Our doctoral programmes have a history of outstanding, and sometimes award-winning, doctoral theses, both on our PhD Linguistics by Research Only, and on our partially taught PhD in Linguistics by Thesis and Coursework.
The traditional thesis-only PhD can be completed on a full or part-time basis. We welcome proposals for doctoral research in any of the Department's many areas of teaching or research. With over 100 doctoral students studying with us on a full- or part-time basis, at Lancaster or off-site, there is a strong doctoral-level research culture in our department.
Lancaster University's unique PhD in Linguistics by Thesis and Coursework is a flexible programme for both distance and on-campus students. Initial coursework provides a strong foundation of knowledge and skills as you develop your capacity to engage with theory, critically evaluate previous studies and carry out independent research.
The Department has some outstanding research facilities and resources. We have fully equipped laboratories for eye-tracking, phonetics, EEG (Electroencephalography) and child language analysis. These facilities are used by undergraduate students, postgraduate students and staff for a variety of research projects.
As a research student in Linguistics, you can collaborate with one or more of our vibrant Research centres and groups. The department hosts active research groups in areas such as cognitive linguistics, critical discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, language and gender, literacy, pragmatics and stylistics, and second language learning, assessment and teaching.
Research students also have access to the Faculty's Research Training Programme, which provides a wide range of short-courses and modules which provide students with the necessary research skills to complete their research projects successfully.
We welcome applications from anyone who wishes to pursue an interest within the broad fields of English language and linguistics, human communication, applied linguistics, and related areas of study. We are a large department with interests in a wide variety of topics, for further information about our research areas please see our PhD supervisors and research areas.
PhD Supervisors
The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) provides a variety of funding opportunities for Master's and PhD students.
Scholarship and Funding OpportunitiesPlease do not send your application to individual members of staff.
To submit an application, simply create an account on the My Applications website and then select ‘Create a new application’ from your homepage once you are logged-in.
Using your account on the My Applications website, you are able to submit applications for the programme(s) which you wish to study, upload supporting documentation and provide us with information about referees.
If you are a current Lancaster student, or you have recently graduated from Lancaster, we can reduce the amount of information that you will need to provide as part of your application. You will need to provide only one reference and will not need to supply your Lancaster degree transcript. We will also pre-fill your personal details, ready for you to check.
As part of your application, you will need to nominate one or more potential supervisors. This should be a member or members of the department whose area of expertise converges with or overlaps with your own research interests. You can explore the research interests of our staff members. It is not necessary to contact individual members of staff before submitting an application. However, in some instances it may be useful to email prospective supervisors to inquire whether they are currently accepting new students and/or to check if your proposed research project falls within their supervisory capacity.
You will need to submit a research proposal with your application.
Please complete the appropriate document for the programme you want to apply for and include it with your online application:
You must download and save the proposal form to your computer before completing, you will not be able to save changes to the form if you open with the browser.
In order to allow for processing of relevant documents and for applicants from abroad to obtain visas, it is necessary for our Department to make recommendations for acceptance to the University Postgraduate Admissions Office well in advance of starting dates.
Most students start their period of registration in October, though a January start date is also possible. You should aim to have your complete application with us no later than 31 July for an October start and 16 November for a January start. Students wishing to start at any other point in the academic year must have this approved by the department before an offer is made.
You will be asked to send us two documents:
If you wish to study part time, you should advise us in your application of the periods in each year when you will be able to come to Lancaster to have regular meetings with your supervisor and devote time to an intensive period of work. It is normally expected that a part-time student who wishes to study away from the University should attend Lancaster for a period of time at the beginning and end of their studies and with appropriate visits during their studies. Another pattern is to spend one year full-time at Lancaster, followed by shorter periods in subsequent years.
Most students take this programme on a part-time basis however it can be taken full time. There is one intake per year, in January. Part-time students will need to be in Lancaster, approximately 2 weeks in early July during the first two years of the programme.
You should aim to have your complete application with us no later than 16 November for a January start.
For further information see the following pages
Applying for postgraduate study
After you've applied for postgraduate study
You are responsible for ensuring that your application form and the confidential reports from your referees reach us as soon as possible. We need both references before we can begin to consider your application, so it is important that you ask your referees to write your references promptly. We will begin to process your application as soon as we receive both of your references, and will try to reply as quickly as possible.
If you have any queries during the application process, please Contact the admissions team.
These notes are intended to help you make the best possible application when you fill in your application form. Please fill in the forms carefully and provide all information requested. The more information we have about you, the easier it is to come to a decision. In particular, please complete "reasons for application", carefully, and in detail.
If you do not provide us with the following it may lead to delays:
We would like to see a clear statement, in your own words, telling us in as much detail as you can about why you want to take the course or undertake the research that you have chosen and what you hope to achieve by doing it. You should think very carefully about this statement and treat it as an opportunity to show what your interests are and how you will be able to benefit from postgraduate study in our department.
If you have written an essay or dissertation that received a high mark, or have published a paper on a topic relevant to the degree for which you are applying, you can send us one copy of one such item as part of your application. If you are sending a piece of coursework or a dissertation, we would prefer to have a copy which includes the mark given and the examiner's comments (if available). This will help us in deciding whether or not to offer you a place. This is particularly likely to be helpful if, for example, you have difficulty finding suitable referees or if your English Language scores are borderline.
If your first language is not English, you will be asked for a recognised English language qualification. Certificates need to be valid on the date you start your PhD programme. This may mean that even though your certificate is valid at the time you apply, you may need to take the test again before you take up your place. IELTS certificates are only valid for two years. If you are unsure whether your English language qualifications are acceptable, please contact us.
IELTS certificates are valid for 24 months. Your IELTS certificate will need to be less than 24 months old on the start date of your study at Lancaster.
If applicants have either/both of the following, completed within the last 2 years they may not need to submit a test score:
Please choose your referees carefully. Each referee should be someone who:
The best referees will be your former dissertation tutors, department heads or senior colleagues. An academic reference from an employer or other person is usually only useful if they can speak credibly about your suitability for postgraduate studies - for example, if they have studied for a higher degree themselves. However, if you are applying to do research in language teaching you may find it useful if your employer or a more senior colleague can comment positively on your professional work, especially in the area of professional development.
It is usually helpful if your referee can mention some specific examples of relevant work that you have done, and comment on its quality. Please make sure that you tell your referees that a reference which is written purely according to a formula, or which only mentions that you are of a good character and perform your duties well, is not useful. We want to know in detail what relevant things are special and interesting about you. A reference which is an "open testimonial", rather than a confidential statement is also not useful.
We normally expect PhD candidates to have a good master's degree. However, we sometimes admit people who do not have master's degrees if we see evidence of other relevant academic or professional experience that we can count as an equivalent. We look at any certificates and transcripts you send to see how well you have done in your academic and/or professional career. Most of our successful applicants have above-average grades. However, we realise that students’ learning changes over time and you will not be ruled out simply because of some low grades in the distant past. We will look especially carefully at your performance in areas related to linguistics and language study. We will also take into account anything your referees say about your academic performance and readiness for postgraduate work.
We accept people as research students primarily on the basis of clear evidence that they can work independently and thoroughly on a research question, which is within the field of interest and expertise of a member of the academic staff. You can only be accepted if a member of staff is available to act as your personal supervisor, and if there is an additional member of staff who can act as a support supervisor should this person be away from the university for an extended period. Therefore, before considering applying to us, it is useful to check whether the research interests of any particular staff in the department, at Lancaster, clearly coincide with your own.
We consider three sources of evidence of your potential to undertake independent research:
It is expected that you will have studied or worked in linguistics or an area of language related to your intended topic of research. It is also desirable for you to be familiar with basic research methodology and some of the research literature in your chosen field.
We cannot process your PhD application unless you include a research proposal, preferably on our research proposal form setting out what research you want to do, why you want to do it, and how you intend to carry it out.
We use your research proposal:
Please make your research proposal as detailed and specific as you can. It does not commit you to doing exactly what you describe. Students often change their minds, at least to some degree, after discussions with their supervisor. For example, your supervisor might tell you about new research which will influence your own research.
You can find advice on how to write your research proposal, as well as the form which the Department requires, at the top of the page. Please complete the appropriate form for the programme you want to apply for and include it with your application when you complete it online.
Your application and your proposal form are considered by the PhD Admissions Committee of the Department. If they consider that your application is acceptable, individual members of academic staff, whose research interests relate to your own, are approached with a view to acting as your research supervisor.
Most students start their period of registration in October, though a January start date is also possible. You should aim to have your complete application with us no later than 31st July for an October start and 31st October for a January start. Students wishing to start at any other point in the academic year must have this approved by the department before an offer is made.
This annual conference is organized by postgraduate students and designed to give linguistics postgraduates from various areas in linguistics and language teaching/assessment an opportunity to present and discuss their research in an informal and intellectually stimulating setting.
LAEL Postgraduate Conference
