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Guidelines for external candidates   

wishing to pursue a PhD project in English Language & Linguistics at Chemnitz University of Technology

PDF Doing a Doctorate in Chemnitz 2018 (1,1MB)

  1. To pursue a PhD project at Chemnitz University of Technology, you need to register with the Faculty on the basis of a PhD research proposal which must include an official recommendation from me, your supervisor in English Language & Linguistics (Prof. Dr. Josef Schmied). The commission responsible in the Faculty meets about once a month during term time (early October to early February and early April to mid July).
  2. Since pursuing a PhD thesis usually takes at least three years, the question of external funding is of crucial importance. If you would like to have my support for a funding application, I need the detailed PhD proposal with all the necessary documents completed at least four weeks before the deadline, because we always need an external examiner as well and I need to contact her/him well in advance.
  3. The topic of the PhD thesis is often a compromise between the personal preferences of candidates, which may be guided by their career plans, the funding agency’s priorities, and the experience in the department, i.e. mainly in socio- and corpuslinguistic methodology, in applied perspectives, especially academic writing and in descriptive studies of English around the world, especially Africa and South East Asia (including China). We are very open in terms of theory (from Systemic-Functional to Construction Grammar), but prefer empirical approaches that can be discussed also in the research groups, i.e. not only with the professor.
  4. A good project proposal is usually on IMRAD or IMAC basis and includes current references (APA style) and a realistic time frame (possibly a GANTT chart).
  5. Information regarding the application procedure can be found here: https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/studentenservice/stusek/auslteilundprom.php.en

Every PhD candidate is expected to participate actively in the research discussion in the department and the whole university; usually, we have three symposia every semester for the "sociolinguistic variation" and "academic writing" workgroups and a conference with international partners in July; therefore candidates are particularly welcome who choose a topic central to the workgroups' research interests using corpus- and sociolinguistic empirical methodologies. In exchange, candidates, get their own research rooms directly in the department and free access to internet and library /E-learning facilities.

Usually accommodation at Chemnitz University of Technology is not expensive, since it is either provided by the Studentenwerk, or you can find a private flat relatively easily in walking distance from the university.

Current PhD theses include:

  • Jacinta Edusei. Academic Writing in Ghana: a study of hedging by advanced L2 users of English (2013-)
  • Zeenat Sumra. Language, lugha or boli? A study in cross-linguistic influences among Tanzanian trilingual speakers: implications of the pragmatic overlap (2014-)

 

PhD theses completed so far include:

  • Vincenzo Dheskali. A Corpus-based Comparison of Albanian and Italian Academic Writing in L1 and English as L2:
    Introducing Hedges and Boosters within Modalization by Degree", 04.07.19
  • Michaela Rusch. Changing Northern Ireland - Reflections in Language Usage and Change, 04.07.2017
  • Adeiza Lasisi Isiaka. Ebira English in Nigerian Supersystems: Inventory and Variation, 23.05.2017
  • Matthias Hofmann. Mainland Canadian English in Newfoundland. The Canadian Shift in Urban Middle-Class St. John's, 05.02.2015
  • Dunlop Ochieng. Indirect Influence of English on Kiswahili: The Case of Multiword Duplicates between Kiswahili and English, 04.02.2015
  • Isabel Heller. Grammar learners as hypertext users and usability informants: an empirical evaluation of the Chemnitz InternetGrammar, 11.01.2010
  • Ademola Ayodeji Jolayemi. Stress pattern in Nigerian English, 04.07.2007.
  • Balbina Mesue Ebong. The Use of Indigenous Techniques of Communication in Language Learning: the Case of Cameroon, 01.07.2004
  • Sylva Michèle Sternkopf. Language and Business - International Communication Strategies in Saxon Small and Medium-Sized Companies, 08.07.2004
  • Samuel Ngwa Atechi. The Intelligibility of Native and Non-Native English Speech: A Comparative Analysis of Cameroon English and American and British English, 04.07.2004
  • Serah Mwangi. Prepositions in Kenyan English: A Corpus-based Study in Lexical-grammatical Variation, 26.06.2003
  • Christoph Haase. Kognitive Repräsentation von Temporalität im Englischen und im Deutschen, 06.12. 2002
  • Paul Skandera. Drawing a map of Africa: Idiom in Kenyan English, 11.5.2001
  • Miriam Zeh-Glöckler. Soziolinguistische Aspekte des Umgangs mit Englisch in sächsischen Unternehmen nach 1989, 22.07.1999
  • Claudia Claridge. The Way of Words: Multi-word Verbs in Early Modern English. A Study Based on the Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts, 04.11.1998
  • Marie-Luise Egbert. Lexical Repetition in English-German Literary Translation, 07.10.1998
  • Diana Hudson-Ettle. Grammatical Subordination Strategies in Differing Text Types in the English Spoken and Written in Kenya, 04.04.1998
  • Hildegard Schäffler. Kulturspezifische Probleme der englisch-deutschen Übersetzung: lexikalische und pragmatische Aspekte, 14.04.1997