PhD Funding – extended deadline

ESRC Studentship in Language and Communication at Cardiff 2015/16

deadline extended to March 9 2015.

The Centre for Language and Communication Research (CLCR) is able to support applications for one Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) 3 year PhD studentship to commence on 1 October 2015, covering tuition fees plus a generous stipend, on a competitive basis within the ESRC Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) Wales Consortium, led by Cardiff University.  Full awards (fees plus maintenance stipend) are open to UK Nationals and EU students who can satisfy UK residency requirements. To be eligible for the full award, EU Nationals must have been in the UK for at least 3 years prior to the start of the course for which they are seeking funding, including for the purposes of full-time education. EU Nationals who do not meet the above residency requirement are eligible for a fees only award, provided that they have been ordinarily resident in the EU for at least 3 years prior to the start of their proposed programme of study. We would welcome applications in  the following areas: 

• Systemic Functional Linguistics applied to any of the topics listed below
• Psycholinguistics, especially written language production and/or using keystroke logging methods
• Discourse Analysis, especially used a quantitative or mixed methods approach
• Corpus Studies
• Studies of language Development/Attrition/impairment
• Bilingualism/Multilingualism
• Language Change and variation
• Attitudes to Language
• Professional discourse including Forensic linguistics and Health communication
• Language variation
• New media discourse
• Language attitudes

The ESRC website has a very helpful section on frequently asked questions about the award scheme.

In order to be considered for a studentship, you firstly need to apply for a place on PhD Language and Communication Research programme in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University via the University’s Direct Application Service.  As well as your application, you will need to supply the following supporting documents: 2 academic references, a detailed research proposal, personal statement, copies of your degree certificates and a transcript of the marks.  In the research proposal (around 1,000 words, 3-4 pages) please outline your rationale, proposed methodology, and research objectives, including a short bibliography.  In your personal statement, we would like you to tell us about why you are applying for a PhD – what your current situation is, whether you need a PhD for your own personal development, or for professional reasons, what your experience has been to date as a student/researcher/teacher in the area of English Language and Communication, and why you have chosen Cardiff as an appropriate research environment for your particular area of interest.

Once you have an offer of a place on the PhD Language and Communication Research programme you will be eligible to apply for ESRC funding.  You will need to submit a separate ESRC application form which can be downloaded from

ESRC Studentship Application Form – English

ESRC Studentship Referee Report Form – English

or can be obtained from the School Postgraduate Office (email encap-pg@cardiff.ac.uk). Please submit your ESRC Studentship Application Form to encap-pg@cardiff.ac.uk.

Deadline:
The deadline for funding is 5 p.m. Friday 9 March 2015.   

For further details, please contact: 

Rhian Rattray, Postgraduate Manager for the School of English, Communication and Philosophy. Email: encap-pg@cardiff.ac.uk