The Ph.D. program in Linguistics is designed to offer a solid foundation and updated knowledge on main topics concerning language and how it works across time and space. It also strongly emphasizes the enhancement of critical thinking and challenges conventional thinking in pursuit of original ideas and production in the chosen area. The Ph.D. program is by its nature interdisciplinary, in so much as Linguistics interfaces with different fields of the humanities (such as history, geography, literary criticism, philology, philosophy, language education), and technical-scientific disciplines (articulatory and acoustic phonetics, speech experimental processing, etc.) The Ph.D. program is open to internationalization and to more innovative research domains and it is designed to be the intellectual destination that will draw inspired Italian graduate students and international students intending to deepen their scientific background and their training to teach Italian as a second language. Its leadership is due both to the recognized scientific quality and to the prestige of the scholars who have joined the Ph.D. program, as they are some of the best known in the field of Italian and international linguistics (presidents of Scientific Societies, members to the Accademia dei Lincei, referees for National Qualifying Board Examinations, and members of foreign research institutions), and to the efficient educational and scientific organization, which partly owes to the two previous Doctorates (at Sapienza and Roma Tre) from which the Ph.D. program originates (starting from the XXXI cycle), and partly to the managerial effectiveness of the Ph.D. Commettee (which includes Coordinators of Curricula and a former Vice Chancellor and Head of The University Affairs in the Ministry of Education and University). The Ph.D. areas of interest are the following: - Historical linguistics The curriculum in “Historical linguistics” focuses on methods and issues pertaining to traditional studies on ancient Indo-European languages, but also on the analysis of language change from antiquity to the Middle Ages, and on language contact as an important trigger of the diffusion of language change. - Italian linguistics The curriculum in “Italian linguistics” focuses on methods and issues pertaining to Italian linguistics and dialectology. This curriculum therefore includes linguistic analyses concerning texts from early Vulgar up to contemporary ages, dialectological studies and Italo-Romance lexicographic studies. The general perspective will also be open to traditional studies in general and historical linguistics. - General and applied linguistics The curriculum in “General and applied linguistics” focuses on methods and issues pertaining to synchronic and applied linguistics. Ph.D. students will be introduced to the theories and methods of synchronic linguistics, as well as to features and categories of languages. As for applied linguistics, the curriculum focuses both on language acquisition and on L2 teaching/learning. Ph.D. students will also be introduced to corpus linguistics, explained by means of innovative methods.
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