Where and how to do an MA in linguistics at a NZ University
If you want to carry on your study of linguistics and enroll in an MA or graduate study at a New Zealand university, there may be funding options to help you continue your study. Each university has different options and different due dates for applications (for both study, and scholarships). Some information is given below. It is a good idea to choose the university based on the area of linguistics that you wish to pursue your research project on and to contact a potential supervisor first!
University of Waikato (Hamilton, NZ)
The best pathway to graduate linguistics if studying in Hamilton at the University of Waikato is to enroll in a Postgraduate Certificate, which takes one semester to complete and consists in 2 courses: a graduate Research Methods course and a Directed Study in a linguistics sub-field of your choice (provided you have a supervisor).
Following this, you can enroll in a one-year MA by research, which can start anytime during the year, as convenient to you and agreed upon with your supervisor.
Supervision at the University of Waikato
Julie Barbour: language documentation, typology, Oceanic linguistics, Vanuatu languages
Andreea Calude: corpus linguistics, quantitative linguistics, cognitive grammar, sociolinguistics, lexical borrowing, language evolution (English, Romanian, German)
Nicola Daly: sociolinguistics, language of picture books, children’s literature, literacy
Scholarships and Funding at Waikato University
Taught Postgraduate scholarship (for the postgraduate courses part): $3,000 toward course fees – usually due around April of each year
Research MA scholarships (for the thesis year), 3 types (tier 1 $5,500, tier 2 $12,000, tier 3 $15,000) – usually due around April of each year
There are also publication scholarships available for students wishing to seek support while preparing publications arising from their thesis research, and other more specialized funds – follow this link.
Victoria University of Wellington (Wellington, NZ)
At Victoria University of Wellington, we offer a 180-point Master of Arts in Linguistics, which takes three-four trimesters (12-16 months), or the two trimester (8 month) Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Linguistics. Both of these consist of taught papers including modern research methods in linguistics, topics in current linguistic research, and the opportunity to carry out semi-independent research projects. Candidates with an Honours or Masters degree already can enrol in the one year Master of Arts in Linguistics by thesis, working on a longer research project. Research strengths in the School include language in the workplace, languages of the Pacific, New Zealand English, heritage languages, gender and language, language variation and speech processing and the syntax-phonology interface. For more information, including scholarships for postgraduate study, please see this link.