What is Linguistics?

The field of linguistics explores the nature of languages, seeking to describe what human languages are like, how languages develop and change, and how people learn and use language.

Linguistics has a lot in common with the sciences, being a problem-solving oriented discipline. It is the study of how languages are structured, how they are used, and how they change over time.

Unlike courses in a language, where the point is to gain an automatic, unconscious ability to use the language, courses in linguistics attempt to develop a fully explicit, scientific theory of how language works. Linguistics thus offers a unique combination of humanistic and scientific concerns.

Interdisciplinary

Since language is central to so many arenas of human endeavor, the study of linguistics makes substantial contact with a number of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, including: Cognitive science, Psychology, Sociology, Education, Anthropology, Language studies, Classics, Computer science, and Philosophy.

As a result of its diversity, linguistics offers exciting fields of study for students with varied inclinations and backgrounds, so long as they have a deep intellectual curiosity about language.

Upon graduation, students pursue careers in a variety of wide ranging fields, including law, forensics, and library science.

Questions linguists might ask

• What features do all languages have in common?
• In what ways do different languages differ from one another?
• How are languages learned? Why are children so much better at learning languages than adults?
• How is it that words carry meaning? How can the meaning of a sentence be calculated from the meanings of the individual words of which it is composed?
• How do languages change over time? In the absence of written records, how can we determine what earlier stages of a language were like?
• How did English and other modern languages develop?
• In what ways are the signed languages different from spoken languages? In what ways are they the same?
• What principles are the foundation of words, phrases and sentences?
• How are the sounds of language produced? Does the sound system of a language form a coherent pattern?

The Department of Linguistics offers courses on these and related topics. More information about trends in linguistics can be found in LSA's Eighth Edition Annual Report