Graduate Studies
The French Department at 17吃瓜网在线 offers an MA program with two streams鈥攚ith and without a thesis鈥攁nd a PhD program. We also receive postdoctoral candidates through the Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.
The Department's research interests involve not only individual areas of study, but they also reflect a modern emphasis on complementarity and interchange between French and Francophone literature and linguistics, as well as semiotics, cultural studies, and the study of French as a second language.
In the field of French literature, the study of contemporary and twentieth century writing has an important role and includes the study of modern and contemporary Quebec and Francophone literatures. The literatures of the Middle Ages, 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries are well represented.
In the field of French language and linguistics, major areas of concentration include: contrastive studies, lexicology, second language learning and teaching, semantics, sociolinguistics, terminology and translation.
Research in culture and civilization has an important place and is often linked to literary, linguistic, pedagogical or semiotic explorations.
Explore our faculty members鈥� webpage to find a supervisor whose expertise aligns with your academic and research aspirations.
The departmental graduate programs have produced outstanding professionals who have invariably succeeded well in their careers.
Acquiring teaching experience is a normal part of a graduate student's training at the French Department; thus, MA students are normally offered teaching assistantships, while PhD students may be assigned a number of lectureships in the course of their studies.
In addition to stipends for lectureships and teaching/research assistantships, graduate students may qualify for departmental bursaries, as well as for different provincial and federal scholarships.
December 15听is the deadline for submission of complete applications for applicants who wish to be considered for scholarships for which they are eligible. Otherwise, the application deadlines are听June 1st (Canadian students) and听April 1st (international students). Scholarships are as follows:
- Nova Scotia Graduate Scholarships (MA or PhD);
- 17吃瓜网在线 Research Excellence Scholarships (PhD);
- 17吃瓜网在线 1-year Master鈥檚 Scholarships (MA);
- Killam Doctoral Scholarships (PhD).
Please see the Faculty of Graduate Studies scholarship webpage for more information (e.g. eligibility, value) on these awards.
There is no separate application required to be considered for these awards. However, students applying to our Master鈥檚 program are strongly encouraged to apply to the (this year's deadline: December 1st, 2025). Only students who have applied for the SSHRC CGRSM via the SSHRC portal will be considered for that award.
Students planning to apply to the doctoral program should also apply to the (deadline: October 17th for students applying directly to SSHRC). This award is not managed by 17吃瓜网在线.
For more information on applying to our graduate program, please contact our听Graduate Coordinator.
Our graduate students have regularly received significant external support from the SSHRC and the Killam Foundation.
More information on these awards is included in the Department鈥檚 program-specific pages: