Apart from the University of Zurich, the University of Fribourg is the only university which offers a doctoral programme in Rhaeto-Romance Language and Literature, in addition to the bachelor and master programme in Rhaeto-Romance. Because of the anchoring of Rhaeto-Romance in the Department of Multilingualism and Foreign Language Education, at Fribourg the sociolinguistic, language contact, language teaching and language learning aspects are particularly self-evident. Doctoral students can, however, choose sub-disciplines such as synchronic and diachronic description of Rhaeto-Romance, the history of the Rhaeto-Romance language and Rhaeto-Romance literature.

Theses in Rhaeto-Romance Language and Literature can be paired with an existing doctoral programme or a specific credit-based programme focused on a research project.

• Doctoral students working on theses in the fields of sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics or language teaching and learning research can complete the doctoral programme Multilingualism: acquisition, education and society (Universities of Fribourg, Bern and Lausanne) or the doctoral programme Language and Cognition (Universities of Fribourg, Geneva and Neuchâtel).
• Theses dedicated to the synchronic and diachronic description of Rhaeto-Romance and history of the Rhaeto-Romance language are accompanied through the Sciences du langage doctoral programme of the Conférence Universitaire de Suisse Occidentale (CUSO).
• Doctoral students in Rhaeto-Romance literature can access the doctoral programme Allgemeine und vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft [General and comparative literature] of the Schweizerischen Universitätskonferenz (SUK).

When creating a specific project-related programme, bear in mind that the following aspects are taken into consideration:

• A) general academic training
• B) thematic specialisation
• C) soft skills/basic competences

For parts A and B, the following study credits may be taken into account: visiting doctoral conferences, doctoral seminars and scientific workshops, taking part in a session with a presentation and writing a scientific article. For the thesis project, essential basic skills (part C) can be acquired by attending courses at the University of Fribourg and/or other universities.

Professors who are eligible to supervise theses

• Prof. Matthias Grünert

Areas of specialisation:
– Synchronic and diachronic description of Rhaeto-Romance
– Variation linguistics
– Contact linguistics
– Sociolinguistics of the trilingual canton of Graubünden

Theses can be supervised in German, French or Rhaeto-Romance.

• Prof. Raphael Berthele

Areas of specialisation:
– Contact linguistics
– Variation linguistics
– Psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics

Theses can be supervised in German, English or French.

• Prof. Alexandre Duchêne

Areas of specialisation:
– Critical sociolinguistics
– Language anthropology
– Language policy

Theses can be supervised in German, English or French.