Radboud University

MA in Linguistics and Communication Sciences (research)

Discover which (pre-)Master’s suits you at the Master’s Open Day. Attend information sessions, ask questions of lecturers and students, and find out everything you need to know about admissions, programmes and career opportunities.

Study programme Linguistics and Communication Sciences year 1

Year 1 consists of a few compulsory courses with a course load of 27 EC. In addition, you’ll follow elective courses with a course load of 33 EC. A schematic overview of the programme can be found here.

Provisional overview for prospective students

This overview provides an indication of the study programme of the academic year 2026-2027 and is aimed at prospective students. It is subject to change and no rights may be derived from it.

Total 60 EC Compulsory courses Foundations of Language and Communication Statistics and Experimental Methods Mixed Models in Practice Research Orientation & Lab Rotation I Systematic Review Societal Impact I Elective courses Specialisation courses Skills & Method courses

Elective courses are courses from a predetermined list of courses within your degree programme, courses from another (research) Master's programme, or (to a maximum of 12 EC) courses offered by a research school such as LOT or SIKS.

Specialisation courses (24 EC in total)

For this part of the programme, you get to decide on your own selection of courses. The most important criterion is that the courses form a coherent set, linked to a focus area in which you would like to be a specialist. In your first year, you choose 24 EC worth of specialisation courses. In the list below, you will find example courses for students who would like to specialise in Language Processing and Acquisition, Language and Speech Technology, or Communication and Language Behaviour.:

• (Automatic) Speech Recognition
• Aspects of Intercultural Incompetence
• Aspects of Language Assessment
• Child Bilingualism
• Computational Psycholinguistics
• Conversational AI
• Diversity in Communication
• First Language Acquisition
• Interactional Sociolingistics: Global Perspectives
• Intro to Language and Speech Technology
• Multimodal Communication and Persuasion
• Neurobiology of Language
• Non-nativeness in Communication
• Perspectives on Language Variation
• Research Topics in Second Language Acquisition
• Socially Contextualised Languages
• Text and Multimedia Mining
• Using and Acquiring Multiple Languages
• Words in Speaking and Listening

Note: Some courses are offered in alternate years. During the second year, you will also have some room for specialisation courses.

Self-constructed focus areas

Students are also free to come up with their own focus area, choosing research Master’s courses offered by Radboud University that relate to it. Such an area could be, for example, Multilingualism, for which you then can take courses that offer a different perspective on this topic, combining courses from different focus areas.

Skills and methods electives (9 EC in total)

The research programme offers training in various skills like statistics, conducting several types of psycholinguistic experiments and programming. During your first year, you choose skills and methods course, totaling 9 ECs. Examples of method courses are:

• Apprenticeship Research Methods
• EEG
• Eye Tracking
• Introduction in R Statistics
• Python 1
• Python 2
• Text and Multimedia Research Project
• Transformer-Based Models

Note: Some courses are offered in alternate years. During the second year, you will also have room for a specialisation course.

Study programme Linguistics and Communication Sciences year 2

Study year 2

Year 2 consists of a few compulsory courses with a course load of 18 EC. In addition, you’ll follow elective courses with a course load of 12 EC. The Master's will be completed with a Master’s Thesis consisting of 30 EC. A schematic overview of the programme can be found here.

Provisional overview for prospective students

This overview provides an indication of the study programme of the academic year 2027-2028 and is aimed at prospective students. It is subject to change and no rights may be derived from it.

Total EC 60 EC

• Compulsory courses
• Lab Rotation II
• Grant Proposal Writing
• Societal Impact II
• Elective courses
• Specialisation course
• Skills & Method elective

Specialisation courses

During your second year, you'll choose one specialisation course, totaling 6 ECs. Possible courses include:

• (Automatic) Speech Recognition
• Aspects of Intercultural Incompetence
• Aspects of Language Assessment
• Child Bilingualism
• Computational Psycholinguistics
• Conversational AI
• Diversity in Communication
• First Language Acquisition
• Interactional Sociolingistics: Global Perspectives
• Intro to Language and Speech Technology
• Multimodal Communication and Persuasion
• Neurobiology of Language
• Non-nativeness in Communication
• Perspectives on Language Variation
• Research Topics in Second Language Acquisition
• Socially Contextualised Languages
• Text and Multimedia Mining
• Using and Acquiring Multiple Languages
• Words in Speaking and Listening

Note: Some courses are offered in alternate years. In your first year, you will also choose courses from this same list of specialisation courses.

Skills & Method Courses

During your second year, you choose one skills/methods course, totaling 3 ECs. Examples of possible courses include:

• Apprenticeship Research Methods
• EEG
• Eye Tracking
• Introduction in R Statistics
• Python 1
• Python 2
• Text and Multimedia Research Project
• Transformer-Based Models

Note: Some courses are offered in alternate years. In your first year, you will also choose courses from this list of skills & method courses.

Thesis & research Master's Thesis 30 EC

After your studies

The primary goal of the programme is research training, which makes it ideal for those wishing to embark on a research career, for example by embarking on a PhD project. But it also caters for the growing demand from the public and private sectors for people with academic insight and research skills. Many graduates will join research groups in the public and private sector.

This research Master’s aims to train students to become skilled empirical linguists or communications experts with a deep understanding of language and communication. By the end of the programme you’ll:

• Have acquired empirical research skills at an advanced level, including a thorough understanding of approaches and techniques that support corpus-based, experimental, and computational research;
• Be able to describe and apply general knowledge on the historical roots and modern developments within the fields of Linguistics and Communication Studies, and are capable of relating these fields to each other;
• Have become a specialist in your chosen area of interest within the fields of linguistics and communication studies: the start of your professional profile;
• Be able to engage in the social debates regarding linguistics and communication issues.
• Have acquired English academic writing skills and have practiced writing a publishable scholarly article and a proposal for a PhD project;
• Have started to build up a professional (inter)national network.