A Curriculum Study Of Master Programs In Applied Linguistics At Six European Universities

On the 24th of October 2015, the State Council of the People's Republic of China publicized an official document on the development of world-class universities and academic disciplines in China. In this document, the improvement of research conditions, cultivation of talents, and advancement of scientific research are listed for further reform. This paper aims to examine the curricula of master programs in applied linguistics at world-class universities through comparative analysis of the curricula on the micro level. There have been few domestic or international reports on this kind of study. Hence, the author intends to conduct this research as reference for Chinese educational reform, while improving her own knowledge in the field.Based on the QS World University Rankings 2014 by Subject in Linguistics, this paper selected six universities from the top 40 in Europe to examine their master program curricula in applied linguistics. They are:the University of Edinburgh (UK), the University of Cambridge (UK), the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), the University of Vienna (Austria), the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), and the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). These universities are renowned for their long history and influential academic achievements in applied linguistics. The United Kingdom, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain are all EU member states. English is the main foreign language in four of them.This paper contains five chapters. In the first chapter, the research background, research purposes, research significance, and research questions are introduced. The second chapter is a literature review of studies on master programs in applied linguistics at home and abroad. The third chapter is on the methodology, which introduces the subjects of study, research methods, and research procedures. The fourth chapter reports research findings. The six curricula are compared and analyzed; their characteristics are summarized and presented in tables. The last chapter is a conclusion of this study. In light of the six curricula examined above, the author presents four suggestions for related curriculum improvement in China. She also points out the limitations of this research and the needs for future study.