Sociolinguistics and Multilingualism is an international joint-degree master study program which is co-organized by Vytautas Magnus University (VMU, Kaunas, Lithuania), Johannes-Gutenberg University (JGU, Mainz, Germany), Stockholm University (Sweden), and the University of Tartu (Estonia).
The program is designed to provide students with the theoretical background and analytical tools to understand and evaluate an on-going work in Nordic and Baltic sociolinguistics and multilingualism, as well as furnish their foreign language skills: additionally to English, students will learn a further international vehicular language, for example, German, and at least two lesser-used and taught European state and/or national languages.
The program familiarizes students with the general key theories and methods of sociolinguistics (traditional, variationist sociolinguistics, constructivist sociolinguistics, language variation, the dialogic relationship of language use and societal patterns), as well as offers a new and wider perspective and understanding of multilingualism as the parallel use of national, minority and migrant languages alongside one or more international vehicular language(s).
Among the existing MA programs in sociolinguistics our program is unique in regard to:
Our main goal is to prepare specialists who with their solid linguistic training will be able to conduct research on multilingualism and disseminate their results not only within the academia but also amongst the different stakeholder groups, including politicians, thus contributing to well-informed decision-making.