We are delighted to announce that we have been able to secure funding to offer ten £150 bursaries to undergraduate (Bachelor level) students to attend the summer schools in corpus linguistics at Lancaster. This is a great opportunity for undergraduate students passionate about language studies to learn about different ways of analysing large amounts of linguistic data. Corpus linguistics is a scientific approach to language analyses which focuses on how language is used in society and corpus methods can be applied to many domains of language use (e.g. healthcare communication, language used in politics, news, social media or literary works, or language used by language learners and L2 users). Lancaster Summer Schools in Corpus Linguistics offer an exciting opportunity to learn more about language along with people from many different universities and countries.

Who is eligible to apply? If you are currently studying in an undergraduate/Bachelor programme in the UK or abroad, you are eligible to apply for the bursary. Please note that the summer schools will take place in person, so you will have to be able to come to Lancaster in order to take part and to receive your bursary.

Do I have to have experience with linguistics or language studies? No, participants in this summer school are not expected to have any background in (corpus) linguistics, but basic computational skills are assumed.

How do the bursaries work? The bursaries will be made available either as a £150 Amazon voucher (that can be used with Amazon.co.uk) or as reimbursements of expenses related to attending the summer schools. In the case of reimbursements, you would be required to fill in a form in which you list the expenses (up to £150) and provide a copy of the receipts. Once processed, the money will be sent to your bank account. If offered a place, you can decide which form of bursary you would like to receive. If you are offered a place with a bursary, you can claim your bursary on the first day of the summer schools.

How can I apply for the bursary? To apply for a place in the summer schools supported by a bursary, please fill in this application form. You can choose from two summer schools to attend: i) the summer school in Corpus Linguistics for the analysis of discourse, language and society and ii) the summer school in Corpus Linguistics for language learning, teaching and testing. Each of the schools involves using corpora (large electronic datasets of language samples) and corpus methods to analyse language; however, each of the summer schools applies corpus techniques to a different area of language use. Please check the description of each of the summer schools to decide which may be more relevant to you.

When will I find out if I received the bursary? We will evaluate the applications on a rolling basis, with a review of applications taking place every two or three weeks. We will let you know immediately after a decision has been made about your application.

Are there any other fees? No. The summer schools are free to attend. Participants are responsible for organizing their own travel and accommodation (if you need advice on this, please get in touch).

If you have any further questions, you can contact Rachael McCarthy (r.mccarthy2@lancaster.ac.uk) or Dr Dana Gablasova (d.gablasova@lancaster.ac.uk).