The International PhD programme in English Literatures, Language and Translation (SELLT), with administrative base at Sapienza University of Rome and partner base at the University of Silesia in Katowicze, is aimed at students interested in the acquisition of up-to-date critical and cognitive tools that enable them to carry out specialised research in the field of English literature and linguistics, as well as in the cultural and disciplinary areas that may refer to them. These coincide with the Italian national academic macro-area 10L/1, which includes the fields of English Linguistics and Translation, English Literature and Anglo-American Literature. The three-year programme makes use of a didactic offer that both institutions involved, Sapienza and Silesia, operate and that concerns both transversal competences linked to research training (Academic English courses, teaching training, courses dedicated to the exploration of publishing practices necessary for young scholars who are opening up to academic activities) and specific disciplinary competences. In particular, the SELLT teaching staff promotes the following research paths through the Board's internal resources and through Italian and international experts in the fields of study:
1) Studies on medieval English texts
2) Shakespeare and the Dramatic Language
3) Forms and Subjects of Modern Literary Discourse
4) Theatre Studies in the,21st Century
5) American Studies
6) Post-colonial Literatures
7) Comparative Studies
8) Translation Studies
9) Audiovisual Translation
10) Adaptation Studies
11) Multilingualism and Diatopic Varieties Studies
12) History of the English language
13) Stylistics and historical pragmatics
14) English language teaching
An integral part of the SELLT programme is a period of study and training of Sapienza and Silesia students at the partner site, in order to provide a comprehensive international experience, which will also make use of the co-supervision of Sapienza and Silesia lecturers for the development of each PhD student's thesis.
The main objectives of the PhD are to train skills:
(a) in the investigation of the history and periodisation of literature, with the focus on problems relating to the main periods, including the contemporary period
b) in the analysis of texts, in the light of critical, stylistic, linguistic methodologies, especially of English-speaking literatures and cultures
c) in the investigation of theories of literature, and in the comparative connection with other literatures
d) in the investigation of linguistic problems, seen both in their communicative specificity and in their literary and non-literary values, through the tools of contemporary stylistics and discourse analysis;
e) in the investigation of the theories, methods and approaches of Translation and Adaptation Studies, especially updated to the last thirty years;
f) in the investigation of the theories, methods and approaches related to the History of the English Language, with particular attention to the studies of historical linguistics and pragmatics.