Linguistic diversity: language, text, society (LLTS)

The Master’s course Linguistic diversity: language, text, society focuses on linguistic diversity from the perspective of language typology, corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and language acquisition. It combines the respective strengths of the universities Sorbonne Nouvelle and INALCO for a well-rounded Master’s degree in linguistics which offers both a comprehensive training in linguistics and – in the 2nd year – a specialization in one field of expertise.

Language typology asks the fundamental question about the unity and diversity of human language.

Corpus linguistics and discourse analysis studies the relationship between grammar and discourse.

Sociolinguistics explores the links between society and language practices.

In psycholinguistics, students can specialize in language acquisition or speech pathology.

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Read more about the MA program in linguistics at Sorbonne Nouvelle Read more about the MA program in linguistics at Inalco

This is a two-year programme. Students have to choose one of the four following sub-courses when entering their 2nd year:

  1. Language typology asks the fundamental question about the unity and diversity of human language. Students will learn about the description, analysis and modelling of morphological and syntactic phenomena while taking into account linguistic variation from a diachronic, dialectal and typological perspective.
  2. Corpus linguistics and discourse analysis studies the relationship between grammar and discourse. Languages can be analysed from the perspective of text linguistics and discourse analysis using text corpora, or grammar modelling can be complemented with text linguistics and discourse analysis using both written and oral text corpora in a wide range of languages.
  3. Sociolinguistics explores the links between society and language practices, in particular the analysis of multilingual contexts, questions of language policy, variation/standardization, language transmission and the interactional organisation of practices in an informal or institutional context.
  4. In psycholinguistics, students can specialize in language acquisition or speech pathology. Special attention is given to language development in early childhood, bilingualism and multilingualism, and to oral and written language pathologies in children and adults.

Students willing to enrol in this Master’s course have to apply to either Sorbonne Nouvelle or Inalco. Inalco only admits students whose research deals with a language spoken outside Western Europe. Both universities require a good command of French.