Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
Dissertations
M.Phil. Introductory classes
Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
• Select the general topic area by the end of
week 5 in Hilary term (13 Feb) – talk to
potential supervisors before then (as many as
you want)
• Supervision proper begins after that
• Detailed workplan and schedule (agreed with
your supervisor): by 5 May (in 1st year for parttime students)
Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
Your supervisor will…
• Help you to focus your research, keep it within
the bounds of what is feasible, and help you to
structure the dissertation
• give you feedback on draft chapters – as far as
possible! (NB: submission deadline is end of
August, but lecturers attend conferences and
take holidays during the summer vacation)
• NB: your supervisor is also your internal
examiner
Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
External examiners
Linguistics: Dr T. Hoffman, U. Osnabrück
Applied Linguistics: Prof. M. Bygate, U.
Lancaster (emer.)
Speech and Language Processing: Prof. D.
House, KTH, Stockholm
English Language Teaching: Prof. John Gray, U.
London
Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
• Dissertations always have a literature review.
This should not just describe things you’ve
read, but organise your reading and identify
themes, gaps, problems, etc.
• Dissertations usually also have an empirical
study of some kind: qualitative, quantitative,
corpus-based, lab-based…
• The literature review sets the theoretical
context for the empirical study
• Dissertations are maximum 15,000 words in
length
Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
Research Ethics
• If your research involves human subjects, you
must get approval from the Research Ethics
Committee. See
http://www.tcd.ie/slscs/research/ethics/
Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
‘The School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication
Sciences has set up a Research Ethics Committee (REC)
to conduct an ethical review of all research projects in
the School involving human subjects. Ethics approval
will be required for all such research conducted either
by staff members or students. Approval must be
obtained prior to the commencement of data
collection and cannot be applied for or granted
retrospectively. Obtaining prior ethical approval for
research involving human participants is an essential
requirement for the acceptance of MPhil
dissertations’
Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
‘Application for ethics approval involves the
applicant submitting a completed standard
application form, along with supporting
documents, to the Research Ethics Committee
by the specified submission date. Six hard
copies, as well as an electronic version, must
be submitted by applicants.’
Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
REC application deadlines – REC meeting dates
Friday 16th Jan
Tuesday 3rd Feb
Friday 27th Feb
Tuesday 14th April
Friday 12th June 2012
HT Week 3, 27th Jan
HT Week 6, 17th Feb
HT Week 9, 10th March
TT Week 4, 28th April
TT Week 11, 24th June
Trinity College Dublin
Coláiste na Tríonóide, Baile Átha Cliath
School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences
Centre for Language and Communication Studies
• Phonetic fonts:
– http://pronouncingshakespeare.com/media/tnrphon
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– http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id
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