PhD in English
- Research Director
- Churnjeet Mahn
- Programme length
- Full-time: 33-48 months , Part-time: 45-96 months
- Programme start date
- October, January, April, July
At the core of our PhD programme are the regular meetings which you will have with your supervisors. For us, writing is key to understanding and developing new perspectives: you will be submitting written work from the very start. In the first year, you will – with the guidance and support of your supervisors – lay the foundations of your research by refining your research proposal, engaging with the literature and planning the structure of your work, based on an agreed timetable.
Key to the planning of your work is training in generic skills (for example, giving presentations, managing your time) as well as participation in a module in research methods. You will gradually learn to work more independently as you progress into your second and third years (or the equivalent for part-time students). We particularly welcome topics which cross disciplinary boundaries.
Entry Requirements
Suitably qualified graduates in literature, cultural and communication studies, language and linguistics, and creative writing are invited to apply for our doctoral research programme. Students are initially registered for a PhD with probationary status and, subject to satisfactory progress, are subsequently confirmed as having PhD status.
English language requirements
IELTS minimum overall: 6.5
IELTS minimum by component: Writing: 7.0
We offer intensive English language pre-sessional courses, designed to take you to the level of English ability and skill required for your studies here.
Fees and Funding
Fees
| Study mode | UK/EU fees | Overseas fees |
|---|---|---|
| Full-time | £3,900 | £11,550 |
| Part-time | £1,950 | Available soon |
Funding
An annual Faculty of Arts and Humanities Studentship is available on a competitive basis. Please see the English and Languages Subject Grouping for details of this and other opportunities.
English at Surrey
Research in English is led by a group of scholars who are active in international research, collaboration and publishing. We are particularly interested in innovative and interdisciplinary approaches and are keen to foster emerging talent. Our sub-areas include literature, intercultural communication and morphology.
Research
Staff research expertise is listed below. Details of selected publications can be found online.
- Transnational Studies, especially in relation to travel
- Writing and Science, with a particular focus on the long 19th Century
- Cultural studies, especially in redefining paradigms (detective fiction)
- The Gothic, especially in popular forms
- Sexuality and women’s writing, with expertise from the medieval period to the present
- Victorian Studies, with expertise in travel, women’s writing, middlebrow culture and poetry
- Medieval and Early Modern, with a particular strength in women’s writing
- Creative Writing, especially poetry and prose
- Morphology (especially network morphology), computational linguistics, ontologies for linguistics, typology, oceanic languages, morphosyntactic features, colour terms, the Slavonic language family, especially Russian
- Sociopragmatics, pragmatic variation with particular reference to institutional talk, politeness across cultures, cross-cultural and intercultural communication, sociolinguistics, interaction analysis, cross-cultural pragmatics
Research environment
Postgraduate research (PGR) students work in a collegial environment; staff and PGR students occupy offices situated next to each other. Students benefit from all of our resources for research. We aim to create teaching opportunities for doctoral students. Regular student and staff-led events and day schools ensure that you receive subject-specific research training. Students also participate in an annual postgraduate research conference organised by the University’s very active postgraduate research community and are encouraged to participate in international conferences, for which we provide capped financial support to promote the presentation and publication of papers. Some funding may be available for essential research trips.
Contact us
For general enquiries
0800 980 3200 or +44 (0)1483 681 681
For admissions enquiries
+44 (0)1483 681 681