Research

Modern Languages and Linguistics has a thriving research community and is home to several internationally renowned research centres: CGE (Centre for Global Englishes), TNS (Centre for Transnational Studies), CLLEAR (Centre for Linguistics, Language Education and Acquisition Research) and Mexsus the interdisciplinary Centre for Mexico-Southampton Collaboration.

Our vision is rooted in critical interdisciplinarity encompassing humanities and social sciences. We pride ourselves on our ability to innovate and work creatively. Our dynamic and multifaceted research culture is built upon strong connections with our expanding postgraduate research community and innovative research groups in ethnography, second language acquisition, critical realism and Foreign Language Testing.

Our research covers French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American studies, Portuguese and linguistics with particular focus on linguistics, literature, culture, society, politics, history, anthropology and transnational studies.

Two thirds of the research carried out by Modern Languages and Linguistics staff at the University of Southampton is of world-leading or internationally excellent quality. We were pleased that our research case studies were judged to demonstrate impacts of outstanding, very considerable and/or considerable reach and significance in the domains of culture, language policy, and educational practice. Our applied linguistics research is highly interdisciplinary and practice-based. The department research community is multilingual and vibrant.

Research excellence

The latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) ranked us in the top 5 of all modern languages and linguistics programmes in the UK for our research, with 84% of our research rated world leading or internationally excellent (grade 4* or 3*).