Graduate School Empirical and Applied Linguistics

The Graduate School Empirical and Applied Linguistics offers promising young researchers an interdisciplinary PhD programme with a focus on linguistics. Professors are drawn from the following broad range of subjects, thus ensuring multidisciplinary collaboration: General Linguistics (Typology, Language Documentation and Description, Theoretical Linguistics) Second Language Acquisition / Applied Linguistics German Linguistics English Philology Romance Linguistics (French) Romance Linguistics (Italian) Romance Linguistics (Spanish) Dutch Philology Scandinavian Studies Slavic Studies Psychology (Psycholinguistics) Doctoral students in the PhD programme Empirical and Applied Linguistics can write their dissertation on any linguistic subject area, including applied linguistics, second language acquisition, and a linguistic topic within the framework of a specific philology. Students can choose whether to focus on a more theoretical or a more practical topic, provided that the dissertation has a solid empirical basis. The goal of the PhD programme is to ensure that the doctoral student is proficient in various methods of linguistic data collection and analysis and can therefore use these methods in a critical and reflective way. All doctoral students will receive individual supervision from two faculty members. In order to enable a well-supervised and efficiently completed PhD programme, a written supervision agreement detailing the student's goals and time frame will be drawn up before the doctoral student takes up her or his studies. Studying at the Graduate School thus involves a constant exchange of ideas with the other doctoral students and exposure to the everyday workings of scientific inquiry. Because of its flexibility, the programme can accommodate each student's individual interests and plans for the future.