Does research play an important part of
the curriculum?
I consider myself a
psycholinguist. So for me the answer
would be "no". This is an Institute
for theoretical linguistics and the research
part in this part of linguistics is
really big, but ...
For me the answer would definitely be "yes". So to my mind
that's one of the biggest
things that's great about the department
is that there is a ton of research
that's an important part of the MA
program. There are talks
basically every week and conferences and
workshops and the students are
encouraged to do their own research and
that research has taken very seriously.
In the sense that, if you do it, then
someone be treated as if you're
you're "a grown up" - linguist
doing grown-up research in terms of how
how tightly it fits within the
curriculum and within the actual courses.
I think that differs a lot depending on
which courses you take
because people are very flexible in what
courses they take. So Dana and me for
example. I think this is the second
semester in a row where we don't have
any classes together because we
constantly take opposite things, but in
many classes, I would say, it's
considered important that
people engage with the current research
and also start doing their own research.
Because if their talk you get to know a
lot of real famous linguists.
That's true.
 
Are there any misconceptions about the
program?
I would say that depends on
what your conceptions of the program are.
If you think that it's a program that's
very much about getting a foundation in
theoretical linguistics to become a
linguist then you have the right
conception of the program and I guess
one thing that does happen a lot is
that people think that linguistics is
about learning lots of languages and
that is not true.
So that will be a misconception. The only
language you really have to know in this
program is English because the program
is in English. That's why we're doing
this in English and also
all of the classes are in English and
it's a very international group of
students, so many of them don't speak
German, but in terms of learning lots of
languages that's not what we do.
You could learn, for example, a lot about
vowel harmony in one language that is
spoken in North Africa and then the next
day you would have forgotten all about
it and you would move on to learn about
the k-system of a language that's
spoken in the Amazon and very likely you
wouldn't know a lot about the language
apart from the thing that you're looking
at to determine something about the
rules of the grammar.
Yeah, exactly and
then the misconception is that you
don't have to learn a specific
language that you choose. You don't have
to, you can of course, but linguistics is
more about analyzing patterns and
comparing them to each other in
different languages or in one language
that you choose
And I would say that's
even more true in the MA program than in
the BA program because in the MA program
you really reach that level of
abstraction where the specific things
that you would learn if you were to
learn how to speak a language are not at
the level. So you're not trying to learn
words, for example. You're trying to really
learn about the grammatical structure of a language.
How important is prior knowledge of
linguistic?
For me, personally, it helped
me a lot that I did my bachelor here at
the University of Leipzig, because I
already knew how the professors work, I
knew what this studies are about, I knew
how the research in this university
works. It made things a lot easier for me
but this is of course nothing that you
have to have. I think having some
knowledge in linguistics helps a lot. If
you know how linguistics in general
works and if you have done something in
linguistics at some point in your life.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
I mean it is an advanced program, it's a
master's program and it helps if you
have done linguistics before you
completely agree with that. Although, I
guess, it's also worth mentioning that
there is a module that you can take in
the very beginning of your studies here
which is sort of a foundational module
that helps bring all of these people
that come from very different places
where the conception of how good
linguistics should look like is also
very different sometimes. It brings them
all together and teaches certain basics
and phonology and morphology and syntax
and semantics. So that at the end of this
foundational block at the beginning of
your studies everyone is sort of
supposed to have the same starting point
to then go on and do more advanced
things. And you don't have to take this
class. So another thing about the program
is that you're very free to choose which
modules you want to take and this is one
of the ones that in case you're already
coming in with the kind of background
that you need to take the other
classes, for example, because you did your
BA here, but also if you did it somewhere
else where it just happens to be
a similar but different program then you
can also just skip that and move right
on to the things that are most
interesting to you.
I did that module for
example even though I studied my
bachelor here and it helped me a lot,
just to refresh knowledge but I'm
another thing about that's also worth mentioning:
If you are lacking knowledge you can
also just sit in our bachelors courses
and refresh the knowledge or acquire
knowledge that you don't have and use
that.
Several people in our course did that. It helped them a lot as well.
How demanding is the master's program?
Right. How demanding is it? So I would say
it's exactly as demanding as you want it
to be.
It depends. So I think, if you just
are looking to get an MA in linguistics
for some reason and you just want to do
the minimum amount of stuff that you
have to do to get an MA program or to
get an MA then that is certainly doable.
But I think the real challenge comes in
when you want to do more than that.
And you want to learn how to do research
independently and then it is a very
demanding program in the sense that you
have all of these opportunities here to
make that happen, but of course that is
where a lot of the work comes in, where
you really have to read a lot and go
to the talks and presentations that are
happening here almost every
week and start to work on your own
projects and develop things, ideas that
you maybe started just for a term paper
and develop them into a bigger
project that you could be carrying onto
your PhD studies, for example, if that's
something that you want to do.
There's MA students here that work in
projects together with, for example, PhD
students or like Dana works at
linguistic Institutes outside of the
university get started on their
own research
I often also include that
into the research that I am doing
at this institute.
And of course then
it gets very demanding. It gets to the
point where it takes away your sleep.
But I mean that's fair, right? It's a master's program.
It has to be more demanding than stuff that you did before.
I think that's about right.
Last question:
What do you like most about the program?
Okay, to be honest, the small number of students.
Because you have a really good
connection between the students and also
a really nice and good connection to the
lectures. It's very easy to schedule
meetings, for example if you're writing a
thesis with someone. And everyone knows
each other which is also a nice thing.
But also the groups, that you have your
seminars in, are really small and that
makes learning a lot easier than in a
group of, for example, hundreds of people.
You can have really productive
discussions which is a really great
thing and everyone in this Institute is
really good at discussing. You can
ask a lot of questions and people have
time to talk to you about your problems
to answer your questions.
Yeah it's very interesting. So I agree with that to some
extent it's true that it's a small
department, but in the sense I always
feel like it's the opposite in a way. So
my favorite thing about the program, I
think, is that it's situated at this
department where - if you want to can feel
like you're at the absolute center of
the Linguistics universe - because there's
just so many things going on here and
the MA program is so well integrated
into the department that you have all of
these chances to collaborate with the
PhD students,
with the professors and with the
postdocs, with the BA students - actually
with some very engaged and interested BA students
as well and because there are
so many events and invited speakers and
guest lecturers even though it's a very
small department, it often feels
like there's always something
going on and it's a very lively
environment, it's an exciting
environment I would say and I think
that's my favorite part. That it always
feels tightly knit as Dana said, but at the
same time also very international and
open and I think that's great.
I just realized that we are really different
personalities
and we study completely different
in this master's program.
And I think that's
another part about the program, right?
It's great for a
variety of different people and you can
choose your own path here.
You can adjust the program to your
personality, so that's really great.
