Literary Programme

The duration of the graduate studies programme is four years and corresponds to eight semesters of full-time studies. The first two semesters of the literary programme are normally devoted to the reading of literary and critical courses. These comprise critical perspective courses on various literary periods and courses focused on methods and theory, with an emphasis on theoretical approaches directly relevant for the proposed dissertation project. The sum total of the courses amounts to 60 Higher Education Credits.

The thesis monograph constitutes the additional 180 HECs of the full 240-credit PhD degree. The writing of this dissertation is expected to take three years. It is an independently researched project, published at a level of academic potency equivalent to the one that is normative in first-class journals and other international scientific publications. The dissertation is accompanied by an abstract.

The duration of PhD employment can be extended to five years when departmental duties are included.  

Linguistics Programme

The duration of the linguistics graduate programme is four years and corresponds to eight semesters of full-time studies. The first two semesters are normally dedicated to the reading of courses (60 Higher Education Credits) while the following three years are spent on dissertation work (180 HECs). In actual practice the two often overlap.

When specializing in English Linguistics, PhD students will study linguistic theories in phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, text linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, variation studies, regional variation and corpus linguistics. They also acquaint themselves with diachronic linguistics and follow a survey on Old and Middle English. Dissertations are usually text analyses making use of modern linguistics theories.

The duration of PhD employment can be extended to five years when departmental duties are included.