Languages at Corpus Christi | Highcliffe School

Languages at Corpus Christi

After achieving a bronze award in the UK Linguistics Olympiad last term, Kathryn Moses was one of only 20 state school students invited to attend a linguistics course at Corpus Christi College. Read her report below:


  

During the last week of the summer I went to Cambridge University to do a 4-day linguistics course. 20 students across England were invited to attend this course based on our results in the first round of this year's UK Linguistics Olympiad and the course was designed to prepare us for next year's competition- which carries the hope of possibly making the UK team and competing in the International Olympiad of Linguistics, which has previously been held in Manchester, Stockholm and even Beijing!

 

As soon as I arrived at Corpus Christi College (known locally as just "Corpus"!) we had a tour of the incredible Parker library and all but failed at trying to read the old manuscripts.. even the "English" ones! Then we settled down to some introductory lectures and then some ice-breaking activities- which were great fun!

 

The next two days were absolutely packed- 5+ hours of linguistics spread out across each day with the afternoons and late evenings reserved for fun- but really, it was all fun! The lessons were brilliant, we tackled top-level linguistics problems and learned so many fantastically fascinating things. I was surprised at quite how much maths had to do with it- probably my favourite problem was about something called Transcendental Algebra (Look it up!).

 

Other activities we did in our lessons included creating our own languages and scripts from scratch (which gets VERY addictive!), learning how to communicate very specific directions using only pictures instead of words (which was more difficult than it sounds as we weren't allowed to use any symbols or concepts that may not be recognisable in far-away places, such as the compass points) and even trying to translate for an alien!

 

During the afternoons we went exploring through Cambridge and even went punting! I was terrible at it at first but I did eventually manage to get the punt moving in the right direction and it was very funny indeed! The evenings consisted of hanging out with new friends and even a movie night in one of the uni's "cinema rooms" (I'm sure you can officially call lecture rooms that if it's after 8pm and if you add popcorn to the equation).

 

When the last day came none of us wanted to leave and it was a rather emotional goodbye. I learned so much from my time at Cambridge and I don't think any of us will forget the time we had or the friends we made!

 

For anyone who's not sure about entering the UKLO next year.. go for it! You might really surprise yourself like I did and end up in Cambridge next summer!

 

- Kathryn Moses

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


    Owned by: JWH | Last Published: 23/09/2015 08:38:15 | Next Update: N/A


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