Cognitive Science and Language

Cognitive Science and Language is an inter-university, interdisciplinary postgraduate programme combining master's degree and doctoral levels that responds to the need to overcome the academic barriers between the different areas of cognitive science. The programme places a particular focus on speech perception and language acquisition, the syntactic and semantic processing involved in speech, the relationship between semantics and cognition, the logical structure of language and the epistemic and conceptual foundations of language study, computational analysis of language, and the relationship between the different areas of cognitive science.

This master's degree offers interdisciplinary education in three key areas of cognitive science: psychology, linguistics and philosophy. The course consists of a common module of basic subjects, a specialization module covering specific topics from each of the three key areas, and a module comprising optional subjects. 
The goal of this degree is to give students the skills they will need to carry out a research project, which may be developed further under the doctoral programme and lead to the writing and defence of a doctoral thesis. The three areas of specialization in both the master's degree and the doctoral programme are overseen by the best lecturers and researchers at each of the participating universities, and renowned international specialists are continually invited to participate as guest lecturers.
This places the scientific education of the postgraduate programme in Cognitive Science and Language on a comparable level of quality to the leading postgraduate programmes in Europe, particularly in the interdisciplinary areas of cognitive science.

The CCiL Master has three different branches: Psychology (Models cognitius de Processament del Llenguatge), Linguistics (Teoria Gramatical i Processament Lingüístic) and Philosophy (Lògica i Filosofía).

The student has to apply to one of these branches.

To fulfill the requirements of the master, each student must take 60 credits, divided as following:

• 15 credits (3 courses) of common courses.
• 15 credits (3 courses) of mandatory courses of the selected branch.
• 15 credits (3 courses) of optional courses.
• 15 credits of a final research paper.

The admission committee may require the student to take between 6 and 30 additional credits from background courses, depending on the adequacy of the previous studies of the applicant to the branch

Common mandatory courses

• Foundations and Structure of Language
• Mental Architecture and Basic Processes
• Topics in Philosophy, Language and Cognition 

Mandatory Philosophy courses 

• Advance Issues in Cognitive Sciences and Philosophy
• Philosophy of Cognitive Sciences 
• The Nature of Language

Optional Philosophy courses

• Foundations of Philosophy of Science
• Philosophical Logic
• Topics in Epistemology
• Topics in Ontology
• Topics in Philosophy of Mind
• Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics

Mandatory Linguistics courses

• Advanced Issues in Cognitive Science and Linguistics
• Contrastive Linguistics
• Interdisciplinary Applications of Linguistic Concepts

Optional Linguistics courses

• Computational Morphosyntax
• Empirical Linguistics 
• Grammar and its Interfaces
• Linguistic Variation
• Topics on Lexical Semantics
• Topics on Natural Language Processing 

Mandatory courses of Psychology

• Advanced Issues in Cognitive Science and Psychology
• Developing Speech, Language and Cognition
• Topics in Psychology, Language and Cognition

Optional Psychology courses

• Cognitive Models of Syntactic Processing 
• Language Processing in Bilinguals
• Perception, Action and Consciousness
• Statistical Methods for Research
• Topics in Perception
• Topics in Speech Processing 

Requirements

• An official Spanish degree.
• A degree issued by a higher education institution within the European Higher Education Area framework that authorizes the holder to access university master's degree courses in the country of issue.
• A qualification from outside the framework of the European Higher Education Area. In this case, the qualification should be recognized as equivalent to an official Spanish degree. If it is not recognized, the University of Barcelona shall verify that it corresponds to a level of education that is equivalent to official Spanish degrees and that it authorizes the holder to access university master's degree courses in the country of issue. Admission shall not, in any case, imply that prior qualifications have been recognized as equivalent to a Spanish master's degree and does not confer recognition for any purposes other than that of admission to the master's degree course.
• Applicants should hold a bachelor's degree or equivalent undergraduate degree in psychology, philosophy, linguistics, translation and interpreting, or philology. Holders of a bachelor's degree or equivalent undergraduate degree in a related discipline (humanities, biology, medicine, computer science, mathematics, etc.) may be required to complete up to 30 credits of bridging subjects, at the discretion of the Admissions Committee.
• Academic record for previous studies
• Statement of interest 
• Curriculum vitae
• Students who are interested in taking the specialization in international economic law must have at least a B2 level of English, as this specialization is taught entirely in English.

Want to improve your English level for admission?

Prepare for the program requirements with English Online by the British Council.

• ✔️ Flexible study schedule
• ✔️ Experienced teachers
• ✔️ Certificate upon completion

📘 Recommended for students with an IELTS level of 6.0 or below.

Enroll in the course

Scholarships

• General grant
• Mobility grant – Erasmus
• UB collaboration grant
• Departmental collaboration grant (MECD)
• MAEC-AECID grants
• Financial aid for participation in international mobility programs
• UB grants for exchanges with foreign universities
• UB grants for Els Juliols summer courses
• Drac Program grants
• Ajuts de matrícula per als estudiants amb circumstàncies personals sobrevingudes