Applied Linguistics

Applied Linguistics is an interdisciplinary master’s degree program at the interface between research and practice. It covers the fields of language, social communication, media, organizations, business and politics. Core modules are intercultural communication, second language acquisition, language processing and translation studies. In these modules, a closer look is taken at aspects of interpersonal communication, regional and social differences in language behavior, (im)politeness in different cultures, pragmatic competence, writing in a second language and cognitive processes during translation, among others. The degree program furthermore offers courses and research support in the fields of pragmatics, discourse analysis, genre analysis, sociolinguistics, dialectology, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics and theoretical lexicography. Students learn to plan and carry out their own research projects, for which they have access to linguistic research facilities, such as the Research Center for Empirical Pragmatics, offering a large variety of research instruments including recording devices, language corpora as well as data collection, data processing and data analysis software.

Possible lines of work:

Academia (universities, universities of applied sciences, public and private research institutions), adult education at universities (in Germany or abroad), publishing, libraries, translating, editing (e.g. English-language editing), cultural institutions, embassies (regional cultural work, exhibitions, etc.), cultural institutes, print media, radio, television, online media, journalism, public relations (agencies, foundations, authorities, private businesses, associations), market research, international relations and cooperation (e.g. EU institutions), international organizations