Language is what distinguishes the human species from others; language is the medium through which we think, interact, communicate, record our past and imagine our future. In today’s world, digital and technologically encoded language powers the global economy and drives the transformation of our material and social environment. Linguistics is the study of language. What is it? How does it work? How is it acquired? How does it change? How does language determine perception, thought, culture, and, in various contexts, prejudice and exclusion, or aspiration and creativity?

When we study linguistics, we reflect with precision and purpose upon language – the medium(s) through which we understand ourselves, and our identity. The life examined is, of course, examined in and through language. When we study linguistics, we engage in a rigorous practice of logic and argumentation, in order to decode our most ubiquitous (and therefore unnoticed) codes (natural language).

Some people assume that being a linguist is equivalent to speaking many languages. Indeed, some linguists are polyglots, and students interested in linguistics are encouraged to study as many languages as interest them, but being a linguist really means studying language in a scientific way. Their approach varies widely, from fieldwork to laboratory experiments and every approach in between.

You should begin your study of linguistics with the introductory course (LLC 203), in which you will learn about sounds (phonetics, phonology), words (morphology), sentences (syntax), and meaning (semantics). This course also satisfies a field of study requirement (FSSA). In this course you will develop a research project tailored to your interests; some examples of students’ research projects are found here.

After the introductory course, the specific path your studies take will depend on your interest in the major fields that linguistics encompasses and your interest in working with one of the linguistics faculty.