Linguistics: Language and Society

The Master's in Language and Society explores language from a (socio)linguistic and pragmatic perspective, and focuses on the analysis of language, language use and variation, and language policy.

In a world of globalisation a profound knowledge of European languages is required for intercultural business communication. Although global English may serve as the lingua franca in international contacts, in many situations a thorough knowledge of the use of the mother tongue of the business partner can be very fruitful. Besides a good knowledge of languages and their use in society, for many jobs well developed analytical and presentation skills are required. A Master's study of Linguistics helps students to develop both types of skills. Students are trained in analysing corpora containing data of the language of their specialisation and in organizing and interpreting their data.
The Master's in Language and Society has been set up for language students of various languages and language groups (English, German, French, Italian, Scandinavian, Slavonic, Spanish), who envisage a career in an international environment. In the programme students are prepared for such a career. Since parts of the courses are offered in English, all students of Language and Society will develop their receptive and productive knowledge of English next to the target language of their specialisation.