historicallinguist
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Posts posted by historicallinguist
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53 minutes ago, vonham said:
Congrats to the UIUC MA acceptance! If you hang around here, would you mind telling me (in pm if you feel more comfortable ) who your POI is, and whether you applied for the MA with intent to continue to PhD, or not?
I am on the same boat here! Congrats to the UIUC MA acceptance! But My nerve breaks down when I saw it because I heard nothing from UIUC for my M.A. application.
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1 hour ago, fuzzylogician said:
Beside things already mentioned, it is a very small program (currently 7 faculty, but 6 as of next year, I believe), and it's had some worrisome personnel-related problems over the years, with people leaving and others not getting tenured where they would have been at any other institution. This means that it's hard for them to develop a real strength in any particular area of linguistics. Most subfields are going to have 0-1 person working in that area, and that means that strong students interested in that area are likely to pick another school, where there are more potential advisors and other students working in that area. That said, I think the people there are good and there is a lot of potential. They certainly do a good job training undergraduates who go on to top graduate programs in the field.
I think similar situation happens to Northwestern too. The former chair of the linguistics department at Northwestern just moved to Trinity College (oxford) as a professor of research in linguistic engineering (that means her job here is primarily to do research, and occasionally to give out public lectures where she report her progress in her research, and her job here seems to me that it is not primarily for teaching enrolled students) in Fall 2015.(And I saw her walking on the street four days ago).
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48 minutes ago, vonham said:
That was me!!! So excited! I wasn't technically admitted yet. I'm applying for the joint anthropology and linguistics program. The email said that the admissions process isn't complete but that it's "very likely" that I will be admitted.
I very nearly had a stroke on the spot. Admissions or not I am just excited to have made it this far!
Congrats! Just out of curiosity, did they say in the mail how many people were applying and how many people they are planning to take for this year?
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26 minutes ago, embeddedV2 said:
Potentially silly question, but does anyone know why Yale isn't ranked that high on those field-specific league tables that we probably shouldn't attribute too much importance to anyway?
I think it probably has a lot to do with the theoretical orientation of Yale. In those olden days in the 1940s-1950s, Yale was a major centre of Structural linguistics. If you look at the the Ph.D.program at Yale on their website, you will find some traces of structural linguistics. For example, quite a number of guys in Yale are doing descriptive grammars of particular languages. Descriptive grammar of particular languages was the central research program within the framework of structural linguistics both in the past and today. That said, Yale does have some people doing some versions of generative grammar. But a large portion of the faculty in Yale linguistics are focusing on language documentation, historical linguistics, variationist linguistics, etc. So, as a theoretical department, Yale is not as theoretical as some other well-known department such as MIT, UCLA, Rutgers, etc. So, this may be why it is ranked particularly high in linguistics ranking.
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Oops! Looks like Arizona still sending out recruitment visit invitations!
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I just found that U of Iowa has a visiting assistant professor who has a VERY IMPRESSIVE track of publications and research.
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Oh Well, guys! Congrats to those who got admitted.
Assuming that I got rejected by Arizona and Stony Brook, I shed my tears but life has to go on, and I am submitting my app to two other schools today!
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3 minutes ago, laura.st said:
I haven't heard from NYU neither, but I saw some people posted a rejection... was that a rejection email? or was it just an assumtion? I don't know what to think.
I had an interview with Penn, and still waiting for some news from the majority of the universities I've applied.
I applied to NYU last year but I did not get in. Last year, it takes ages for NYU to actually send me a formal rej.
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Someone got accepted by Arizona! Congrats! I assume I am rejected by Arizona.
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1 minute ago, vonham said:
I also applied to the MA (with intent to continue to phd) so I wonder...a couple of more acceptances/wait lists have been added but all for the PhD. Then again it could be that it is people who applied for MA with intent to pursue phd who just listed it as phd instead of MA.
Either way, I'm sort of freaking out. I really am starting to panic and think I won't get in anywhere
Dude, I am freaking out too! I also applied to Stony Brook's Ph.D., and I have already seen two acceptance from Brook in the result page. And I haven't heard a thing from Brook.
I do not think UIUC offer M.A. acceptance first. I think they first give out Ph.D. offers, and then M.A. offers. Well, I do not have any evidence to tell either way, but I just think this is the likely order in terms of funding offer. I am told that they are intended to fully fund some MA students, and from the website, they say their first priority is to fund Ph.D. student. So, the order should be Ph.D. first (presumably with funding), then MA with funding, and finally MA. with no funding.
By the way, I saw you are applying to Arizona. I am also applying to Arizona (OT Phonology and Syntax). Would you mind to tell me which Profs are your POIs, and which areas are you applying to? You can PM me if you wish.
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19 hours ago, vonham said:
soooo....if someone got waitlisted to UIUC does that mean that they've sent out all their decisions? because so far there's been that one acceptance and that's it.
If the person who's gotten waitlisted sees this, who is your POI? And did you have some sort of skype interview?
arghhhhh!!! ~anxiety~
I applied to the MA program at UIUC, and I got no news from them.
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15 hours ago, Garyon said:
Hey, from what I know the adm. committee here at Stony Brook is still discussing applications, so I doubt you guys will be hearing back from them before the beginning of February - unless your POI wants to have a chat/informal interview with you, that is.
I saw a Stony BROOK result just came out a moment ago. That makes me quite worried.
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Any one heard back from Kansas/Stony Brook?????
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1 hour ago, Iwanttogotothere said:
So...I'm wondering.
For those schools that do interviews in late January (NYU, UPenn, Austin, etc.) does anyone know if they interview all of their shortlisted candidates? As in, anyone who doesn't get an interview is probably not in the running? I'm sure it varies by school, I'm just wondering if I should start letting myself down easy haha
I applied to NYU and UPENN last year, but did not get in. I am 99 percent sure that if you do not get interview from NYU/UPENN, that means you are out of the competition.
Sorry if this makes you down, but it is just some true stuff to let people know.
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34 minutes ago, Francophile1 said:
Thanks! I appreciate your detailed response. It definitely confirms many of my worries/concerns about the different types of paths. Yes, I noticed that in the US most programs in foreign language departments mostly are Literature focused- about 20% have a PhD in foreign language linguistics, and I do see limitations with that.
I also noticed during my past MA that many Professors that are hired need to have a specialization in a century (so literature) rather than linguistics. Language itself is often taught by adjuncts or TA's (in big universities), so yeah I would be somewhat weary of specializing in a Foreign language Linguistics and then not being able to find a job.
I already went through a Literature MA- which was really not my thing, and as I complete now a second MA in language Philology, I really want to make the best decision as far as what PhD to pursue.
I still have some time, so gathering information- I appreciate your response!
I saw that you were in Oxford. Is this correct? Let me know, because if so I would like to message you about a few England specific questions.
Philology looks like not that promising for me. Particularly classical philology, this kind of thing is more like humanities and a big chunk of the learning is about memorization of certain texts/words. It looks like a ridiculous business for me. Think about it. When you do maths problems, do you memorize the numbers in the programs? Or think about the past when you did you Newtonian physics problems in high school. Have you ever memorized any of the numbers/data in the problems you solved for physics? If not, then, what is the point to memorize linguistic data, i.e., texts/words that are under linguistic investigation. Unfortunately, philology as a discipline inherently is pretty much about memorization. So, I seriously doubt whether we could make new linguistic discoveries effectively through laborious memorization such as the one required by philological studies.
Yes, I can pretty much assure that, if you are not a native speaker of the language for which you got a degree in its linguistics, then it is unlikely you r going to get adjunct position to teach that language, not to say tenured-track position. I am from the U.S. for my undergraduate. I can tell you that, in my undergraduate institution, there are plenty of native speakers who have appropriate pedagogical master degrees ready to teach the languages when called upon. That is, there has been a long line in the waiting list of language instructor. I know some masters students got their masters in language pedagogy, and end up teaching in kindergarten. So, overall, I think the market of teaching foreign language has an over-supplying of teachers and shortage of demands of students. Such asymmetry between supply and demands makes this field not that promising in terms of getting a job.
Okay, let alone the issue of getting a job. Think about academic research. I don't think this field is a promising way to go either. For one thing, the pedagogue degree tends to be pretty much language specific. If it is language specific, that means it has limited application. You are kind of putting all eggs in one basket. The problem is the language you are studying tends to be some politically/culturally dominant languages. So, they tend to be extensively and intensively studied by many people in the past. Thus, it may be difficult for you to make new discoveries (meaning the possible interpretations of the data in question may have been pretty exhausted). Second, I doubt whether you are really study language as an cognitive capacity if you only focus on a particular language rathe than linguistic theory itself. I feel it is hard to justify spending some much time for one particular natural language, if we disregard all of the cultural importance affiliated with the language. So, once again, if you choose the do the linguistics of a particular language, you are tied up with the culture of that language. So, you are not doing linguistics, as a science should not be cultural specific. You are pretty much doing language, but not linguistics.
Yes, I am in Oxford. So, free feel to PM me.
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I am also in a Master program of the linguistics of a specific language. I would definitely recommend you to do a Ph.D in general linguistics.(This is what I am applying to do now).
Language specific-linguistics Ph.D seems to me less useful, both in terms of job-prospective and academic research in general. First, if you do a language specific, say, Russian, you are kind of stuck to Slavic Studies/Russian Studies programs, which generally have a lot of elements of literature and culture rather than linguistics (bear with me, but I think these programs generally speaking are doing things more like philology than linguistics). In contrast, if you do a Ph.D in theoretical linguistics, potentially you can work in Slavic/Russian studies programs, but not necessarily have to. It is possible that you teach some courses in these programs, but also work primarily in linguistics/computer science/philosophy/cognitive science, etc, programs. So, the prospect for theoretical linguistics seems to me much better in terms of getting a job.
Second, if you want to do a Ph.D in a the linguistics of a specific language or language family, you will have to answer the question why this language/language family merits special attention to study. Or to put it in this way, why do you want to study the syntax of Russian and Hungarian rather than say that of Indonesian? If syntax on itself merits being an object of study, why don't you study syntactical theories rather than the syntax of a certain language? Ph.D in the linguistics of a specific language is rare. These programs, as far as I know, are less theoretically focused. Discourse analysis/pedagogue/functional grammar/structural grammar etc are the main foci of these programs. The dataset under investigation in these language specific programs, needless to say, are less diverse than those examined in general linguistics programs. This means your academic career may be limited due to lack of breadth in terms of empirical data and theoretical foundation, if you are in a language specific Ph.D linguistics.
All in all, think twice before you are doing language specific linguistics Ph.D.
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10 hours ago, cotterw said:
I'm not totally sure about what they work on but the University of Oslo might be a good option? It's at least worth looking into.
One point to add. I feel that the very notion of Nodic linguistics defeats the definition of linguistics. We do not talk about something like "Nodic Chemistry", Nodic quantum physics", etc. But isn't strange to say Nordic linguistics, if linguistics is truly a science?
Maybe a better term would be Nordic languages, but surely not Nordic linguistics. I don't know. I am not a specialist of philosophy of linguistics. But it looks really odd to me, whenever someone says English linguistics, French linguistics, etc. It looks like whenever we say these things, we actually mean descriptive grammars of English/French, but not mean theories of grammar, which are the real "linguistics" stuffs (e.g. phonology, syntax, and semantics).
Anyways, I would also suggest the poster to look at comparative philology programs. Probably some European universities may have some Nordic philology programs out there.
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23 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:
Re: deadlines and the holidays, the fact that it's the holidays did not exactly come out of no where. Yes, you now have a problem, but it's due to your poor planning, and I'm not sure what else could be done about it. As they say, poor planning on your part should not constitute an emergency on mine. They may not answer until after the new year, and you'll just do something that seems reasonable. If you add one page for references, that is probably okay (though I can't guarantee that). If you add 3 pages, that would look odd.
It looks like I got no luck of hearing back from them before the deadline!
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2 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:
I find it hard to believe that all 3 pages of references are equally important. For a 3-page summary you could add a half page of "selected references" that are just the important ones: the theory you're basing your ideas on, the ones that published the data, maybe 1-2 others, that should be enough. If you end up with 3 pages of references for 3 pages of text, something is probably wrong. I also don't think it's necessary to write something new as opposed to the summary that they asked for. The purpose of the summary is for you to show that you can actually take your longer paper and distill from it just the important parts: what are the questions that you are asking? What are your findings? Why does it matter? What are the next steps? A 3-page summary means that you'll write roughly 2-3 paragraphs on each question, which isn't a lot at all. This is an important skill, and I would say one you could display even better if you summarize your submitted work, as opposed to a proposed plan you haven't yet carried out. But, both are viable options.
Re: deadlines and the holidays, the fact that it's the holidays did not exactly come out of no where. Yes, you now have a problem, but it's due to your poor planning, and I'm not sure what else could be done about it. As they say, poor planning on your part should not constitute an emergency on mine. They may not answer until after the new year, and you'll just do something that seems reasonable. If you add one page for references, that is probably okay (though I can't guarantee that). If you add 3 pages, that would look odd.
I see. Yes, I think it is true that it is easier for me to write a research summary of the writing sample that I will submit to them rather than writing a new "research proposal".
By writing a summary for the writing sample, I am ready to answer the first three questions, aka. "what am I asking?". "what are my findings", "why does it matter?". The only question I need to think through for now is the last one, aka, "what are the next steps?". In contrast, if I write a new "research proposal" for the research summary, I will have to formulate answers for all these four questions. So, it is not an optimal choice to do a new proposal, as doing so violates the OT maxim, "do only when necessary". So, I am going to change the direction, and write a summary for the writing sample instead. In this case, how would you think of the idea that, instead of putting a references/selected references at the end of the summary, I put a footnote at the beginning of the summary that says "please refer to the writing sample for the references"?
I emailed the department about the length issue. I also checked the institute holidays of MIT. It seems that theoretically today (December 23) is the last business day of the office of the department before the new year. So, there is a good chance that I will hear back from them today. Let's see whether I will hear back from them today.
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1 hour ago, fuzzylogician said:
When in doubt, stick to the strictest interpretation of the rules -- here, double space, and 3 pages = 3 pages including everything, not 3 pages + a separate page for references.
If this doesn't suit you, you could email them to ask more specifically what they mean. Maybe it's fine if it's single space or if you add a separate page for references*, but an official answer permitting you to do that has to come from them and is meaningless if it comes from us.
* specifically regarding references, this seems unnecessary. Usually the summary would basically be an abstract of your submitted writing sample. I'm sure your writing sample already has a reference list, which would indicate all the works you might mention in the summary (plus others). They'll just look at the references of your writing sample, if there is any citation in the summary that they want to look up.
On the website, they also say: "As an alternative, you may also propose a project that you have not undertaken, if you have thought about it with enough depth and care to answer the questions listed above."
I got a writing sample that is around 14 pages including reference. I am not sure whether it is an appropriate thing to write a 3 page abstract for a 14 page paper. So, I am trying to go for this alternative way, aka, proposing a project that I have not undertaken (which will be undertaken for the rest of my year for my MA thesis). This is why I have questions about whether the reference page counts toward the 3 page limit, as the reference page tends to be very long. (it usually takes up to 3 pages for a 11 page paper.)
As it is closing to Christmas, I am not sure whether the admission office of the department has closed. But I am going to take a try and write to them right now, and see whether I will get back from them sometime before the deadline.
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Europe has a quite a lot of philological programs. Check out programs in the U.K.
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So, I am trying to finish up my research summary for MIT application. The website of MIT says the maximum length of the summary is 3 pages. But it does not say whether it is a summary of double-spaced 3 pages or single-spaced 3 pages. So, if I double-space my texts, can I go beyond 3 pages? Second, can I add a reference page after the 3rd page of the summary? I am thinking to add a reference page because in the research summary I will need to mention some previous works on the topic, e.g. , Chomsky (1986) claimed blablabla.
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5 hours ago, ylsun136 said:
SLA/Applied Linguistics may not be the same as Linguistics in many schools, so better check with both Linguistics and Education departments.
I know Michigan and UCLA linguistics departments do not require GRE scores. Maryland does not 'absolutely' require GRE scores for admission but you're encouraged to send high scores for securing financial aid. I've seen Ohio State's explicit GRE requirements for fellowships so I think it's better to have those scores.
Some departments with deadlines in Jan: Rutgers, MIT, Harvard, Illinois, Stony Brook, Maryland, Cornell, UMass Amherst. Again all are linguistics departments.
And I think MIT is the only department I've seen that does not promise funding for admitted students..
All the best
Don't be tricked by what has been said on the site of MIT. Even though funding is not guaranteed, in practice they always offer very good funding package for those who get admitted.
It may be their strategy to reduce the number of applications they receive by implicitly telling those who apply to MIT primarily for their funding.
Fall 2016 Application
in Linguistics Forum
Posted · Edited by historicallinguist
Bizarre enough! Nothing comes out from Kansas. I saw at the results page that last year interviews invitations had been sent out by the end of Jan. But as of today, I do not see anything at the result page for Kansas for Fall 2016. Nor do I receive anything from them. Anyone knows what is happening with Kansas?