Course Overview

You'll study various aspects of language using a wide variety of methods - from computerised study of language corpora, through acoustic analysis of sound patterns, to analysis of texts, interviews and audio-visual recordings of natural dialogues. Many of the issues addressed by Linguistics are of central relevance to our society - for example, the relationship between dialect and social prestige, the problems of education in a multi-cultural and multi-lingual environment, or the development of technology which will allow computers to recognise and produce speech.

During your studies, you'll address intriguing questions, such as how language relates to thought, how a child first acquires language and how our language is similar to and different from social signalling systems used by animals. You'll also be able to take a wide range of other courses, depending on your strengths and interests.

In your first year, your studies include a single unit of Linguistics and two other subjects of your choice. For your second year you'll take a compulsory second year course in the Structures of Language as well as optional modules including: Language Change in English and Beyond; Forensic Linguistics; Psycholinguistics; and Language Acquisition and Language Origins. You can also study up to two units in another subject. In your final year, you'll continue with subjects from your second year and complete modules including Topics in Linguistic Theory and a Dissertation.

All the lecturers and staff were welcoming and friendly and there was a real sense of belonging to a community.

Career opportunities

Recent Linguistics graduates have gone to work or train as speech therapists, teachers of English as a mother tongue, computer programmers and consultants, bankers, chartered accountants, personnel managers, journalists and social workers. A sizeable proportion of our graduates take up employment overseas.

Our Linguistics degree cultivates skills in data analysis and presentation, critical thinking and the use of statistics and IT. This expertise is valuable for careers in education, language teaching, speech therapy and translation as well as information technology, management, the mass media, creative arts, social work and counselling.