King's College London is a major centre for descriptive linguistics, applied linguistics and language in education. To capitalise on this expertise, the College set up the Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication in March 2006. The Centre, which is hosted by the Department of Education and Professional Studies, now serves as the portal to a wide range of BA, Masters and Doctoral training programmes.
At the Centre for LDC, we do both basic and applied research on language, communication, education and society. We have particular strengths in research on the dynamics of language and literacy within globalisation and intercultural contact, and we focus on language, literacy and discourse in everyday interaction, in education, literature, and popular culture, in new and mass media, and in medical and workplace settings. Particular research areas include:
- Academic literacies
- Digital text and discourse
- Discourse, interaction and identity
- English in the school curriculum
- Ethnography in language & literacy research
- Health communication
- Language ethnicity and class
- Psychology and cognitive processes
- Second/foreign language teaching
We work with English, English-based Creoles, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and a range of minority languages, and we combine linguistics with anthropology, ethnography, history, and psychology, and with quantitative, corpus and discourse analysis. In recent years, we have provided a base for more than a dozen externally funded research projects; we have 40-50 MPhil/PhD students; we occupy a prominent position in national and international research networks; and we hold two research days a year and run a range of seminar series. We also run a number of Master’s programmes that are both research and professionally oriented, as well as a national training programme in linguistic ethnography for researchers across the social sciences (funded by the ESRC). Our research in discourse analysis, educational, historical, text and sociolinguistics was top-rated in the last Research Assessment Exercise.
The Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication runs a number of seminar series, some in collaboration with other parts of the University of London.
LDC Seminars
LDC Research Days
Research workshop in language and literacy (RWLL)
Micro-Discourse Analysis data sessions (MDA)
Current issues in Psychology and Cognitive Processes (PCP)
Within Kings Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Centre (one of 21 DTCs funded by the Economic & Social Research Council), our staff and students currently contribute to three themes: Language Media & Culture (Theme 10), Education & Lifelong Learning (Theme 7), and Health Practices & Understandings (Theme 2).
For further information about training, please click on this link:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/ldc/seminars/index.aspx The Centre for Language, Discourse and Communication has several collaborations with outside organisations. To find out more about these, please click on the link below:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/groups/ldc/index.aspxPhDs in descriptive and applied linguistics can be funded with studentships awarded by the ESRC and AHRC (UK Research Councils), as well as by King's (eg Graduate School) and other bodies. A significant proportion of our students have received these. For further information on funding opportunities please visit:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/graduate/funding/database
