.

How do I go about choosing my topic? You need to select a topic which is related to what you have studied, and specifically to one or more of the

modules you have taken or are taking. You also need to consider your knowledge and skills in relation to

research methods. Also, think about a topic you find interesting and do not be tempted by choosing

something you think will be ‘easy.’

The topic must be one for which adequate library and supervision facilities are available within the

Department/University. You will find at the end of this document a list of members of staff and the areas and

topics they are willing to supervise. You can also find information about staff specialisms under ‘staff

information’ on the Departmental Website http://www.essex.ac.uk/langling/staff/academic.aspx

The work must have an appropriate intrinsic linguistic or applied linguistic content, since your degree is being

5 | P a g e

awarded by a Language and Linguistics Department and will therefore be judged (in part, at least) by the

linguistic or applied linguistic insights it offers.

M

A

R

C

H

When and how do I submit my topic formally? When you have consulted a member of staff and your Programme Director, and have been given informal

permission to pursue your chosen topic, you must submit your Dissertation proposal form to the Graduate

Administrator. The form (see sample below) must be signed by the member of staff you have discussed your

topic with and your Course Director. The deadline is Friday of Week 23.

The title of your topic The title should be as informative as possible. It is only a guide at this stage, and you will be able to modify it

at a later stage if you wish, in consultation with your supervisor.

The proposed dissertation topic In this section, you need to provide an outline of your proposed research in around 300 words. The outline

should identify a specific topic to be investigated and not just a general field. This summary of the proposed

dissertation should include the main points you think you will be covering in the dissertation proper (the

overall approach you wish to take, your research questions/hypotheses, and your methodology). There is also

a section entitled ‘Data’ where you need to mention the type of data you need to collect or consult in

connection with your research, and where, when and how this will be collected or accessed. Like the title, this

is only a provisional statement of intent at this stage. Whatever you write here does not commit you

irrevocably.

It is VITAL that you stick to the deadline (Friday of Week 23) if we are to be able to help you complete your

Dissertation on time.

What happens after I have submitted the title and abstract? The purpose of this preliminary stage is twofold. It is to get you thinking about your dissertation project

proper; and it is to help us ensure all students are assigned a suitable supervisor. Although at this stage you

would have already approached a member of staff who might supervise your dissertation, final responsibility

for ensuring a reasonable distribution of workload rests with the PGT Co-ordinator, and you might be

allocated a different supervisor who also has expertise in your topic.

Dissertation Preparation

Dissertation

Preparation

Mid -March Make sure you have planned the work you will do during the Easter period

Make sure you visit the library and gather the materials you might need to consult

during the Easter period

Mid/End-

March:

Meet your supervisor to discuss and/or refine your dissertation plan (before the

Easter period)

M

A

R

When and how do I go about meeting my supervisor? Your supervisor will be confirmed a week or so after submitting the Dissertation proposal form.

You should immediately contact your supervisor to set up a meeting before the Easter break. If you have not yet

done so, it is vital that you should start a discussion on your topic and it is your responsibility to set this in motion,

6 | P a g e

C

H

not your supervisor’s. The Easter vacation is a break from class-based learning, but not from reading, thinking, and

independent work. Working effectively over the Easter period will reap dividends later.

The key issues to discuss are:

the nature of the topic: should you limit or extend it - or is it fine as it stands?

the (further) reading you need to do

the timeline for carrying out your dissertation work

any other issues which you need to be considering

A

P

R

I

L

When do I next see my supervisor? During the break, you will have engaged in extended reading and sketched out (or refined) an outline plan; you

might also have started gathering data. After the break, you must meet your supervisor. If you are doing an MA

in Applied Linguistics or TEFL/TESOL and you opted for Seminar supported supervision (see the end of this

document for further details), your supervisor would have given you a schedule for meetings which you have to

adhere to.

For all other students, as was the case with preliminary meetings/discussions, it is your responsibility to set up

this meeting. Please make sure that you do not delay setting this meeting up.

We view this stage of the process as perhaps the most critical. In most cases, it is the moment when you will

decide, with your supervisor’s help, on the overall remit and structure of your dissertation. You need to be able

to discuss this at length, exchanging views in the light of your reading and thinking during the Easter break.

Do I need to prepare anything for this meeting? This might have been decided between you and your supervisor in the previous meeting, but, in general terms,

much of this meeting may involve ‘brainstorming’. This, however, cannot happen in a vacuum; you must

prepare for the meeting carefully. It is probably a good idea to email your supervisor an outline of your

dissertation (and key questions, if you have any) by attachment prior to the meeting. You cannot expect your

supervisor to read through an outline plan for the first time during this meeting. Not only will this waste your

time as the supervisor reads the plan, but it is most unlikely that your supervisor will be able to respond

adequately to such a first sight reading. Either way, given that you have a limited span of time, you will waste it.

You need to give your supervisor as much material as you can so that an informed discussion can take place.

Dissertation

Dissertation End April-June: Any data gathering (if applicable) would have normally been completed by the end of

the Summer term

Most of the work and the MA/MPhD supervision will take place in the Summer term

July-August: During the summer months, staff usually work on their own research and take their

holiday; therefore you should discuss specific arrangements for this period with your

supervisor. Staff operate two systems of supervision either all one-to-one supervision

or a combination of individual and group supervision. Individual staff information can

be found on the Departmental webpages, also see the link ‘MA Supervision

Arrangements.’

7 | P a g e

September: Dissertations should be handed in by 16.00 hrs on Friday of Week 50.

A

P

R

I

L

/

J

U

N

E

How does the supervision process work? The majority of supervision takes place during the third (Summer) term.

The whole point of a dissertation is to give you the chance to demonstrate that you are capable of

independent work ‐ so you are not expected to rely too much on your supervisor!

The precise form that supervisions take (e.g. general discussion, feedback on a draft submitted by you) is a

matter to be agreed between you and your supervisor.

Your supervisor will not normally read any given draft section of your dissertation more than once, and cannot

be expected to proof‐read or ghost‐write the final version (for which you alone carry responsibility).

We offer an alternative mode of supervision available ONLY to students in the fields of Applied Linguistics and

TEFL/TESOL. This option is called Seminar supported supervision and combines compulsory group (seminar

type) supervision with one-to-one supervision. See the end of this document for further information on this

type of supervision.

J

U

L

/

A

U

G

During the summer months, staff usually work on their own research and take their holiday; therefore you

should discuss specific arrangements for this period with your supervisor. Individual staff information can be found

on the Departmental webpages, also see the link ‘MA Supervision Arrangements.’

See below “Guidelines for the preparation of the dissertation” for further information on the structure of the

dissertation.

S

E

P

T

E

M

B

What do I need to know about submission of the dissertation? The Guidelines which follow will tell you how to prepare your dissertation. In this section, we will deal with

procedural and presentation matters.

a) Length

Part of the art of writing an assessed piece of work (whether an essay‐style assignment or dissertation) lies in

accepting the discipline of producing a specific piece of work of a specific length by a specific deadline. The

standard minimum and maximum length limits for dissertations in the Department are as specified below:

• For a 16,000‐word MA dissertation, 13,000‐19,000 words

• For a 22,000‐word MRes dissertation, 19,000‐25,000 words

8 | P a g e

E

R

The standard departmental penalty for over‐ or under‐length assessed work is that 1 mark is deducted for

every 100 words over the maximum or under the minimum specified length, up to a maximum penalty of 10

marks (e.g. work which is between 1 and 100 words over length will be penalised by 1 mark; work which is

between 101 and 200 words over length will be penalised by 2 marks; work which is between 201 and 300

words over length will be penalised by 3 marks, and so on). You must indicate the length of the main text of

any assignment or dissertation you produce (excluding bibliography and appendices) at the end of the main

text (and on the coversheet). Word lengths should normally be determined by an electronic word count.

b) Submission date and late submission

The departmental deadline for submission of MA/MRES dissertations is 16.00 hrs on Friday of Week 50.

Failure to submit by the dissertation deadline will result in a mark of zero. If students are unable to meet the

deadline, for example due to health problems, they must contact the department’s Graduate Administrator

before the submission deadline to discuss the possibility of applying for a short extension. The department

can grant an extension of up to one month – depending on the circumstances presented by the student; you

should speak with your supervisor and have a supporting statement from them and medical documentation if

applicable. Extensions beyond a month must go to the Dean for approval of a formal extension of their

candidature (Please come and discuss this with the Graduate Administrator in the Departmental

Administration Office, 4.305), but you should be aware that if extensions beyond a month apply, students may

become liable for additional fees. This is because if you submit later than October you will need to obtain a

partial registration via the Registry.

c) Format

The dissertation is submitted online only, however if you would like to print one as a donation to the Spicer

Library you may do so and leave a copy with the Graduate Administrator.

d) Presentation style

It is important that your work shows clear evidence that you are familiar with the typographical conventions

and style of presentation used in the relevant technical or professional literature. This means that you should

set out your assignment in exactly the same way as a published article in the relevant field would be set out.

As far as style is concerned, you should always use the appropriate technical terms and phraseology in

discussion and avoid folk terminology. For further details consult your Departmental handbook.

S

E

P

T

-

O

C

T

e) Assessment procedures

Your dissertation will be marked by two members of staff, your supervisor and a second internal examiner.

These two internal examiners will agree a provisional mark. The External Examiner will then validate that mark

along with all the other pieces of assessed work submitted. Your marks, and the grade to be awarded, will be

considered by the Graduate Board of Examiners for your MA in November.

IMPORTANT: For NRPhD students, in order to be eligible to proceed to PhD level, you must achieve a mark of

at least 65 for your Dissertation, and an average coursework mark of 65. These marks will then be assessed,

along with your progress, and a decision will be made whether to allow you to proceed to PhD level.

9 | P a g e

N

O

V

f) Feedback

As an integral part of the marking process, members of staff are expected to give you written feedback on

each coursework assignment you submit. General feedback (on the overall quality of your assignment, its

major strengths and weaknesses): no norm is prescribed for the length of this general feedback, but 50‐100

words are what you might expect to receive for a major assignment.

g) Failure of the dissertation

If you are awarded a mark of less than 50 (i.e. a fail mark), resubmission will ONLY be permitted in the

following circumstances:

either (i) substantiated extenuating circumstances accepted at the discretion of the Board of Examiners;

or (ii) where the original mark is at least 40 and the Board of Examiners judges that the work required

does not include any additional experimental or practical work.

Resubmission is subject to the following conditions:

(i) A dissertation must normally be resubmitted within two months of the formal notification of

permission to resubmit; in cases of extenuating circumstances, this may be extended to a maximum

of 12 months.

(ii) A dissertation which has been resubmitted because of a fail shall be awarded no more than the

minimum pass mark; in the case of resubmissions because of extenuating circumstances, the full

range of marks shall be available to examiners.

If you fail a Master’s dissertation and are given permission to resubmit it, you will be entitled to receive a set

of comments from one or more of the examiners on aspects of your work which need to be revised. You may

request clarification of these comments if you wish (in person or by email), and your supervisor will read and

comment on a draft of the revised dissertation before it is resubmitted (if you send it to your supervisor in

good time).

We hope you will enjoy the experience of carrying out your own research and writing your dissertation!

Further information Staff information: Follow the links through the Departmental webpages: http://www.essex.ac.uk/langling/staff/academic.aspx

Information about the PGT supervision policy is published on the following Website:

http://www.essex.ac.uk/langling/documents/current_students/ma_supervision_arrangements.pdf

Guidelines for the preparation of the dissertation

Please note that different types of dissertation, e.g., theoretical studies vs. empirical and/or practical investigations, will take

different forms and their various components will be more or less important, relatively longer or shorter, and so on. The

information below is only meant to give you a very general idea and will probably be a good starting point for discussion with

your supervisor who is, ultimately, the best person to provide advice. Where issues of argument, structure of paragraphs, and

general presentation are concerned (line-spacing, punctuation, references, pagination), some general guidelines for essay-

writing in the PGT Handbook also apply to the dissertation.

10 | P a g e

The Abstract The abstract should be around 250 words long. You will need to write several drafts, and the final draft after you have

completed the dissertation, because in the course of writing, you may well end up changing the arguments you began with.

The finished abstract should do the following:

State clearly and in specific terms what the dissertation is about. This will generally be more effective if you explain how the dissertation aims to answer some specific question or set of questions. Your research questions will help you to stay on target and to avoid being distracted by interesting (but irrelevant) digressions.

If applicable, the abstract should say what the dataset consisted of and what methods were used to analyse it; in other words, give a clear summary of the means used to answer the research questions, e.g., data gathering and arguments or theories resorted to.

Give a clear idea of the outcomes or conclusions of your research.

Introduction A short Introduction or Preface is expected. This should say what the topic is and why it is of value; it might, for example, include a brief account of a teaching or other context where the research was conducted and which might benefit from it. It is also useful to include a general outline of what each chapter includes or addresses.

The Literature Review The literature review chapter (or chapters) must include a critical review of the literature pertaining to your topic. This serves as

the research context for your own work, indicating what has been done, as well as what has not been done in the area you are

investigating. It is the springboard for your work. The quality of your work will, to a large extent, depend on how extensive and

how focused this review is; also note that the literature review for an empirical investigation normally requires ‘focus’ rather

than ‘breadth’. The work for this should already have been started well before the beginning of the dissertation proper, and

this is why it is important to think about a topic linked to the modules you have taken or are taking. At this stage, the survey of

the critical literature would have allowed you to do the following:

to decide on the issues you wished to address

to become aware of appropriate research methodologies

to see how research on your topic fitted into a broader framework

to prepare you for approaching the literature review

Now, however, you will inevitably need to extend this work for the literature review proper.

a) What is the Literature Review for?

Clearly, if you are new to research in the field, you are not in a position to definitively evaluate the work of experienced

researchers on the basis of your own knowledge of the topic or of research methodology. Where you are reporting on well-

known research closely related to your topic, however, some critical comments may well be available from other established

researchers (often in textbooks on the topic). These criticisms of methodology, conclusions, and so on, can, and should be

reported in your review, as should published reactions to these criticisms.

However, the use of the term critical is not usually meant to suggest that you should focus on criticising the work of established

researchers. It is primarily meant to indicate that your material is not just a descriptive list of a number of research projects

related to the topic, but that you are capable of thinking critically and with insight about the issues raised by previous research.

Its functions include most of the following, and often in the following order, all of which can be subsumed under the general

heading of demonstrating your grasp of the topic:

to indicate major questions in the topic area

to provide definitions of key terms

11 | P a g e

to indicate what researchers in the field already know about the topic, and also gaps in knowledge

to draw together the main themes and arguments covered by them

to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the literature relevant to your own research

to draw out key issues essential to your own research

You should try to do all of this while also developing an argument in the Review.

b) How much should I cover?

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer, as you will have to decide what is appropriate in your case, in discussion with your

supervisor. Generally, for empirically-based dissertations, not more than a third of the whole dissertation should be literature

review, but clearly this does not apply to theoretical or bibliographic studies. As a start, think about providing answers to

questions of this type:

What has been done in my field of research?

What is relevant in terms of my research interests/objectives/questions?

What do I need to cover given the scope of my topic, my level of study and the time I have available to write my thesis?

Why might I cover certain bodies of literature and not others?

You will be expected to

cover the most recent, relevant publications available

focus on key writers in the field, which, remember, may not be that recent, but may still be widely cited

c) What if there isn’t much on my topic?

If you have chosen to work on a relatively new issue, area, phenomenon or language, you may well find that there is not much

material. You would then be expected to cover the main related theoretical material and, if appropriate, rely on teacher

experience, non-research literature, and so on.

d) Where should I put the material?

A further issue that arises in the context of coverage is what to cover where. You may find it difficult to decide what material to

cover in a literature review chapter, and what to cover in other chapters of your dissertation, once again, it all depends on the

type of dissertation you are writing. Empirically-based projects will normally have one main literature review chapter, whereas

for theoretically based dissertations, it may help to think in terms of the writing having different levels, and so different

objectives:

Literature Review chapter Specific chapter level

Your purpose in this chapter is to provide a broad-based review of the literature as it applies to your overall research objectives.

In the process of this review, it may at times be necessary to signal your intention to reserve more detailed discussion of points or aspects of studies for relevant chapters.

At the level of the chapter, you could undertake detailed discussion of aspects of the literature relevant to the specific objectives of the particular chapter you are writing.

Your use of the literature in specific chapters is likely to be integrated throughout your discussion to advance and support points you are developing.

But you might want mini-literature reviews at the beginning of each chapter.

12 | P a g e

e) How should I structure my review?

There are different ways of organising a literature review; some writers, for example, opt for a thematic, conceptual or

methodological approach; others organise their review around key issues or debates that they want to engage with. The key

issue is to let the interests and objectives of your own research determine the most appropriate structure for you. As with all

other writing, do not forget to tell your reader, at appropriate points, what you are doing and why you are doing it.

The end of the review is not necessarily the end of the introductory chapters. Your introductory chapters must not only say who

has said what about your topic, and give a context for your discussion, they must also show that you are able to build on this

groundwork and suggest ways forward which justify your own approach.

f) Remind me why I have done all this

By the end of your first main chapter, your reader should be able to see that

the scope of your review is appropriate for your degree level

you have reviewed the sources relevant to your research topic

there has been full critical engagement with the literature

it is clear how your research objectives/questions fit in with previous scholarly work

it is clear how you will proceed in the following chapters It might be useful to conclude this chapter with the research questions/aims/hypotheses of your study.

The Chapters Dissertations based on empirical/practical work are normally structured as follows: Introduction, Literature Review,

Methodology, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Other types of dissertation might have a series of chapters on different

theoretical issues, or theories about the same issue, different related syntactic structures, different linguistic analyses of the

same phenomenon, and so on…before the Conclusion.

Each chapter, however, should end with a reference to what will be covered in the following chapter and how it relates to your

general focus. Similarly, each chapter should begin with a more extended version of exactly the same kind of reminder. This is

called ‘flagging’ or ‘signposting’, and is even more crucial for longer pieces of work than it might be for essays. You do not want

your dissertation to appear to the reader to be a haphazard collection of mini-essays.

Conclusion Your dissertation must have a conclusion. Do not just stop abruptly after the last chapter. The point of the conclusion, just like

for an essay, is to ensure that your readers understand where you have taken them. You therefore need to remind them about

your research questions and the framework in which these questions operate, as well as what your investigations have

revealed. A good way to complete the conclusion is to suggest ‘ways forward’, or aspects that you are well aware that you have

not been able to cover given the restricted scope of your work. Such ‘where now’ statements are not easy to write; they can

often sound rather banal, or seemingly state the obvious, so be prepared to try out several drafts before committing yourself.

Shortcomings and implications (e.g., pedagogical) should also be mentioned if relevant.

Further advice on dissertation structure and content can be found at the links listed below. However, you should bear in

mind that various ways of structuring your dissertation may be more or less appropriate, so you should consult your

supervisor about the advice provided in this document and at these links:

13 | P a g e

http://www.essex.ac.uk/myskills/skills/writing/dissertationChecklist.asp

http://linguistlist.org/studentportal/presentwork.cfm

A useful book you might want to consult is:

Hart, C. (2005). Doing your Masters Dissertation. London: Sage.

14 | P a g e

Ethical Approval and Data Collection

[Note: Where the information provided here is in conflict with the University's ethical guidelines, the University guidelines take

precedence. Where the information provided here is in conflict with the Dept. webpage on Ethical Guidelines for Research

Involving Human Participants, the webpage takes precedence since it provides fuller information and is updated during the

year.]

Who should apply for Ethical Approval?

All students planning to undertake a research project involving human participants (e.g. a project involving tests,

questionnaires, interviews, reaction time experiments, etc.) must obtain ethical approval BEFORE STARTING data collection.

How to apply for Ethical Approval

The steps you will need to undertake include:

Develop your data collection design well in advance of beginning data collection

Consider the ethics of it carefully; consult relevant readings from your courses

Consult with supervisor about your plans for ethical research. Your supervisor is the primary point of contact for

information and advice on the ethical approval process

Research involving collecting data in the UK from children below age 18, or adults who may be considered vulnerable, may

require DBS clearance (Disclosure and Barring Service, formerly CRB - Criminal Records Bureau). DBS clearance is done centrally

by the University and adds extra time to your clearance process. DBS checks cost money which the student must pay (e.g. £60

in the past – current cost may differ). The Ethical Approval process may recommend that you seek DBS approval, but it is a

separate process. If you are recommended to get DBS clearance, it must be obtained from Registry after speaking with the

Departmental Administrator.

Download and complete an Application for Ethical Approval Form from the Department’s Ethical Guidelines webpage. A Model

Form with some suggestions and advice for answering the questions is available on the webpage.

Prepare an Ethics Participant Consent Form appropriate to your project. Examples that can be modified are available from the

webpage. DO NOT simply copy an existing consent form – you MUST ensure that the form you develop complies with the

principles on the REO Participant Information & Consent webpage. You may adapt model forms, but a copied form is likely to

prove inadequate and cause your application to be rejected.

Discuss both the completed application form and the participant consent form with your supervisor. Their approval and

signature is required before your application can be acted on.

Send your application form (signed by your supervisor) and participant consent form to the Graduate Administrator, in BOTH

email AND signed hard‐copy forms. Leave adequate time (e.g. 2 weeks) for the form to be processed, including potentially

being returned to you for improvements and resubmission.

The Dept. Ethics Coordinator will pass his decision to the appropriate Administrator. You will receive notification of the decision

by email from the Graduate Administrator. You may also receive information on revisions required before your application can

be approved. When it is signed off by the Dept. Ethics officer and returned to you, THEN you may begin research.

WARNING: DO NOT collect data BEFORE the date that your application is approved. There can be no retroactive approval of

research involving human participants.

15 | P a g e

The Ethics Coordinator for the Linguistics Dept. is currently Dr Mike Jones. Please consult the Dept. webpage on Ethical

Guidelines for Research Involving Human Participants for more details, and for any changes or updates to procedures. It

contains further information on the application and approval process and on DBS clearance, and links to University of Essex and

external webpages on research ethics. You can also download relevant information and forms relating to Research ethics from

the Departmental “Documents and Resources/Ethical Approval” for Current students through this link:

http://www.essex.ac.uk/langling/current/default.aspx

Finally, Six Key Tips

You do not have to start writing at the beginning Although it is helpful to have written a draft literature review before you start the dissertation proper, it sometimes helps, especially if you suffer from writer’s block, to begin with what you are most comfortable with. Then move about in your writing by completing various sections as you think of them. At some point, you will be able to spread out in front of you all of the sections that you have written. You will be able to sequence them in the best order and then see what is missing and should be added to the dissertation. This approach builds on those aspects of your study that are of most interest to you at any particular time. Go with what interests you, because that will help you engage with your focus.

Never stop writing

Even if all you can write is notes, do not yield to the temptation of saying to yourself: ‘I just need to read another two books

before getting the right ideas’. The right ideas are not other people’s ideas; they are your own.

Use Word’s ‘Table of Contents’ and ‘Headings’ facilities

This allows you to see your structure on one page, and if necessary move whole chunks of text around with one click.

Read your draft out loud to yourself once you have written a first draft

If you get lost in the argument, the argument is not clear, even though it might have seemed so to you. If you lose your breath,

you are writing sentences which are too long and complicated, or you are not punctuating your text properly.

Save or print out draft versions frequently

…and remember to date-stamp them. This way you can constantly compare and contrast different drafts. You should also save

your work in different places, e.g., your own computer, your m-drive, a USB stick.

The end is the beginning

Write the Introductory chapter last of all. And then review your abstract. It is only when you arrive at the end of the journey

that you can understand and explain to others (i.e. your reader) how to get there.

16 | P a g e

Sample Dissertation Proposal Form

MA/ MRes /1st Year NRPhD DISSERTATION PROPOSAL FORM

Graduate Students who wish to proceed to prepare an MA/MRes/1st Year NRPhD dissertation should complete this form. For MA students, the form must be signed both by a member of staff who you have discussed your topic with and who has approved it (see list of suggested topics and members of staff), and also by your Graduate Course Director. For MRes and 1st Year NRPhD students, only the supervisor needs to sign this form. The signed form must be returned to the Graduate Administrator by 3pm on Friday of Week 23. FAMILY NAME:_________________ FIRST NAME(S):____________________ REGISTRATION NO. _______________ DEGREE COURSE (TEFL/AL/ etc): ___________________________________ PROPOSED TITLE: PROPOSED DISSERTATION TOPIC: Provide an outline of your proposed research in around 300 words. The outline should identify a specific topic to be investigated and NOT a general field.

17 | P a g e

PROPOSED DISSERTATION TOPIC (continued)... DATA: What data will you collect in connection with your research, and where, when and how will this be collected? What kinds of linguistic and/or statistical and/or computational techniques will you use to analyse the data? RELEVANT BACKGROUND: Please list the modules you have taken, and then circle those that are relevant to your dissertation topic. 1. _________________________ 5. _________________________ 2. _________________________ 6. _________________________ 3. _________________________ 7. _________________________ 4. _________________________ 8. _________________________ Include any relevant modules you audited here: 1. _________________________ 2. _________________________

NAME SIGNATURE DATE STUDENT: ________________ _______________ _________ MEMBER OF STAFF WHO HAS APPROVED YOUR TOPIC _________________ ________________ __________ PROGRAMME DIRECTOR: ________________ _______________ _________

18 | P a g e

Resources

Departmental Library (Spicer Library) The Department has a library of its own housed in room 3.111 (called the Spicer Library, founded in memory of Prof. Sam

Spicer, Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics), which we will open by the beginning of week three. Most of the books in the

collection are in the general field of Applied Linguistics/English Language Teaching and there is also a collection of past MA and

PhDs from the Department. Lexa Olivera-Smith is the member of staff in overall charge of the Spicer Library. Check notice

boards for opening times and how to register. The library is run by student volunteers.

Academic offences (e.g., plagiarism) Students are required to reference their sources properly and failure to do so can lead to an allegation of an academic offence.

When submitting any piece of work (e.g., essay, report, dissertation, or thesis) you will be required to acknowledge any

assistance received or any use of the work of others. Guidance on how you can avoid plagiarism is available in your

Departmental handbook (see p. 45) and also online at www.essex.ac.uk/plagiarism; the latter includes definitions of

plagiarism, an online test, and some common mistakes in academic writing.

Other resources

You might want to consult Phil Scholfield’s ‘Checklist for reporting a piece of empirical work on language’. This is available

through the Departmental website, academic staff, or at http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~scholp/report.htm

You might also want to use some of Kate Exley’s resources below to help you get organised.

19 | P a g e

Planning a Masters Dissertation

Write a list of the processes involved in completing your research project and dissertation, e.g. developing a research proposal, refining research

questions, obtaining ethical approval, designing data collection instruments, etc. Then, use the chart below to organise and plan the process of

completing your dissertation by the deadline.

Processes involved in completing a research project and dissertation:

• Develop a research proposal

• Refining research questions

20 | P a g e

Planning a Masters

MONTHS

WEEKS

1

2

3

4

1 February

2

3

4

5

21 | P a g e

Developing a Research Proposal and Framing Research Questions

Research focus / problem:

Research sub-

questions:

What information is

needed?

Where / from whom

can I get the

information?

How can I get the

information?

How will I organise and

analyse the

information?

Ethical issues /

considerations?

Probable findings?

1.

2.

3.

4.

22 | P a g e

Seminar supported supervision

If you are doing an MA in Applied Linguistics or TEFL/TESOL you will be able to opt for this mode of supervision

which primarily consists of compulsory group (seminar type) supervision led by a group of academic staff

including your supervisor, but also includes individual supervision as outlined below. Whilst the amount of

supervision received will be equivalent to what all other MA students receive, by taking this option you will also

benefit from collective discussion and feedback.

Supervision will consist of SIX supervisory meetings as follows:

Meeting 1 (end of Spring term): Individual meeting with your supervisor to discuss your final Research Proposal

and if relevant revise/refine your research questions. If required you will also receive advice on initial readings for

the literature review and agree on a plan of work for the Easter break.

Meeting 2 (week 31): Seminar. Group session for students to present oral summaries of their literature review

drafts, research questions and hypotheses as relevant, and receive feedback and advice from their supervisor and

other members of the group.

Meeting 3 (week 32): Drop in advice surgery. Students are offered advice on Methodology.

Meeting 4 (week 35): Drop in advice surgery. Students are offered advice on Data analysis.

Meeting 5 (week 37): Individual meeting with your supervisor to discuss any questions you might have regarding

your work to date.

Meeting 6 (week 39): 15-minute conference style presentation by students of the work they will be reporting in

the dissertation with a focus on their findings and conclusions drawn from them. Feedback and advice from their

supervisor and other members of the group will be offered.

Please note that after each seminar your supervisor will give you written feedback as appropriate; therefore, you

can only expect your supervisor to read and comment on a sample (e.g., a draft chapter) of your written work.

This will have to be submitted to him/her by week 40.

23 | P a g e

MA dissertation topics 2016/2017 Below is the list of topics which can be supervised in the Department. Above each topic is the name of the member of staff you need to discuss your proposal with. Your proposal needs to be approved and signed by this lecturer. Following approval of your topic, you will be allocated a supervisor, which may or may not be this member of staff. Members of staff have usually indicated both broad areas in which they are happy to supervise, as well as more specific topics or research questions, to help you define your topic; if you select one of the broad topics, it will need to be narrowed down following discussion with the lecturer. You can only choose topics in areas you have studied before. The deadline for receipt of proposals is 3pm on Friday of Week 23 (see details on proposal form). Dr Doug Arnold Broad topics

Topics in `constraint based' syntax and semantics (HPSG, LFG), especially if related to English (e.g. exploring the description of particular constructions; or looking at particular areas of theory such as Binding Theory)

A wide range of descriptive topics relating to English grammar. Specific topics

Approaches to the analysis of clitics in Romance Languages in HPSG (especially less studied languages, e.g. Romanian, Catalan);

The analysis of headless relatives in HPSG. `Headless relatives' are constructions which involve a relative clause, but where there is no nominal head, e.g. /We listend to [whoever spoke]/, -- compare a normal relative /We listened to every person [who spoke]/. There has been a considerable amount of work on the analysis of headless relatives in HPSG, but there remain several unanswered questions.

The analysis of Exhaustive Conditionals. Exhaustive Conditional are constructions like /no matter what she does/, /whatever she does/. There has been some work on this kind of construction in HPSG, which assumes that they are basically like questions, but there is scope to develop it, e.g. by considering different kinds of question.

The analysis of Control and Raising in HPSG. HPSG has a very simple account of Control and Raising constructions which deals nicely with clear cases. However, there are a number of less cases (e.g. aspectual verbs like /begin/, and various kinds of modal verb, and `semi-modals' -- verbs which appear to have some main verb properties, and some auxiliary verb properties) which deserved exploration. Recent work on so-called `copy-raising' (examples like /Sam seems like she is happy/, where the downstairs position is realised as an overt pronoun) also deserve attention.

The analysis of idioms: idioms are syntactic constructions whose interpretation cannot be derived compositionally from the interpretation of the parts (/kick the bucket/, meaning `die' is the classic example). There are plausible approaches to their analysis in both HPSG and LFG, but all are in some way problematic, and neither has been applied to a very wide range of cases.

In general, pre-nominal adjectives in English are restricted to having no `phrasal' structure (compare /a person fond of children/ with /*a fond of children person/ ); there are a number of plausible accounts of this restrictions. However, there is also a well-known class of exceptions (e.g. /a better than average student/), and a relatively small literature which attempts to describe them. There is scope for a detailed study of these exceptions in either HPSG or LFG.

There are a number of constructions in English that involve NPs that lack an overt head noun, such as /the poor/, /the terminally complacent/, etc. Recent work on HPSG has produced an analysis of one such construction. However, it is not clear whether this can be extended to the other constructions in a sensible way.

Work in LFG has suggested how the approach to conventional implicatures developed in Potts work (e.g. /The Logic of Conventional Implicatures/. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005) can be implemented (i.e. interfaced with the rest of the grammar). Producing a comparable implementation/integration of his approach in HPSG poses some potentially interesting issues. This could be developed into an analysis of some particular phenomenon (e.g. the interpretation of `expressives' such as swear words in different contexts).

There has been some foundational work on integrating pragmatic aspects of interpretation with the rest of the grammar in HPSG, but applying it to particular phenomena will raise interesting theoretical and descriptive issues.

24 | P a g e

Dr Enam Al-Wer

Variation and change –on any aspect, any language

Dialect and language contact

Koineisation

Multilingualism o language maintenance and shift o language choice in multilingual setting o aspects of individual multilingualism (transfer, code switching)

Dr Ryan Blything Broad topics

Children's acquisition of simple or complex syntax (first language)

Children's acquisition of morphology (first language) Specific topics

Children's understanding of reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns: How does a child understand that in a sentence such as "Goldilocks said hat Mama bear is washing herself", "herself" can refer only to 'Mama bear' and not 'Goldilocks'

Children often overgeneralize their use of syntactic structures to unsuitable verbs. For example, one should not use the verb 'laugh' in the transitive-causative structure (*the man laughed the boy). The research will focus on investigating the role of statistical-learning and semantics in restricting these kinds of ungrammatical utterances.

Identifying cues for segmentation in Infant Directed Speech: A recent study (Floccia et al., 2016) showed that British English infants can do word segmentation like their American English peers provided they hear the initial words in an emphasised Infant Directed Speech (IDS) style. In this project, you will analyse existing stimuli to measure the cues that may be helpful in this emphasised IDS, and then test this in a word segmentation task with 9 month old infants. You will be using eye tracking.

Dr Vineeta Chand Broad topics

What is the structural or functional distribution of a linguistic phenomenon, and how can we explain it from a corpus or variationist perspective?

How (and why) are multilingual competencies changing diachronically within a particular setting or community?

How can we characterize language patterns in healthy aging adults vs. patients with dementia? Specific topics

How are a range of linguistic features used to discursively construct 2+ sociolinguistic groups/personae/identities as distinct in discourse?

How are different regions sociolinguistically understood/evaluated by in/out-group members?

What is the relationship between language policies, educational policies and/or actual practices in a community?

What is the role and/or instrumental value of a specific code/language behavior (e.g. code-switching) within a community, and how is this evolving diachronically?

What do findings from a rapid anonymous survey you conduct tell us about the value of a particular form and/or diachronic change for that variable within a community?

What linguistic features distinguish healthy aging from older speakers with dementia? Dr Rebecca Clift Broad topics

Conversation Analysis, i.e. the analysis of audio and/or video-recorded naturally-occurring interaction to examine how speakers use linguistic and embodied resources to make sense of each other. Students may choose to study an aspect of interaction in their L1, using video that they have either recorded or that is publicly available. Possible topics might include:

specific linguistic structures or constructions, e.g. relative clauses, particles, marked word-order, prosodic phenomena, terms of address

linguistic and extralinguistic phenomena, e.g. interactional laughter in serious contexts, reported speech, a particular embodied gesture or eye-gaze

particular contexts, e.g. family arguments, emergency phone calls, chaired political debates

25 | P a g e

specific actions, e.g. directives, invitations, compliments, epistemic up/downgrades, defences, requests, offers, repair, complaints, topic shift

Specific topics (on students’ L1):

Marked reference and anaphora in interaction: Students would, in interactional data, examine cases of marked reference forms to establish the range of actions they are implicated in. This could be, e.g. in reference to people, so referring to someone with other than their default name, e.g. referring to ‘Your daughter’ in conversation with my husband about our daughter instead of using her name; or using full forms when pronouns are expected, and vice versa.

Repair: this study would examine instances of repair in videoed interaction, and specifically what prompts other-initiated repair – both linguistically and non-linguistically.

An investigation of the ‘open-palm’ gesture in interaction: this would involve examining, across videoed data in your L1, instances of the ‘open palm’ gesture which often accompanies speakers’ questions, but which is also implemented in a range of other conversational actions. Such gestures are characterised by a relative dynamism of movement in the arms and hands up and away from the body, with the palms up- or outwards, as the utterance (e.g. question, offer, pursuit of a response) is produced, and then briefly held static. You would examine the trajectory of the gesture from onset to disengagement, relative to i) the launch of the verbal action by the speaker; ii) the sequence of talk in which the participants are engaged; and iii) the eye gaze of speaker and recipient(s).

Interrupted conversations: I have a videoed corpus of family interaction in English, and would be interested to supervise a study of conversations that get interrupted (e.g. by a mobile phone ringing) – how does the interruption get dealt with and how is talk resumed?

Dr Tracey Costley

Issues in TEFL/TESOL/ELT/EAL (e.g. curriculum design, teacher beliefs and practices, materials, teacher training)

Reading and writing in a second language (e.g. feedback, materials selection, challenges and difficulties)

Teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

How students develop their Academic Literacy/ies

English as Additional Language Learners

Language policy, curricula and teaching methods Dr Claire Delle Luche Broad topics

Adult bilingual lexicon organisation Current models of the adult bilingual lexicon posit that both languages share common representations (e.g, Dijkstra, van Hell & Brenders, 2015). This has been evaluated for homophones, homographs, etc. You will identify one aspect of the adult bilingual lexicon that has not been explored enough and develop an experiment to test your hypothesis.

Broad topic. Adult phonological representations Words are phonologically specified early in acquisition: the concept cat is associated with a detailed representation of the sounds making the word cat). You will choose one aspect to study how words are represented phonologically in the mental lexicon. You can decide to work on the rhyme, for example.

Specific topics

Adult bilingual lexicon organisation Results from psycholinguistic experiments suggest that linguistic distance affects access to lexical information. While cognates (e.g., bébé in French and baby in English, which share meaning and where pronunciation is very similar) are recognised better than-non cognates (e.g., chien in French and dog, where pronunciation is dissimilar), it seems that identifying these words as belonging to, let us say, English, is taking longer for a bilingual whose two languages are close. However, this has never been tested directly. In this project, you will work in a pair: both students will build a large list of words to be tested in a lexical decision task (e.g., controlling for age of acquisition and other linguistic variables) and test native English speakers (to acquire a baseline of reaction times). Both will test bilinguals, but one will focus on distant language bilinguals (e.g., Greek and English), and the other will focus on close language bilinguals (e.g., Dutch and English).

Identifying cues for segmentation in Infant Directed Speech A recent study (Floccia et al., 2016) showed that British English infants can do word segmentation like their American English peers provided they hear the initial words in an emphasised Infant Directed Speech (IDS) style. In this project, you will analyse existing stimuli to measure the cues that may be

26 | P a g e

helpful in this emphasised IDS, and then test this in a word segmentation task with 9 month old infants. You will be using eye tracking.

Do we use skeleton information to access words in the lexicon? In many languages, we observe what has been called the consonant bias: we rely more on consonants to access lexical information. This effect seems dependent on the number of consonant skeleton neighbours: if this number is reduced (e.g., only fish in English has a f-sh consonant structure) then the consonant bias is observed. You will work on a follow up experiment, manipulating the number of vocalic consonant neighbours, recording stimuli for an auditory priming experiment that you will test on adult monolingual speakers.

Dr Beatriz De Paiva

Translation

Intercultural pragmatics o Cultural elements in the translation of tourist publications o Intercultural pragmatics and the translation of publicity texts o Conventionality and politeness across cultures: expressing disagreement o indirectness across cultures; expressing opinions

Dr Christina Gkonou Broad topics

Language teacher training and education

Classroom management Specific topics

Language teacher anxiety, stress and burnout

Language teacher motivation and demotivation

Language learner anxiety (causes, problems, common situations) and affective/emotion-regulation strategies

Language teacher emotions and teacher agency

Challenges and needs in contemporary foreign language classrooms (e.g. the need for intercultural understanding, issues with teacher professional identity).

Dr Julian Good Broad topics

Materials Evaluation

Teaching Listening and Speaking Specific topic

Materials Evaluation: pick a set of teaching materials (e.g. published course books, audio or video materials, authentic materials including song, media, etc.); specify a precise context for the evaluation (i.e. students first language(s), age, reason for learning, level, cultural background); collect data through questionnaires/interviews /class observation (to find out about the opinions of students and/or teachers about how they choose and use materials; apply the findings to evaluating a specific set of materials.

Dr Mike Jones Broad topics

Any aspect of syntax, within a broad ‘Principles & Parameters’ or ‘Minimalist’ framework; particularly in relation to English, Romance & Germanic languages, Arabic.

Some areas of structural semantics; e.g. Tense, Aspect, Modality.

Information structure.

The lexicon; particularly in relation to grammatical properties of words, argument structure.

Critical evaluation of pedagogical grammars and similar resources Specific topics

Lexical have in British English In Br Eng questions and negatives with have can be formed in the following ways (a) Do you have any money? I don’t have any money (b) Have you any money? I haven’t any money (c) Have you got any money? I haven’t got any money Research questions: What are the linguistic constraints on these three constructions? What are the stylistic and sociolinguistic factors that determine their use?

27 | P a g e

Critical evaluation of pedagogical grammars Some common myths about English: o Gerunds are nouns o In the book that I read, that is a relative pronoun o Words like before can belong to different categories: prepositions, subordinating conjunctions or

adverbs o Demonstratives and possessives (e.g. this, my) are adjectives o The subject is the noun or pronoun which denotes the performer of the action o Prepositions other than by can be used with some verbs to introduce the ‘logical subject’ in

passive sentences: Tom is interested in this question Why are definitions like these misleading? How widespread are they in pedagogical grammars? How do grammars deal with the anomalies which arise from them (if at all)?

Professor Florence Myles Broad topics

Any aspect of the development of morphology and syntax in second language acquisition (SLA)

The role of formulaic language in SLA

The role of age in second language learners in instructed settings Specific topics

The analysis of the use of a specific morphosyntactic or discursive structure in L2 corpora

The comparison of L2 development in children who have started learning an L2 in the classroom at different ages

The use of formulaic language at different stages of L2 development

The longitudinal development of a specific morphosyntactic structure in classroom learners Professor Peter Patrick

Sociolinguistics o Ethnolinguistic vitality, language endangerment/shift o Models of linguistic community, norms, and ideology o Language attitude testing

Language and Human Rights o Language testing of asylum applicants: controversy over methods, best-practice standards, &

developing the research base

Language variation and change o Urban dialectology, esp. sound change o Inherent variation, its functions and development o Language, class and ethnicity in a variationist framework

African American diaspora languages - o Structure and use of Jamaican Creole: phonology, phonetics, syntax, morphology, semantics,

pragmatics and lexicon (especially variation in verb- (tense/aspect) & noun- (number) marking)

o Caribbean creole narrative, folklore and verbal arts o British Afro-Caribbean English (BrACE, aka ‘London Jamaican’): structure & origins o U.S. African American Vernacular English (AAVE/Black English/Ebonics) o African-diaspora Creoles and vestigial Creoles in North America and the Atlantic area

Applied Sociolinguistics: o Medical discourse analysis: doctor/patient interaction, ethnomedical narratives) o Forensic linguistics, esp. application of linguistic variation, pragmatics & discourse in criminal

trials Dr Karen Roehr-Brackin Broad topics

Explicit knowledge about language in L2 learners of different ages

The role of working memory in L2 learning

Accuracy, fluency and complexity in L2 production Specific topics

Do L2 learners’ beliefs about language learning differ according to proficiency level, learning context and cultural background?

What is the relationship between language learning aptitude and working memory capacity?

Is attitude or aptitude more important in classroom L2 learning?

28 | P a g e

What comprehension strategies do successful L2 listeners use? Professor Louisa Sadler General Topics

Topics in constraint based syntax (LFG and HPSG, possibly construction grammar) especially if related to Arabic. A topic might relate to material covered in a relevant module, or to a construction or a phenomenon for which there is some pre-existing, accessible work, perhaps on a different language

Topics in descriptive morphosyntax, syntax or argument structure, especially if related to Arabic, or possibly with a clear typological focus.

Specific Topics

Agreement There has been considerable work in LFG on the analysis of a range of different agreement patterns (both predicate-argument and head-modifier agreement) and on the interaction of agreement with coordination. Much of this work looks at agreement patterns which are modelled at the level of f-structure, and has developed a substantial technical apparatus for different sorts of agreement patterns. A dissertation in this area might seek to develop an analysis of agreement patterns in a language not addressed in existing LFG literature, or it may explore some non-canonical or unusual agreement pattern (such as agreement with unexpected controllers).

Progressive/Continuative Marking in Arabic Amongst the strategies used crosslinguistically to signal various types of imperfectivity, it is well established that languages may develop markers of progressivity from lexical verbs of posture such as sit and stand. The use of the active participle of lexical `sit' verbs such as qaʕid and yālis is found in many Arabic vernaculars; other strategies include the use of other forms of these verbs and the use of the preposition fi (‘in’) with the object of transitive verbs to indicate progressivity, in Libyan and Tunisian Arabic. An MA dissertation in this area would essentially develop a careful description of the relevant facts and strategies in one Arabic vernacular, and might work towards developing an analysis in a constraint-based framework.

Perceptual Report Verbs This topic focusses on the expression of perceptual reports (in a language other than English). In English, a verb such as seem occurs in a variety of constructions: (1) a. It seems that John is cooking dinner (expletive subject)

b. John seems to be cooking dinner (subject raising) c. John seems like he is cooking dinner (copy raising)

It has often been suggested in the literature that (1c) is only felicitous if John is directly visible to the speaker: if, for example, he is standing in the room wearing an apron and brandishing a knife, while (1 a, b) place no such requirement that the subject of the perceptual report verb (seem) is the (visible) perceptual source – these constructions can be used e.g. to express inferences drawn by the speaker from other evidence. A substantial and relatively accessible theoretical literature addresses a variety of related syntactic (and semantic) aspects of these verbs for languages which include English, Swedish, Maltese, Egyptian Cairene Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. An MA dissertation in this area might explore the means used to express perceptual reports in a language other than English.

Non-Selected Arguments There is a substantial descriptive and theoretical literature on what are often called non-selected datives: these are non-subcategorised arguments which are added to a clause (but not required by the verb) with a range of different meanings and very often marked by means of a dative case or a preposition cognate with to. The literature identifies at least five distinct types of non-selected arguments on the basis of data from a (relatively modest) spread of languages: external possessor datives, benefactive datives, affected experiencer datives, attitude holder datives (one or both of these last two categories are sometimes called ethical datives) and subject-coreferential datives. Two of these are illustrated here from German, the benefactive and the affected experiencer.

(2) Dennis installierte seinem Freund das Programm.

Dennis installed his.DAT friend the program Dennis installed the program for his friend. BEN

(3) Alex zerbrach Chris Bens Vase.

Alex broke Chris.DAT Ben’s vase

29 | P a g e

Alex broke Ben's vase on Chris. Alex broke Ben's vase, and this mattered to Chris. AE

The languages discussed in existing literature include German, Japanese, Hebrew, Maltese, Syrian Arabic and French. A central insight of existing work is that these different types of construction have a range of different properties. Adissertation on this topic might further develop existing work on the analysis of these constructions within LFG, may focus on the description of non-selected arguments for a different language, or may undertake a theoretical comparison of various accounts in the literature.

Free Relative Clauses A relative clause is a (clausal) adjuncts which modify a nominal head. A free relative is one which appears to lack an external nominal head, such as the examples in (4). (4) a. The police arrested who the witness identified

b. I gave him what I had c. The police arrested whoever was still on the streets after curfew

A dissertation on free relative clauses could further develop an analysis of free relative clauses in LFG, building on existing LFG work and especially on the existing analyses of headed relative clauses. Alternatively, there is a lot of scope for more descriptively oriented work on free relative clauses, for the different subtypes of free relative clauses have not been studied in detail for very many, otherwise reasonably well described languages.

Professor Monika Schmid

Anything to do with L1 attrition

Anything to do with L2 attrition

Anything to do with age and naturalistic/immersed L2 acquisition

Issues related with processing the first or second language in bilingualism

Changes in naming speed in the first or the second language in bilingual development

Processing of grammatical gender in the first or second language in bilingual development Dr Sophia Skoufaki Broad topics

Second language vocabulary learning

Second language vocabulary teaching Specific topics

The role of cognateness, degree of cognate similarity and word frequency on EFL vocabulary learning

Factors affecting the learning of the senses of polysemous words through extensive reading

The role of vocabulary depth in EFL reading comprehension

The effect of pictorial and/or etymological elaboration on EFL idiom learning