Modern Languages and Linguistics
Academic Staff
Fellows
Professor Thomas Charles-Edwards is Emeritus Jesus Professor of Celtic. He works on medieval Ireland and Wales, and to a lesser extent Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England. He is mainly an historian but he has also written about medieval Irish and Welsh narrative literature. His books include The Welsh Laws (1989), Early Christian Ireland (2000), Wales and the Britons, 350-1064 and The Oxford History of Wales, vol. 1, which is currently at the press. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Professor Katrin Kohl is the Fellow and Tutor in German. She teaches German literature from 1750, with a particular interest in the way literature interacts with the society and culture of its time and communicates with the reader. Her current research focuses on eighteenth and twentieth century poetry and poetics, and on the theory and practice of metaphor as a means of shaping concepts of literary communication. She also has a strong interest in language teaching and has published language courses from beginner to university level.
Dr Caroline Warman is the Fellow and Tutor in French. Her main research interests lie in the literature, history of ideas and medical discourses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Her first book was on Sade and materialism (2002); she is now working on Diderot and theories of consciousness in the 1790s. She is also translating the novels of Isabelle de Charrière. She mainly teaches literature and thought in the modern period but also offers (and enjoys!) the span of first year texts, from medieval to modern. Her language teaching specialises in translation into and out of French.
Dr Ash Asudeh is a Hugh Price Fellow in Linguistics and University Lecturer in Semantics and Pragmatics. His research interests are in semantics, syntax, cognitive science, linguistic theories and grammatical architecture, language and logic, computational linguistics, and psycholinguistics.
Lecturers
Dr Nicola Gardini is a Lecturer in Italian for Jesus who teaches on Renaissance and the classical legacy and XIX- and XX-century poetry. His research interests lie in the Renaissance, poetry and translation. He writes poetry and fiction and co-edits the monthly magazine "Poesia", based in Milan, and the online magazine "Il Calzerotto Marrone", based in Padua.
Dr Julie Curtis, a Fellow in Russian at Wolfson College, is a Lecturer for Jesus. Her research interests lie in twentieth-century Russian literature, especially Mikhail Bulgakov and Evgenii Zamiatin. She has also published on the literature of the Gorbachov era.
Dr Jonathan Thacker, a Fellow in Spanish at Merton College, is a Lecturer for Jesus who teaches mainly in the literature of the Golden Age, or early-modern period. He writes principally on the drama produced by Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón de la Barca and their contemporaries, and on the works of Cervantes.
About the Course
The Modern Language element of the Modern Languages and Linguistics course will be like one half of the main Modern Languages course, i.e. students of a particular language follow the same programme, regardless of the combination of languages or other subjects taken. Please note that Czech, Polish, and Beginners' Russian are not available in combination with Linguistics. You will receive both practical linguistic training and an extensive introduction to the literature and thought of the European language you choose. The other half of the course allows you to focus on language itself. You will be introduced to the analysis of the nature and structure of human language in all its aspects, which is linguistics.
Oxford offers facilities for the linguistic and philological study of European languages that are unmatched anywhere else in Britain. The University has particular expertise in general linguistics, phonetics, syntax and semantics, and in the history and structure of many individual European languages and families of related languages.
Modern Languages and Linguistics is a 4-year course involving a year abroad. Many students spend the year abroad as a paid language assistant in a foreign school, though you may do work abroad or study at a foreign university. If you need further information, you can consult with the college of your choice. We encourage you to spend as much as possible of your vacations in the countries whose languages you are studying. Financial support, including travelling scholarships, may be available from your college and/or the Faculty.
Joint Schools
Modern Languages and Linguistics is a Joint Schools course combining study of one European Language with Linguistics. Modern Languages can be studied as a Single Honours course (one or two European languages), or as a Joint Schools course with Classics, English, History, Philosophy or a Middle Eastern language. Linguistics cannot be taken as a single subject at undergraduate level.
Admissions
We expect candidates to be motivated to do a course with a focus on literature, but do not assume that they will have studied literature formally. Linguistics is a subject which virtually everybody starts from scratch at University, and our primary requirements are enthusiasm for exploring the nature of human language; willingness to acquire the formal tools for describing and analysing language; enthusiasm for acquiring a detailed and rigorous understanding of the structure, use and history of the language you are studying.
Candidates are selected on the basis of academic record (e.g. GCSEs) and potential, as shown by their UCAS reference, submitted written work, and performance in written tests and in interviews if shortlisted.
Candidates are required to submit marked pieces of recent school or college work: one piece written in the Modern Language applied for, plus one piece written in English (perhaps on literature, or history, or some other subject you are studying at school or college) to show how you construct an argument and express your ideas in English. If candidates have taken, or are taking, an A-level involving linguistic analysis, such as English Language A-level, they should also submit one piece of written work from that.
Candidates will be required to take a written test in schools on 2 November 2011, in the chosen language. The tests consist of a monolingual exercise and a number of non-consecutive sentences for translation from and into the language, and are primarily intended to test knowledge of basic grammar rather than vocabulary. Candidates will also be required to take a Language Aptitude Test on the same date: this also lasts for 30 minutes and is designed to test suitability for the linguistics side of the course.
All shortlisted candidates will have an interview lasting approximately 30 minutes with our Modern Languages tutors, with an additional interview with the lecturer in the chosen language if it is not French or German. Interviews will be mainly in English, but will include a brief conversation in the language offered. You may be asked questions about a short passage in English or the relevant foreign language. There will also be an interview with the Linguistics tutor.
In a total College entry of about 100 undergraduates, 9-10 are offered places in a typical year to read Modern Languages and related joint schools. Offers made to pre-A level candidates will be conditional upon A level results (normally AAA, with an A in the language applied for). Offers made to post-A level candidates will usually be unconditional.
Deferred Entry: Applications for deferred entry to Jesus College are welcomed. You must apply for deferred entry at the time of application to Oxford: you cannot change your mind after an offer has been made. Please refer to departmental web sites for subject-specific advice. You should be aware that applicants who are offered places for deferred entry will generally be among the strongest of the cohort for their subject. We would not usually offer more than one or two deferred places per subject in order not to disadvantage the following year's candidates. In some cases, an applicant for deferred entry may be offered a place for non-deferred entry instead. If you require any further advice, please contact the Admissions Officer.
Postgraduate Studies and Careers
Oxford has a large, varied, and active teaching and research community in Modern Languages. There are over ninety members of the Faculty, with research interests spread across the full chronological range of the languages and into most areas of linguistics and literary study. The College welcomes applicants for the following postgraduate degrees:
- MSt, MPhil or DPhil Medieval and Modern Languages
- MSt, MPhil or DPhil Celtic Studies
- MSt or MPhil Slavonic Studies
- MSt Women's Studies
- MSt Yiddish Studies
- MSt, MPhil or DPhil General Linguistics and Comparative Philology
The undergraduate course in Modern Languages and Linguistics at Oxford is intended to transmit an awareness of one or more foreign cultures in relation to students' native culture and to equip students with a sophisticated command of the language or languages they study. Beyond these subject-specific aims, the course trains students' critical faculties and gives them a wide range of other 'transferable skills'. Students learn to organise their time and cope with working under pressure, and the course provides intensive training in communication skills: weekly essays demand quick assimilation of material and foster writing skills, while discussion in tutorials and classes develops confidence in presenting an independent view clearly and comprehensibly. Recent studies indicate that an increasing number of British employers are realising the value of recruiting trained linguists, and Oxford Modern Languages and Linguistics graduates regularly go into highly competitive areas such as law, management consultancy, accountancy, international press agencies, the media, advertising, the Foreign Office and the performing arts.
Preliminary Reading and Further Information
Further information about Modern Languages and Linguistics at Oxford can be found on the Faculty of Modern Languages' Linguistics website and the University's Undergraduate Courses pages.