historicallinguist

Besides English, I am fluent in two modern languages, and two classical languages. In addition, I also have no problem in reading and writing for a third modern language (cannot converse fluently in this one though). All of these five languages are non-Indo-European languages. For a number of Indo-European languages, I studied the some linguistic aspects of them, but certainly not much, as I am not a philologist. Yes, the more I read, the deeper I understand, subject to a restriction. I think that at the very beginning when we start to learn a new language it may be helpful to read so as to learn about the language. However, after getting a certain amount of the structural and other linguistic informations about the target language through readings or other means, more readings in the target language seems not to be productive in terms of enhancing our understanding of the target language. That is, the effect of doing reading becomes saturated after doing a certain amount of reading. For example, if you are a typologist, and wants to study the synchronic typology of the languages in the world. Certainly it is impossible for a typologist to be an expert learning all languages in the world and understanding all cultural nuances of different lexical items in different languages in the world. Then, for typological research purpose, all the typologist needs for making an English translation for a lexical item in an unfamiliar language (say, some indigenous languages in South America) may be the core meaning of the lexical item and the peripheral meanings (which I think it is more closely tied to the specific culture where the language is used) can be omitted in this case. Thus, translation may be better for a typologist to run a typological research program. It is better in a sense that it is more practical, and cost-effective.(cost means a lot of things, such as time, finance, efforts to memorize etc)

Do not count on this. I do not think it is likely to get. It is more likely that you will need to pay for your education in Oxford, regardless of whether you are getting into a D.Phil or master of some kind. In order to get the Clarendon, you will need to first have a college that is willing to offer the matching fund for your course. Depending on which college you are allocated to, if your college is unable to provide matching fund for your course, I can pretty much say for sure that you are not going to get the matching fund. If you cannot get the matching fund from your college, by no means can you get the Clarendon, because the matching funding is a necessary condition for a Clarendon Scholarship to be awarded. Some colleges consistently DO NOT support certain courses financially by not providing the matching fund for certain courses. I have no idea about which course you are in. So, I think it would be more helpful for you to check your college's website to see to which courses the matching funds of the college go, and then you will have a pretty good idea about whether you can get Clarendon or not.

I feel this argument very problematic. If the scholar does not know these distinctions and implications in the first place, how can he "read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts" that contain such distinctions and implications? If the scholar has already knows these distinctions and implications in the first place (not unlike some sort of a priori knowledge), then what is the point for this scholar to "read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts? Sure, they are different, but they are not totally different. These three certainly have overlapping in terms of meaning, and this is why the Greek version and Latin version are mapped to the English "education". Translation in this case may be better in a sense that it takes out the peripheral (i.e.the non-overlapping part) (e.g. the specific properties of the education in a specific culture) but retains the core (i.e. the overlapping part)(e.g. education). But again, if you really want to get BOTH the peripheral and the core, translation may not be the best option. However, in certain cases, the core per se are sufficient to do the work. Then, in these cases, there is no point to deal with the peripheral. I think in such cases translation would work well.

No, I guess no influence at all (I am aware that there are counterarguments). In particular, the form of the sentence has nothing much to do with meaning. See Chomsky's Syntactic Structures, where he argues extensively that syntax and semantics are two separate and different things.

I am not a Classicist, and I am a theoretical linguist. But I do not quite agree with your position here. If you think that something in Greek/Latin cannot be fully translated into a different language, you are implying the ineffability of certain meanings in certain languages. Your assumption would be something in line with the position that language influences thinking. This was a position that has been recently confuted (see http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/does-language-i-speak-influence-way-i-think). I think the original post has some truth that can be defended. To put in the argument of the original post in a slightly different way, the original post seems to me that it wanted to say different utterances may express the same propositions. As long as the translated sentences (with the utterance of English, for example) can be read as the same propositions which the original Latin/Greek sentences wanted to convey, I think it is fine to use translated works to extract meaning (i.e. propositions). Just a caveat, I am not a Classicist. Classicists may want something beyond meaning. If you also want the form of the original texts, certainly there is no other option than going to the original texts. However, you still get the same meaning (assuming that the translation is good enough so that no meaning is lost in the process of translating), but the utterance is certainly different. Anyways, I think that dismissing a position different from the dominant as not worthy is blocking the new way of inquiry, and I honestly do not think it is a good way to go.

I do not know how things work in continental Europe. But as far as I know, the baseline of teaching offered (at least in Oxford) in the U.K. is much lower than that in the U.S., subject to the few exceptions of enthusiastic tutors who you are unlikely to get.

I should say there are a few exceptions I saw (in other courses) to the general things I said in the previous post. Some (but only a few, not sure whether you can get them) enthusiastic supervisor/tutor (caveat: not my tutor/supervisor) may spend 7-10 hours per week to meet with you, and even care about your personal well-being and other things such as your ph.d application etc. However, these attentions are by no means the norm (and you cannot request it if your tutor just wants to do the baseline things). Chances are you may more likely to get the one that just wants to do the baselines, but it is impossible to exclude the possibility that you may get the few rare enthusiastic folks available.

That was what I did last year. I now regret very much!!!

I am second to this. I still think what you can get out of the program (i.e. LORs, academic support, etc) is much more important than the brand name per se. The brand of Oxford may sound fancy, but how this fancy brand name would help you to develop as a student and whether this fancy brand name could help you develop as a student are two different issues.

Being relatively young has many implications. I feel that the problem is your assessments (i.e. Papers) are not necessarily what is covered by the lectures and seminars (not even partially) (by the way, seminars in Oxford mean colloquia (usually with quite a good number of students at least 20, usually more than 20, and a number of guest speakers for each session (Some guest speakers such as Ian Roberts are quite good, but certainly some guest speakers are mediocre and make you fall asleep after 20 minutes.), not the kind of small group of discussion-oriented seminars you will find in American institutions.). You have to study pretty much for your Paper A by yourself, with very little RELEVANT teaching offered by the faculty for this paper (they think you are good enough to study most of it by yourself, and this is why you are in Oxford.). For your M.Phil dissertation, again I must caution you to choose your supervisor very carefully. Some supervisor (by the way, you are very likely to have ONLY ONE supervisor to supervise you. Co-supervision is unlikely to be granted for M.Phil students) may only meet with 2 hours for your dissertation PER TERM. So, you may get only about 12 hours of supervision in total for your dissertation. So, if you do come, avoid such kind of supervisor and choose wisely, because of the decisive importance of your initial choice of choosing a supervisor. I should also say that do not be misled by the webpage of the faculty. Some folks on the page are not even physically in Oxford. So, they are nominally affiliated with the faculty, and are not going to supervise or teach you.(and you won't see them in person at all) I know some had left more than 3 years ago, but somehow their names are still hanging on the website. Finally, you will need to think more carefully how you are going to get three letters of recommendation. You are likely to have only one supervisor who knows your work. Your lecturers are really just lecturing, and they won't grade your works (practice essay? maybe 1 per term or even none at all.). Your graded works will be submitted to the EXAMINATION SCHOOLS and graded anonymously by examiners who are not necessarily your supervisor/tutor/lecturer. Tutorials are provided on a very limited scale, and the major forms of teaching are lectures (usually quite large (at least 20, sometimes could be as many as 50-70) because master, dphil, and undergraduates often attend the same lectures), and seminars (=colloquia). If unfortunately your tutor is also your supervisor, then you are going to get only one LOR for sure. You will have to find your way to get two other LORs outside of the program. The college has nothing to do with your academics. The college provides housing, meals, and partying, etc. College life is more like social life, and again, partially is for entertainment. College advisor is someone to have coffee with you and chat about non-academic stuffs such as how nice the food of All Souls College's formal hall is, and how awful the informal meal in Pembroke College (no offense if you are in Pembroke College, but that is what I was told) is etc. College advisor WON'T write your LOR. They serve the role to liaise you with your supervisor, and that is all.

Adding to what Fuzzy just said, I would say that the faculty of linguistics in Oxford is pretty young. It was formed in 2008. I am not sure about which type of master offer you received from Oxford. Oxford has two types of masters for linguistics: Master of Studies, and Master of Philosophy. The official length of a Mst a nine month, but you will actually get only 24 weeks of teaching (there are a quite a vacation between every 8 weeks of term time. Oxford runs on a trimester system). After these 24 weeks of teaching, then you will have to do several Papers and write a dissertation. I am not quite sure whether this would be a good way to go, if you will have to fund yourself. M.Phil's official length is 21 month, and you will get 48 weeks of teaching during these 21 months. Usually, Mphil students do much better in their dissertation than Mst because M.Phil students have the luxury of more time and teaching. By the way, syntax in Oxford has strong orientation and emphasis on Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG). If you are a big fan of LFG, this might be a good place for you. But if you want to do Minimalist Syntax or OT syntax, maybe Leiden is a better place.(disclaimer: I do not know much about Leiden's syntax offerings, but at least I could tell Minimalist Syntax and OT syntax are not very supported by faculty members in Oxford.) I also heard from students in the phonology side and syntax side respectively about their supervisors. It seems, according to their description, that supervisors in phonology (and phonetics) side are more supportive than supervisors in the syntax side (with one exception). If you really decide to come to Oxford, I would recommend you to choose your supervisor VERY CAREFULLY. A good and caring supervisor may meet with you one-on-one for 5-6 hours Per Week, whereas an awful and negligent supervisor may meet with you for 2 hours PER TERM. Once you choose your supervisor it is really hard to change.(or in case if you are assigned a supervisor, you must change it early, maybe at the very beginning of the academic year, or otherwise this person will stick with you forever.) So, choose with caution when you have the opportunity to choose.

PM me if you want to come to Oxford. I can tell you more if you want to know more.

Okay, maybe I am wrong and what I said is not applicable to your field (I assume you are in political science). But I still do not understand that, if the MA in Japan (in linguistics/second language acquisition) is essentially better and more affordable than MA in the U.S., why are there more people from Japan trying to study in the U.S. than people from the U.S. trying to study in Japan?

If this is the case, I would strongly recommend people not to do a MA/Ph.D. in Japan. First, it sounds like there is only one person who will take care of the supervision of your thesis. It sounds very similar to the U.K. system. This is not really the ideal thing you want to get because there is very little hand-holding you can get out of this very one person. In addition, I doubt whether you will have the freedom to choose advisor for your MA program in Japan. I bet it is assigned to you, whether you like this person or not. This could create potential problem, if you dislike this person but cannot change this guy/gal. Still, I think you will get much more personal attentions from a Thesis committee in the U.S. than a single thesis supervisor in Japan (and in the U.K.). I am not sure whether Japanese Ph.D.s have dissertation committee. But I bet there is no such thing in Japan. Your description sounds like you are going to have a single supervisor to take care of the progress of your Ph.D. dissertation throughout the three years, not unlike what is happening in a U.K. Ph.D. program. If this is the case, how are you going to get there references in the future? If this single person has absolute say on your future, that is, whether you can get your Ph.D. or not, it will also be problematic because it could be possible that this single supervisor may abuse the absolute power endowed on him/her so as to take advantage of you. I still think a democratic way, i.e. by majority vote of a dissertation committee, makes more sense, to prevent potential abuse of power.

This sounds like some fellowships that are nationality-based. If this is the case, it would be something extremely competitive to actually get it. Second, I think in terms of finance it does not seem to me it is a wise option to study in Japan. True, some highly competitive fellowship by Japanese Ministry of Education (i.e. Bunkasho) offer full funding for international students. But would the stipend be sufficient for you to live a decent life in an expensive place such as Tokyo? You can certainly try, but I think it would be really hard. Tuition is quite cheap in Japan compared with U.S. institutions. It is not surprising that these fellowship would cover the tuition. But you need to also consider the implications of the cheap price tag as it is relevant to the quality of the education you get, regardless whether it is funded or non-funded. I studied Japanese and I am fluent in it. But I have never been to Japan. Nor do I have any intention to go to that place for studying, getting a job, or living, etc, in the near future. I feel that it is a really gerontocratic society and it is better for me to get old first and then to visit there so that I could be better positioned, whether it is for a job, researching, or studying.

Also, sure, there are seminars. But seminars can mean many things. In the U.K., seminars actually mean colloquia where a bunch of guest speakers come and give out a lecture every week and there is a short Q@A session right after the lecture. Size of seminars in the U.K., at least, in my current school, is huge. This is what seminar means in the U.K. As for Japanese seminars, to my knowledge, the class sizes in Japan are general huge, sometimes jumbo.(of course, with exceptions). How many people are your seminars?

Maybe I am wrong. But I do not understand why, based on my experiences with international students from Japan in the U.S., they seem to me so desperately trying to go to school in the U.S. at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and subsequently make every attempt to try to stay in the U.S., if what you said is indeed true. The bottom line is, everything else being equal, you will be likely to do more works and put in more efforts in a Japanese university to achieve the same grades that you can more easily to get in an American university. (of course, there are exceptions, I have to admit, but this is the general trend, I think). Yes, there are generous fellowship options. But the problem is that they are likely to be external fellowships you got to apply and compete with a huge number of people who sometimes include Japanese students in Japan. These fellowships are there, yes. But the likelihood to get them is another story. Again, you will need to put into more efforts to get Japanese fellowships than their American equivalents. Departmental funding is rare in Japanese universities. You will really need to make efforts to apply for external funding, and may not necessarily be able to get any of them. Again, Japan is a highly populated country where relatively small amount of resources are distributed among a large population, and this very fact makes things such as funding/schooling in general extremely competitive (e.g. take a look at the past problems of Japanese University Entrance Exams (i.e. センター試験）and compare them with the past/practice problems of SAT. You will have a sense of how much more challenging (sometimes unnecessarily challenging because it is made difficult only because there are too many people taking the exam and the examiners are trying to eliminate the vast majority) is Japanese assessment system than its American equivalent ). It is a great place for tourism, but probably not a great place for getting funding/studying abroad, unless you are so fond of Japanese culture and language that you think studying in Japan is the best and only way to understand its culture and language better.

Adding to what Fuzzy said, I do not think to be a Japanese Language professor is a realistic goal. I know quite a number of people in this field. Many of them not only have an M.A. but also Ph.D.s from some quite good universities. But even if you got a Ph.D. in Japanese linguistics/Ed.D in Education (teaching Japanese as a second language), it is more likely that you are going to be some kind of part-time/adjunct lecturer for a very long period of your life. The problem of the field is that there is an over-supplying of Japanese language teachers/professors/lecturers (you really also need to take into consideration of the great number of Japanese students who got their degrees in Japan and want to work overseas to teach Japanese. For Japanese students, working overseas (especially in the U.S.) is a much desired path than working in Japan, because entry level jobs for the young in Japan are really a nightmare where you really get very little paid but tons of works to do. If you do not believe me, try some kind of Kaisha in Japan and work as a salaryman for a month.) , and, in addition to this, there are not that many people studying Japanese in the U.S.. I know a very senior professor who has a Ph.D. in East Asian Studies from Princeton, and who is a tenured professor serving as the chair of the department. This person was never assigned to teach Japanese, even if everyone knows that he thoroughly fluent in Japanese (both literary and spoken and classical) (and knows more Japanese words and the grammar of the language than many Japanese native speakers.). Because he is not a native speaker, he is assigned to teach subjects such as literature, society, culture of Japan, etc. The job of teaching Japanese language , at least in my university, is always assigned to native speakers of Japanese, who are contract workers given the title of adjunct professors (with one or two exceptions. But the few tenured ones are also native speakers of Japanese). In addition to these, I know there are a long waitlist of Japanese native speakers who have an MA/PhD in either EAST ASIAN STUDIES/TEACHING JAPANESE AS A SECOND LANGUAGE/APPLIED LINGUISTICS. These people are quite a lot in terms of number. I seriously doubt whether it is realistic for a non-native speaker to jump up to the top of this waitlist and get selected as an instructor to teach when extra sessions of Japanese classes are open. Finally, my personal experience also tells me that this is not a realistic option. I am pretty much fluent in Japanese in addition to several other Asian languages (all are not native though). As expected, I never get any decent jobs to teach these languages. Again, there are just not that many people studying Japanese (or other major Asian languages such as Chinese and Korean, not to mention Mongolian and Tibetan) and the over-supply of people who can teach Japanese (and other major Asian languages) just make the market of teaching Japanese in the U.S. so competitive that it is nearly goddamn impossible to get a decent job without being a native speaker in the first place. You can certainly PM me if you want more details.

I doubt whether it is a good idea to try an MA in Japan. Like many other East Asian countries I know (China, South Korea, etc), masters' programs generally have much fewer student-professor interactions when compared with equivalent programs in the U.S.. It is more likely that for most of the time you attend jumbo lectures with at least 60 students (in many cases more than 100 people), and it is really difficult, if possible at all, to get your professor know you. That is, relationship that could result in some sort of LOR is very hard to cultivate in an MA program in Japan. In addition, assessments primarily take the forms of some kind of standardized tests. Because there are quite too many students but too few professors, the student-professor ratio makes it almost impossible to assess students by combination of coursework and examinations. Of course, tuition in Japan is much cheaper, but bear in mind that there is little funding, if any, offered in most Japanese universities. Do not count on Japanese universities to offer you full funding, as this is outright unrealistic, as far as I know.

Some information about Delaware. I am told by my POI that all shortlisted people are interviewed one /two times this year. About 20 people are interviewed. They plan to accept about 4-5 students this year. Stipend guaranteed is about 18k, and potentially 4k of summer stipend as extra (not guaranteed yet because they are on the way to get approval from the Dean). Results are expected to come out next week. Good luck everyone!

Exactly! Exams are called papers. MA Thesis is called MA dissertation. Although things are generally appealing to tradition here, I personally think that the mix of assessments with coursework, essay, presentation, and exam etc makes more sense. Putting all assessments as papers at end of the year really has several potential problems: 1. You got one chance to do everything. If you do not do well for some reasons, you will have to wait for another year to resit the paper. 2. It is hard to get continuous feedbacks/formative assessments to monitor academic progresses throughout the year. So, it is hard to identify problems/deficiency early on and then do some specific works to fix the problems. When small problems accumulate, they could potentially pile up and eventually become unmanageable. 3. Papers are graded by anonymous examiners and the names of candidates must be concealed from the submitted papers (examiners can only see candidate number). So, if you do well in the papers, you won't know who gave you good marks, and those who gave you good marks won't know who you are. This means examiners are in a position that is impossible to write you LOR even if they like your works. Nor are your lecturers in a position to write your LORs because lecturers do not give you marks or grade your works. As a result, the only potential persons you can get LOR are your tutors and supervisor. (Some tutorials do not involved any formative practice, and tutors in these tutorials do not seem to me in a position to write LORs) But if your tutors and supervisor are the same person, then theoretically you will be able to get only one LOR. This could potentially create a lot of problems when it comes to application to a graduate program, outside funding, etc. 4. Sitting several papers that are 3 hours long for each is clearly not the most enjoyable experience for most people.(especially when you have to wear the sub-fusc and do your papers for 6 hours in a small room).

Wait! I am surprised that there are term papers in your U.K. program. My program basically has nothing like this, i.e., no homework, no term-paper, no practice, etc, throughout the whole year. And all assessments lie in the final examinations at the end of the academic year. I thought my program is typical of a U.K. program, but after I saw your post I now feel quite surprised.

I am on the same boat. Accepted into Ph.D. but no funding yet. I do not think GRE and GPA matter for this kind of thing. I have a decent GRE and almost perfect GPA, but still getting no funding. I guess the problem is in writing sample. It looks like literature review type of writing sample is not reviewed favorably by adcoms. They are looking writing sample that proposes new things. This means generally speaking a term paper is unlikely to be good enough to stand out as a great writing sample.(in a 10-15 pages, double spaced term paper, it is hard to write anything substantially new, and it is more likely that the whole thing is a literature review).

I saw some acceptances for Kansas on the result page. Anyone wants to claim the acceptance? I am waitlisted. So, I would be grateful if I could know more about whether you guys are going to accept the offers from Kansas or not.

I do not think GRE writing is particular a big deal. I am on the 90 something percentile for GRE writing, and still get whole bunches of rejections. SOP is way way more important than GRE writing.