2024/2025 spring semester exam retakes will be held from the 2nd until the 16th of September.
Retake dates for BA students >
Retake dates for MA students >
The dates are constantly updated as soon as the professors announce them.
If you cannot find the date for the needed subject, please contact the professor and follow the information on Faculty's website.
Please find the List of Open Electives for the 2025/2026 Autumn semester here. These subjects can be chosen by MA students with the individual study plan instead of the electives suggested in your study programme.
4rd year BA students who wish to create an individual study plan can choose subjects from the list of subjects offered by the Faculty of Philology in the Individual Studies list.
Vilnius university / Ugnius Bagdonavičius photo
As autumn draws near, Vilnius University (VU) cordially invites international students to join the Orientation Events of the new academic year. VU has prepared a diverse programme, from a solemn ceremony to mark the start of the new academic year to educational tours and insightful training, that will facilitate students’ involvement in the University’s community.
International students will start getting to know VU on the Orientation Day that will take place on 27 August at 9:00 at the ‘Compensa’ Concert Hall (Kernavės g. 84, Vilnius). During the event, students will meet representatives of VU Students’ Representation, ESN Vilnius University, VU Culture Centre, VU Health and Sport Center, and other guests. International students will get useful information about life in Lithuania, opportunities at the University, and will get to know other students. More information on the event is available here.
On 29 August at 10:00, international students are invited to a training on the most relevant VU e-services to make the beginning of their studies easier. During the training, the information on logging in to all required information systems of VU will be provided, and any questions will be answered. The training will be held in the form of a remote lecture.
A remote lecture for Master’s students on the relevant services will be held at 11:30. The link is available here.
The RENOVATIO STUDORIUM ceremony on 1 September at 9:30 will traditionally start with VU’s flag-hoisting in the Library Courtyard (Universiteto g. 3), and, after visiting their faculties, VU staff, students, and alumni will gather at 14:45 for an impressive procession from the Seimas Palace to VU’s Grand Courtyard where the participants will be greeted by heads of VU and guests, freshers will make their oath, and the launch of the new academic year will be officially announced.
The annual procession organised since 1994 is the only event of such scale drawing together VU students, staff, and alumni, and available for viewing to Vilnius residents and guests. During the procession, students wear representational items of their faculties, chant slogans, and showcase their unique style of clothes.
On 2–4 September, freshers will be able to attend the events for getting to know their fellow students, programme mentors, faculty’s (unit’s) administration, and opportunities and services provided by VU.
On 5 September, the Orientation Week will end with the ‘Ad astra’ event organised by VU Students’ Representation. This year, new students will be able to participate in discussions on relevant topics, learn about student initiatives, and participate in a concert closing the events.
VU freshers will also have an opportunity to learn about the history of VU buildings: two dedicated tours will be held on 8–10 September. Students will get to know the Saulėtekis campus complex on the ‘Saulėtekis Campus of Vilnius University – For Science and the World’ tour, while the tour of the Central Architectural Ensemble of VU will let them discover the impressive historical part of the University.
More information on the Orientation Events’ programme is available on the special website. The link to the event on the social network Facebook is available here.
Vilnius university / Justinas Auškelis photo
Before the next edition of the Arqus Café and on the occasion of the European Day of Languages, the Plurilingual Hub organises a special event to learn new languages: the Arqus Language Dives.
On 26 September, we will offer a dive into several languages so you can get familiar with a new language (A1). You will learn how to introduce yourself in this language and be able to have a mini conversation by the end of the session.
The Arqus Language Dives will be an opportunity for participants to take part in an Arqus Café for a language that they have no prior knowledge of. Sessions will last 45 minutes. As many languages as possible will be offered in different time slots so participants can choose what they are more interested in.
We are looking for volunteers who would like to offer a language that they speak as their first language. Please register by 30 July at the latest.
Prof Dr Patricia Ronan / Vilnius university / Ugnius Bagdonavičius photo
Patricia Ronan (Chair of the ICAME Board) interviewed by Jolanta Šinkūnienė (Institute of English, Romance and Classical Studies).
Jolanta Šinkūnienė. Last week the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University hosted the 46th Annual International ICAME (International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English) conference. From June 17 to 21, the Old Campus of Vilnius University was filled with inspiring discussions about synchronic and diachronic studies of English, new software for linguistic research, statistical methods and many other aspects of corpus linguistics. We are probably correct to assume that ICAME is the first and the oldest association of corpus linguists, as it has continued to thrive for 46 years. In your opinion, which factors could have contributed to such success?
Patricia Ronan. Yes, to the best of my knowledge that is indeed the case. ICAME - the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English - is a conference series which is steered by a Board which decides on the locations of the annual conferences and awards bursaries and prizes.
I think there are various reasons for the success of the conference series: a conference-internal reason is that there has always been a very strong community spirit amongst the ICAMERs, the traditionally friendly spirit at the conference, a focus on a balance of not only topics but also diversity of background of presenters are important for us. Also, the annual boat-trip – a sine qua non of the conference – and the conference dinner with a near-obligatory disco, support this community feeling. Early career researchers should feel as welcome as seasoned linguists, and everyone benefits from the exchange.
J. Š. As the Chair of the ICAME Board, how do you see the development of ICAME over these past 46 years? Were there any significant turning points? Was the development of linguistic research consistently going hand in hand with technological advancement in the world?
P. R. I would say we have seen a gradual, but at the same time incredible rise of computing and computing power, which made it possible to analyse increasingly large data sets and obtain more powerful results. This means that corpus linguistics is an increasingly more powerful method for getting answers to more and more questions researchers may have. Clear turning points are the rise of web2.0, when users could start generate their own content on the web and the amount of freely and easily available, international linguistic data increased in an unprecedented way. We now have the languages of the world at our fingertips. A second turning point we have been seeing during the last two years is that the rise of large language models like ChatGPT allow researchers blended approaches that increase the power of our queries.
J. Š. The theme of ICAME46 was “Per Corpora ad Astra: Exploring the Past, Mapping the Future”. I think we have covered most of the past, but what about the future? Where is corpus linguistics going in light of the recent advancements of AI?
P. R. The arrival of AI is indeed a very important development for corpus linguistics. We are already seeing that some corpus tools, like AntConc, are integrating AI support tools to make corpus research easier and more accessible. The downside is, as was shown in the first plenary at ICAME46 this year, that we have to be careful to continue analyzing human language and not end up with analyzing linguistic data that was not created by humans, but by a statistics-based model.
J. Š. What role do you think the Vilnius ICAME46 conference may play in the development of corpus linguistics? Does the thematic focus of the talks presented at the conference point to some specific linguistic trends that are shaping up at this moment?
P. R. I think it was very valuable that you had a focus on the use of AI: the field of linguistics in general and corpus linguistics in particular, like any scientific and educational field, needs to determine how to integrate AI most efficiently and in an ethical way. A further important direction was the investigation of how to use language in commercial discourses, including in funding applications. This research strand has so far not received enough attention and everyone in academia knows about the high importance of using our linguistic tools most efficiently to be successful in these areas.
J. Š. One of the trending topics in the contemporary international research landscape is the role of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in addressing complex societal challenges. Corpus linguistics has been interdisciplinary from the very beginning, with computer scientists working alongside linguists. At the start of ICAME, the disciplinary divide perhaps was much more visible than it is now. Do you see research of ICAME members integrating into some other disciplines and other science fields?
P. R. With the arrival of larger corpora, the use of quantitative and statistical approaches has become more and more important. We are expanding into quantitative directions more, and we are also integrating more knowledge on how to create useful tools for corpus research. In addition to this, it would be good if we could raise awareness of how useful corpus linguistic approaches are beyond linguistics - for the humanities in general, but also for social sciences and even for natural sciences, to which they can offer powerful tools and approaches for data and thus knowledge management.
J. Š. ICAME members have traditionally focused mainly on English corpora. With the development of emphasis on the importance of other languages in research to foster diversity and inclusion, what is your prediction regarding the scope of languages studied in future ICAME conferences?
P. R. ICAME has traditionally had a strong research strand on contrastive linguistics. There have been contrastive workshops at ICAME conferences for years and they are still very attractive, drawing many papers and large audiences. With its explicit focus on the linguistics of English, I do not see ICAME moving into the analysis of a single other language than English, but the contrastive strand will stay strong.
J. Š. And now a personal question. For you and for many ICAME participants this was the first visit to Vilnius. How did you find the city? Has the “unexpectedly amazing” Vilnius, as called by the city’s official tourism and business development agency “Go Vilnius”, lived up to your expectations?
P. R. Vilnius has captured my heart. It is a beautiful city with amazing people. I do not think that “unexpectedly amazing” should stay the way to advertise the city. Given all that Vilnius has to offer, everyone should totally expect to be amazed by the city.
J. Š. Finally, could you share a few words or wishes for Vilnius University and its community?
P. R. The delegates at ICAME46 and the ICAME Board, and I personally, too, were very impressed with the excellent organisation of the conference. We were welcomed at the university by the Pro-Rector for Partnerships, the Dean of the Faculty of Philology and many extremely committed organizers and helpers. We have experienced not only a very welcoming and very efficient university community, but also a very energetic and innovative institution, with which many scholars will wish to strengthen their ties.
J. Š. Thank you for an interesting conversation!
On 16-18 June, Vilnius University and the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania will host the “16th MOISA International Conference: Music, Memory and Identity”. The 16ᵗʰ MOISA conference aims to explore the connections between music, memory, and identity in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Music played a significant role in maintaining and transmitting cultural memory, enabling people to recall the distant past, both mythological and historical. It allowed the ancients to distinguish between what they regarded as their own and what they attributed to the domain of others. Through rhythmic and metric patterns, along with phonetic nuances, music served as a mnemonic tool, guarding against forgetfulness and facilitating the recollection of the past. Iconographic representations, literary works and realia shed light on the diverse traditions and underlying rationale for the use of specific instruments and practices, such as in warfare, religious rituals, or public performances. The role of music also benefits from exploration in terms of physical memory, including perspectives from medical and physiological studies.
You can find more information at the following link >>
The 46th ICAME (International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English) Conference ‘Per Corpora ad Astra: Exploring the Past, Mapping the Future’ will be held at Vilnius University, Faculty of Philology on 17–21 June 2025. Over 100 researchers from 19 countries will participate in the conference, which will focus on corpus linguistics, newest language technologies as well as statistical, diachronic and synchronic language research. Keynote lectures will be given by Prof. Rūta Petrauskaitė (Vytautas Magnus University), a pioneer of corpus linguistics in Lithuania, and Prof. Rosa Lorés (University of Zaragoza), a researcher of digital science communication, a rapidly growing field of interest for linguistics and communication. Dr. Lukas Sönning (University of Bamberg) will present data visualisation techniques and Prof. Sebastian Hoffmann (University of Trier) will review the opportunities and challenges of using audio data in corpus linguistics.
“It is very significant that the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English Conference has finally come to Vilnius University”, says prof. Jolanta Šinkūnienė, ICAME Board member and Chair of the ICAME46 organising committee. “Vilnius University continues to keep its strong position in the field of humanities in the latest global university subject rankings, ‘QS World University Rankings by Subject 2025’. Linguistics at Vilnius University has the highest ranking of all fields, 251–300th in the world. This international corpus linguistics conference will provide opportunities to strengthen ties between Vilnius University and scholars from leading research centers in Europe and beyond. Establishing new international networks is extremely important in the increasingly competitive international research arena”, notes prof. Šinkūnienė.
The ICAME46 conference will start with three pre-conference workshops on 17 June and will continue until lunchtime on Saturday (21 June).
Conference website:
Conference programme:
Congratulations on defending your thesis and successfully completing your studies at the Faculty of Philology! Don't forget to pay the University and sign the Diploma Registration Register. More information about this >
The graduation ceremony will take place on 20 June, in two streams, for the graduates of the different programmes. The celebration will traditionally take place at St. John's Church at 10 am and will last until 3 pm. The estimated duration of each stream is 1,5-2 hours.
Diplomas will be awarded to all in stream I from 10.00:
For graduates of the following programmes.
In stream II, from 13.00, diplomas will be awarded to all:
For graduates of the following programmes.
The event will be photographed and the photos will be available on the Faculty's Facebook account.
Please also note that gowns are not a tradition of our University. You would look much nicer wearing university caps or even national dress. Caps can be purchased here > VU merchandise will also be sold during the celebrations.
The recommended dress code is formal.
