Creation of a new Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics

Building on the strengths of the previous institutions, the new department will cover a yet more comprehensive domain of the language sciences and provide stronger theoretical, empirical and interdisciplinary research across the board from historical linguistics and comparative syntax to language processing and computational linguistics.

New to the department will be the broader teaching of both theoretical and applied linguistics topics at all levels (undergraduate and graduate). The former Department of Linguistics recently created a Linguistics Tripos, and with all the staff from both previous departments, the new department will have the flexibility to admit many more qualified students.

Additionally, while the two existing M.Phil courses will still run separately in the academic year 2011-2012, from the year 2012-2013 the new department will offer a joint M.Phil in which students can choose to focus on either more theoretical or more applied areas (or a mixture of both). PhD students will be able to profit from more staff, more interdisciplinary opportunities and more support overall.

Henriette Hendriks, Head of the new Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, said: “I feel very lucky to have been given the opportunity to work in the new department with this group of colleagues with a common goal of taking the research and teaching of Linguistics in Cambridge to new heights.”

For more information about the new department, you can visit their website at www.mml.cam.ac.uk/dtal