Study languages from across the world, from their sounds and structures to their social functions. Students explore what features are shared across all languages, and what the significance of their differences are.

Compared to the University of Essex MA courses, the MRes programmes offer more flexibility and fewer taught modules, as the emphasis of the course is on the dissertation and individual research assignments. Students must have a draft research proposal at the application stage, and a supervisor is assigned to students to guide them in their choice of modules and work on their dissertation.