MSc in Lexical Computing and Lexicography

Admissions Policy

Entrants to the course should have a good first degree in a relevant subject area (e.g. Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Languages, Computing, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence). As the MSc is also intended to provide career development, appropriate professional experience may be considered as an entry qualification instead of a degree. This should be well documented in the application.

Given the nature of the course, a high level of written and spoken English is required. Applicants whose first language is not English will be required to provide evidence of proficiency at IELTS 7 or above.

While research projects, portfolio entries and other assessed work may relate to lexicography for languages other than English, applicants should note that staff are not ordinarily in a position to assess work unless they can reach an opinion on the accuracy of the analysis, with the relevant issues being explained in English.

The course will attract students with any of three areas of expertise - lexicography, linguistics (including language teaching), and computing. Some good applicants will have little expertise in one or two of these areas. The desirable skills level, at the beginning of the course, for each of the three disciplines is:

• lexicography: able to describe different types of dictionary use, and corresponding dictionary types; analytic and synthetic elements of the dictionary production process; components of the entry; the role and use of style guides.
• linguistics: able to identify different types of morpheme and morphological process; assign English words to word classes; recognise the main syntactic functions of words and phrases.
• computing: able to use email; web; word processor software; regular expressions; a simple scripting/programming language for tasks such as word-counting.
  

Students are expected to have reached this level in at least one of the three disciplines. Where students are new to one or two of the disciplines, they are
expected to work towards this level prior to the beginning of the course, making use of the reading material for modules LCM01, LCM04 and LCM09.

Students interested in the course are strongly encouraged to work through a set of exercises covering each of these areas. Students are unlikely to fare well on
the course if they have great difficulties with the exercises.

To get an idea of the range of online resources and activities available in this area you are recommended to try Michael Barlow's Corpus Linguistics Links
site.

Students intending to attend only a particular module or modules will need to meet the admission requirements insofar as they relate to the module, but not
necessarily for the Masters as a whole. Thus an individual with a good honours degree in linguistics but no computing could attend the lexicography modules
without meeting the admissions criteria relating to lexical computing.

Resources

Part-time students who do not live locally, and others who wish to do the bulk of their work away from University premises, will need access to a computer
with dictionary-writing software, corpus access software, and a substantial text corpus. The University will work to make these resources available at low
cost to students.

Application Deadline

Although there is no set deadline for application, the intake of students on the course is restricted in number, so applicants are strongly encouraged to apply as
soon as possible.

Application Form

This can be downloaded as a pdf file. Alternatively, copies may be requested by contacting the ITRI course office.
To apply:

• complete the application form and return it to the address given on the front page
  
• fill in your details on the academic reference form (available here in rtf format) and professional reference form (available here in rtf format), and give
  them to the appropriate people. Once completed, they should send these forms directly to the address given on the front page. You may wish to supply
  them with a stamped addressed envelope.

Candidates may be asked to attend an interview.
This is the first time this course has been offered and its running is subject to validation by the University.

Fees

Fees have been set at these rates.