Page 20 - ELG2001 Jan Issue 468

El•Gazette 468.qxp_El•Gazette 468 08/01/2020 15:58 Page 20

MASTERS LISTINGS .

Reading the academic rankings… Global QS Top 10 Linguistics
departments*
1) MIT
Melanie Butler explains the QS ranking system and 2) University of Massachusetts at Amherst
how we arrived at our listing criteria 3) University of Maryland at College Park
4) University of Edinburgh*
5) Harvard University
t the EL Gazette, we do not rank Linguistics and Education. It is pointless to 6) Cambridge, University* (Theoretical
Masters’ degrees for ELT compare, say, the university ranked 22nd for and Applied Linguistics)
professionals, but we do report the Linguistics with the one which comes 22nd in 7) University of California at Berkley
Afindings of other organisations. In Education. Although, as it happens, both have 8) Stanford University
this edition of our MA listings we are looking degrees in Applied Linguistics, the qualitative 9) Oxford University
at the Top University Rankings by Subject, and quantitative data used to calculate their 10) University of California, Los Angeles
2019, produced by QS (https://www.top rank come from different sources. *Based on Top 50 departments in QS Top
universities.com). In this feature, we have created three University by subject ranking for Linguistics.
QS subject rankings are given by different types of rankings. First, a listing of
department, so they provide more the QS Top 10 for Linguistics. Then, we have Global Top 10 Masters in Applied
information than rankings of entire checked all the departments in the QS Top Linguistics*
universities though, of course, you can always 50 for ELT-related Masters degrees, and listed (QS Top University global ranking in brackets)
have a strong ELT-related Masters in a low- the ten best in both Linguistics and 1) Edinburgh (4)
ranking department, and vice versa. Education. For English language, we have 2) Cambridge (6)
The QS methodology is based on the only listed the UK departments for which we 3) Hong Kong University (11)
departments’ reputation among both had sufficient national data on where they 4) Lancaster (12)
specialist academics and employers, plus a submit their research. 5) Australian National University (13)
mark based on research output, which makes For both Linguistics and Education, we 6) Melbourne, University of (22)
7) National University of Singapore (25)
up to 25 per cent of final score. They do not, have also separately ranked all the (English Language and Linguistics)
unfortunately, include student feedback, departments appearing in the QS Top 200. 8) University of Illinois at Urbana
although for UK universities we have Please note that QS only gives individual Champaign (27) (Applied Linguistics
included the national measurement for scores to the top 50, and the remainder are and Tesol)
student feedback, the TEF score, in our full listed in tiers: 51-100 (Top 100), 100-150 9) Macquarrie University (36) (Applied
Masters listings on pages 23-29. (Top 150) and 150-200 (Top 200). linguistics and Tesol)
Rankings by department cause a particular Please note that while we checked all the 10) Raboud University (46) (Language and
problem in a multidisciplinary subject like departments we could, it is certainly possible Communications)
English Language Teaching, which covers we have missed some, especially those *Ranking is for Applied Linguistics
three different disciplines and is found in three outside the UK, since most of our usual data programmes, except where noted.
different departments: English Language, sources are national.

Leading in Linguistics and Language

Melanie Butler takes a look at the top schools for MATTBUCK/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Master’s degrees in Linguistics and Language

ost ELT-related Masters come ELT-related Masters in top-ranked*
under Applied Linguistics, UK Linguistics Departments
MEducation or English Language. (QS Top University global ranking in brackets)
An Applied Linguistics MA from a top- 1) University of Edinburgh (4)
ranking Linguistics department would be 2) University of Cambridge, University of
great, but relatively few top faculties offer (6)
ELT-related Masters. In the QS Global 3) University of Lancaster, University of
rankings, only two have a relevant course: (12)
Applied Linguistics at Edinburgh and 4) University of Newcastle (Top 100)
Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at 5) University of Essex, University of Leeds,
Cambridge. And, of the 22 US Linguistics University of Reading. (Top 150)
departments in the QS Top 50, we found *Based on Top 200 departments QS Top
only one ELT-related Masters course. University by subject.
There are just three Australian and one
Dutch ELT-related Masters in the QS Top ELT-related Masters in top-ranked*
50. Hong Kong, however, has four faculties UK English Language departments
of Linguistics in the Top 50, with one MA (QS Top University global ranking in brackets)
in Applied Linguistics. 1) Birmingham (34)
The UK has 8 Linguistics departments in 2) Nottingham (48)
the Top 200 with relevant courses. 3) Cardiff (51-100)
However, five UK universities known for 4) Liverpool (101-150)
their work on linguistics are based in Top- 5) Swansea (150-200)
200 English Language faculties. We have *Based on Top 200 departments QS Top
listed them separately here under English University by subject.
Language. The Institute of Education at UCL
20 January 2020