What attracted me to the course was the
diversity of modules. They run modules
I didn't even know existed, areas and
fields that I didn't even know what part
of linguistics or English language
because it was so much of an extension
from A level. And I think what was so
interesting was that I ended up down
these paths and these modules that I had
no idea what they were about originally
and ended up absolutely loving and
that's what made it so interesting. So in
A level we touched upon the
international phonetic alphabet and in
the degree level you end up doing
phonetics and phonology and prosody and
things, which really delve into this and
its really sciencey. I mean it
doesn't work with everyone but for me, I
loved it. It was giving me a piece of
data from a language which you've never
heard about you know an African tribe or
something and for some reason from this
tiny extract I was able to tell you how
their mouth moved and how their language
worked in terms of sound systems and
sort of tones and intonation and things
that you didn't even know you could
describe at my level. I recently took a
module called phonology and essentially
at the beginning of term I you know
could speak English and French but I
couldn't speak a remote language that
occurred in Papua New Guinea, for
instance. But then you're given a piece
of data, a piece of, an extract of the
language and you go from not knowing
anything about language at all to be
able to decode the rules, the
phonological rules, that they have in
their language from something that
you're just given in an assignment base
and it's fantastic. I mean I don't know
who else has those skills which is
incredible.
So our linguistics lab is amazing. We
have different rooms dedicated to
different researching of different
fields in linguistics. For instance we
have an eye-tracking room and we also
have a soundproof room as well, which
means that we can take recordings of
speech which isn't influenced by speech
or sounds in the surrounding room. For
instance it's not affected by echoes or
noise pollution or anything like this
which means that you can really research
the real productions that we create. So,
in our course we have
three assignments per module generally,
the first assignment tends to be group
presentations and so you get to know
different people on your course and you
present then in the module as a
presentation, at sort of 15 minutes or so.
but then we do have a lot of independent
work as well because the other
assignments tend to be essays or
projects that you'll run individually
and so there's a lot of reading, a lot of
experimental research done individually.
So, my plans after I graduate is to do a
Master's in speech therapy so it's a
case of working with the careers
advisers who I've seen already and you
tailor your CV and you make covering
letters and they really help you with
your applications to further education.
