Written by Ausrine Naujalyte – Linguistics and Italian Student

Hello! My name is Ausrine, and I am a 3^rd year BA Linguistics with a minor in Italian student. Today I am writing about why I chose to study this subject at the University of Manchester and some of the highlights of my degree.

When I was choosing my university, I was certain about studying Linguistics and only Linguistics. All the joint degree programmes didn’t interest me at all. However, on my open day at Manchester, I was introduced to Flexible Honours and the possibility to also study another subject with the ability to drop the additional subject if I wanted later on. This flexibility was one of the main factors why I chose to study here.

Another important reason why I chose to study here was the structure of the course – in my first year I learned the fundamentals of different fields of linguistics and during my second and third year I have more freedom to enhance what I already learned before. This was extremely useful as I knew what I liked but also what I would never want to study again (sorry, phonetics and phonology). And lastly, I was drawn by the variety of interesting modules that were offered at this University. I remember hearing about Forensic Linguistics on my open day and being sure I want to take that module although I could only take it on my final year (I’m taking it this semester!). The University of Manchester has an amazing Linguistics and English Language (LEL) department with incredible lecturers in a variety of theoretical and applied subfields which guarantees finding something for everyone interested in linguistics.

One of my favourite assignments I did during this degree was writing about speakers of my own first language in Societal Multilingualism module. My task was to analyse how Lithuanian students at the University of Manchester perceive and speak English and Lithuanian languages. I worked with a great group of people: we conducted surveys, interviews, and a lot of analysis and produced a report on our findings. This assignment was one of my personal favourites as having a different background was a big advantage and not an obstacle.

Another highlight was the opportunity that I received as a student of Flexible Honours. If you study a language as a minor in this program, you usually travel to the country in which this language is spoken and live there for 8 weeks. As my minor is in Italian, I went to Florence and attended a language course for the duration of my stay. This was a memorable experience and something that only happened because I chose to study here.

All in all, my experience studying in Manchester has been positive and I think it’s a great university to study linguistics (or/and Italian!) at. I enjoy my studies a lot, both Italian and Linguistics departments are very welcoming, and I would choose it again if I was back in my last year of school. I would suggest all Single Honours students to check whether they can have a minor in a different subject, as it is a great option.

Related