Josh

What was your undergraduate degree? How did it affect your decision to do a masters in Linguistics?

In undergrad I studied German Linguistics and History in Berlin. I really enjoyed the linguistics part of my degree and developed a special interest for semantics. So, getting a masters in linguistics was kind of the natural continuation of my studies.

How did you decide you wanted to do a Linguistics degree?

To be honest, I didn’t really know what linguistics was before I started uni. I was looking for a minor as I wanted to study history, so my brother got me Introducing Linguistics: A Graphic Guide because he thought I could be interested in linguistics. When I applied to the university in Berlin, I intuitively changed my mind and made linguistics my major and history my minor – a decision I’m very glad about in retrospect.

What made you choose Queen Mary?

I was discussing possible universities for my MA with one of my professors from undergrad and she suggested Queen Mary because of my interest in formal linguistics. Queen Mary offering the formal track was great, but ultimately what set Queen Mary apart for me was that I knew a lot of the lecturers’ names already from papers I had read in undergrad.

What’s your favourite module so far?

My favourite module so far was the Directed Study I did in my first semester. It was a great chance to do some more in-depth semantics reading. A couple of PhD students and some faculty joined, and we had great discussions about experiential and propositional attitude reports.

Do you know what you would like to do after your studies?

I have recently been accepted for funding, so I will be starting my PhD at Queen Mary once I finish the MA. I’ll be supervised by Hazel and Luisa and will be looking at the semantics of mental state adverbs like intentionally and how they are employed in legal contexts.

Are there any extracurricular activities or events that you've participated in which have complemented your academic journey?

I participated in qLegal’s Welcome to Law project which brings together students from law, psychology, and linguistics. In the project we worked with a big international law firm to make their Standard Terms of Engagement more accessible to their clients. Using expertise from psychology, linguistics, and law, we used design-thinking to come up with innovative solutions. It was great to see how linguistic knowledge can be used in the real world. And most of all it was a great chance to meet new friends!