I want to study Dialectology

[buddingling23]

I'll be brief. I majored in Linguistics in undergrad and did quite well. Since then I've been working in the field of media production. I am now considering going back to grad school in Linguistics, but here is the issue. I am not interested in theoretical syntax, phonology, or phonetics. I am passionate and professionally interested in dialectology and sociolinguistics. Specifically, I am interested in language variation within English and Romance languages and its status and relation to class and identity issues in the respective geographic areas.

 

In my undergrad program, although I did well in all courses, I was deathly bored by many aspects of "formal" linguistics as it relates to the above-mentioned areas in the field. Don't get me wrong though: I have an affinity for detailed analysis and even tree structures, etc., but I am not interested in the sorts of questions phonologists and semanticists are generally interested in. I spoke to my undergrad advisor and he told me of a few programs that "do this kind of thing well," including UPenn and Stanford. In general however, he was a bit dismissive of the whole area I'm interested in and I generally got the impression that I just won't be able to find my niche in the American Linguistics field altogether.

 

I did not write an undergrad thesis and have lost contact with most of those professors. Therefore, I'd probably be looking at an M.A. program to then transition and apply for a Ph.D. after doing more meaningful research. I've even considered one-year M.A. programs in the UK that seem to specialize more in sociolinguistics.

 

Any thoughts on how I can get to study what I want to study?

[Ziggyfinish]

One word. Canada.

 

Check out McGill, University of Toronto, and University of British Columbia, I believe all three of these schools will have some of what you're looking for. (Though maybe check out other Canadian schools too; Queens, Victoria, Ottawa, McMaster, I'm less familiar with these) Canadian schools still offer programs similar in scope as American schools but still make a division between MA and PhDs, and usually it is easy to transfer from a Canadian school to an American school than transferring from a European school (this is not a rule, but something to consider). Also because of the nature of Quebec's language policies, there is a lot of interest in Canada with regards to the various dialects of French and English, and the sociolinguistics of class divisions especially in Quebec. Im pretty sure there is a specialist at McGill on English dialects. UBC seems more interested in First Nations' languages, but they may also have what you're looking for.

 

Also at least University of Toronto and McGill will offer funding even at the MA level (UBC offers very little but encourages paid TAships). It wont be as much as American PhD programs, but American MAs in Linguistics rarely give funding. Also some Canadian schools will have 1 year MAs. One problem with a 1 year MA is that you will just be beginning your studies when the next application period roles around in the fall. You won't yet have any real grades or strong relationships with your professors for applying to PhD programs. So you might want to look at 2 year programs which will give you more research experience.

 

On the UK side of things Edinburgh has one of the best linguistics departments and their program specifically includes English language linguistics, so they probably do some of what your interested in.

 

Hope that helps.

[LinguisticMystic]

North Carolina State University has a two-year MA in sociolinguistics (with some fabulous sociolinguists) and offers paid TAships.

[buddingling23]

This is very useful information. If I complete an MA program that specializes either in sociolinguistics or more specifically in English language linguistics, and then apply to PhD programs, are these master's degrees viewed favorably by the more common theoretical-oriented departments? I'm not questioning the quality of these institutions but how the specific sub-field is viewed.