About

The Modern Languages MPhil, PhD is offered through the School of Modern Languages. We offer expert supervision in the following areas:

Chinese

• Chinese translating and interpreting
• Chinese numerology, number and gender in nursery rhymes (Dr V Pellatt)
• cross-cultural studies between China and the West
• Chinese modernity studies
• modern Chinese literature and culture
• Chinese-English translation
• global Chinese diaspora studies
• Chinese-American studies
• cultural theory (Prof J Qian)
• contemporary society, especially identity, ethnicity and religion
• minority nationalities (eg Xinjiang or Uyghur studies)
• Chinese state or popular nationalism and national identity
• Islam in China
• performing arts, music cultures and popular culture in mainland China (Dr J Smith Finley)
• transnational Chinese cinema
• stardom
• independent documentary filmmaking
• gender and sexuality in Chinese media (Dr S Yu)

French

• contemporary women's writing (Dr Robson, Dr El-Maïzi)
• 19th century literature and culture (Prof Harkness, Prof Cross)
• dialectology (Dr Hall)
• French and Algerian cinema (Prof Austin, Dr Leahy)
• history, politics and gender (Prof Cross, Prof Harkness)
• language change (Dr Hall, Dr Waltereit)
• popular culture (media, sport, music) and public policy (Dr Dauncey)
• postcolonial cultures (Prof Austin, Dr El-Maïzi)
• trauma and culture (Prof Austin, Dr Robson)

German

• 20th century German and contemporary literature (Dr T Ludden, Dr B Müller)
• GDR literature and censorship (Dr B Müller)
• representations of the Holocaust and/or World War II (Dr B Müller)
• literature and philosophy - cultural and critical theory (Dr T Ludden)
• women's writing (Dr T Ludden)
• Medieval German and comparative literature (Dr E Andersen)
• morphological theory - morphology, phonology and dialectology of German and Dutch (Dr C Fehringer)

Japanese

• gender studies (Dr G Hansen)
• popular culture, film and media studies (Dr G Hansen, Dr S Yoshioka)
• political studies (Dr G Hansen, Dr S Yoshioka)
• literary studies (Dr G Hansen)

Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American studies

• anthropology, anthropological linguistics and sociolinguistics of Latin America, including Quechua language (Prof Howard)
• semantics, philosophy of language, history and spread of Spanish in Latin America, Latin American dialects and Creole (Prof Mackenzie)
• political, social and intellectual history of Latin America in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially Brazil and Southern Cone (Prof Hentschke)
• history of education in Latin America in 19th and 20th century Latin America (Prof Hentschke, Dr Oliart, Prof Howard)
• discourses of race and identity in Latin America (Prof Howard, Dr Oliart, Dr Morgan)
• Latin American film, literature and theatre (Dr Page)
• Spanish and Latin American cultural history and popular culture (Dr Catala Carracso, Dr Morgan, Dr Oliart, Dr Fernández)
• Catalan nationalism (Dr Catala-Carrasco)
• Spanish novel (Dr Catala Carrasco)

Translating and Interpreting:

We can offer supervision for projects involving English plus Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Quechua, Spanish, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.

Our research specialisms are:

• Interpreting (Dr Y Chen, Dr M Jin, Dr V Pellatt, Dr F Wu)
• psycholinguistics of interpreting and translating (Dr M Jin)
• translating literature (Dr F Jones, Dr V Pellatt)
• translation and culture (Dr Y Chen, Dr F Jones, Dr V Pellatt)
• translation and ethics, ideology and power (Prof R. Howard, Dr F Jones, Dr V Pellatt)
• translation products, processes and strategies (Dr Y Chen, Dr M Jin, Dr F Jones, Dr V Pellatt)
• translator and interpreter training and assessment (Dr Y Chen, Dr V Pellatt, Dr F Wu)
• reflective/autonomous learning and educational psychology (Dr Y Chen, Dr F Wu)
• audiovisual translation studies (Dr Y Chen)

Research staff in the School of Modern Languages work in a diverse range of fields from sociocultural, historical and political studies, to film and literature, linguistics and sociolinguistics. The School has strong links with interdisciplinary research centres and groups, including:

• Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
• Centre for Research in Linguistics and Language Sciences
• Research Centre in Film and Digital Media
• Gender Research Group
• Medieval and Early Modern Studies
• Postcolonial Research Group

You will also have the opportunity to attend festivals and conferences with a direct bearing on your course:

• Talking to the World Conference
• VAMOS festival

As a student in the School of Modern Languages, you will benefit from the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) Faculty research training programme. You will choose these research modules in consultation with your supervisors.

Up to £250 per year is available to support your attendance at conferences or for archival research. You can also request an inter-library loan allowance.

The School of Modern Languages is part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) North East Doctoral Training Centre. Through training courses provided by these partnerships, you will gain knowledge and skills to undertake high-quality social science research.