Level of education: Master programme

Type of instruction: Full-time

Duration: 2 years

Language of instruction: Russian

Main academic courses

• Introduction to Linguistic Evaluation and Assessment

• History of State and Law
• Legal Rhetoric
• The Official Language and Language Policy of the State
• Linguistic Expert Evaluation of Legally Valid Text
• History of the Language of Russian Law

• Interpretation of Law

Our advantages

• This interdisciplinary programme provides uniquely designed training courses. They help develop both theoretical and practical competencies in the field of linguistic expert evaluation of human speech activity products.
• On-site internships are conducted in organisations that require specialists with expert skills in legal language.
• Students have an opportunity to participate in scientific events (conferences, seminars, etc.) that are directly related to the programme syllabus as speakers or volunteers. These include: the scientific conference ‘Linguistic Evaluation: Theory and Practice’ at the Institute of Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; the round table discussion ‘Interrogation in Jurisprudence and Legal Linguistics’ at the Northwestern Branch of the Russian State University of Justice; and the scientific seminar ‘Law, Book and Literature’ at the Faculty of Law of St Petersburg State University of Economics.
• Topics for graduation projects are proposed by employers who include: the International Bar Association of St Petersburg; the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) in the Northestern Federal District; and the North-Western Forensic Science Centre of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.
• The research practice ‘Linguistic Consulting’ is carried out at the Research Institute of State Language of St Petersburg University and other research institutions of St Petersburg such as: the Institute of Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; and the Legal Clinic laboratory of St Petersburg State University of Economics.
• Students have an opportunity to take part in the annual international conference of students of Philology and in exchange programmes with foreign universities.

International relations

• The University of Barcelona
• The University of Trier
• The University of Helsinki

Main areas of research

• Language of legal texts: history and current state
• Language means of manipulation and influence
• Document language, the history of language (genres) of business communication
• Linguistic evaluation studies as a separate area of modern linguistics
• Trademarks and naming as objects of linguistic expert evaluation
• Rhetorical formulae of modern legal discourse
• Invective function of Russian language: applied aspects
• History of the legal term: judicial and linguistic aspects
• Language signs of extremist texts
• Comparative study of legal (written and oral) texts of various linguistic cultures

Career

The graduates can conduct various kinds of linguistic expert evaluation; develop recommendations on the linguistic support of legal activity; carry out research.

Interested in this programme — set up your personal account to proceed with your application.