Psycholinguistics Personal Statement Example

I am writing to express my great interest in applying for the Doctoral Research Fellowship and in becoming a member of the team at the Linguistic Eye-tracking Laboratory at the University of XXX. It would be an honor for me to undertake a PhD in Psycholinguistics at the University of XXX, benefiting from highly professional academic staff, resources, and the multinational environment.

Given diversified multicultural education, namely degrees in Education and Linguistics, which are coupled with hands-on teaching experience in diverse geographies, I am keen to apply for a multidisciplinary study, which would combine specific aspects of Linguistics, Psychology, Education, and Cultural Studies.

What is more, after having studied Prof. XXX’ publications, I have noticed that we share common research interests, namely exploring a link between a person’s linguistic and cultural backgrounds and his/her world perception. Personally, I have spent over fifteen years on exploring different languages and cultures during my studies in Israel, Ukraine, the US, and Switzerland. I therefore intend through my postgraduate studies at the University of XXX to test my hypothesis in the field of language and perception.

My qualifications in language learning and teaching have been acquired through studies and work experience. Throughout my previous education at X, I successfully accomplished courses in Social Psychology, Age and Pedagogical Psychology as well as the Linguistic Analysis of Art Text. Whereas while I was studying at the University of Bern, I had the opportunity to attend the following classes: The Linguistic Consequences of Globalisation, Discourse and Discourse Analysis, Language Policy, Language Socialization; Literature and Anthropology. Within the framework of MA studies, I learnt how to undertake research as well as to analyse the modes of conveying messages. As a result of this, I perfected my written and verbal communication skills.

This theoretical background later on has been followed with practical experience, namely observing second language acquisition of my students in Ukraine and Switzerland while teaching them Russian and English.
As an English teacher at X, I wrote two articles on building critical thinking and communication skills. The first article reviews different attitudes about understanding critical thinking as psychological and educational strategies, whereas the second article deals with existing approaches to identifying the main criteria and indicators of critical thinking. On May 17-19, 2010, I took part in the international conference, which was dedicated to issues of innovative methods in education. There I presented my article about main criteria and indicators of critical thinking. This article deals with existing approaches to identifying the main criteria and indicators of critical thinking; I offered my approach in relation to the formation of critical thinking among students of economics.

As a result of my international and multilingual background, I am committed to contributing to the study of language acquisition. In doing so, I believe that the findings of this complex project will contribute to world language heritage in various cultural and geographical settings. Potentially, it will shed a light on peculiarities of perception among various language learners, which could lead to a better understanding of people’s behavior.

Taking into account, a close cooperation between XXX and the UK nowadays, these findings could be highly useful for an effective cooperation.