Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Linguistics and Modern Languages (Placement Year)

Studying linguistics will enable students to learn about, understand and interpret many aspects of human language. On this Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Linguistics and Modern Languages joint honours program, they will study the ‘science’ behind language, including possible sounds used in speech and their combination (phonetics, phonology), how words are built up morphology), what distinguishes sentences from just strings of words (syntax), meaning (semantics and pragmatics), the effect that society, culture and norms have upon language use (sociolinguistics) and how languages change over time. They will also study the acquisition and use of language. On this course they will also develop advanced skills in a modern language, and specialised insights into the culture, society and history that go with it.

Linguistics is the study of how language works and how and why language is used. Linguists look at how people learn, understand and speak language. Linguistics has a theoretical dimension but also an applied dimension – such as language technology, language policy and language in education. Students will also have the opportunity to learn about the ways in which different languages are different or similar in terms of their grammar, how society and language go hand-in-hand, and the functions and status that different languages have across the world.