Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Linguistics - Second Degree Honours Candidates (QAY)

This degree is for those students who are currently completing/ have completed a first undergraduate degree and are interested in beginning a second undergraduate degree at Queen’s.

The Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures is a multidisciplinary unit that offers students the opportunity to learn languages, develop an understanding of literary and cultural traditions, and pursue studies in the field of Linguistics. A degree focusing on languages, literatures and cultures, or Linguistics provides students with valuable transferable skills that are increasingly important in the global world.  

Linguistics is the study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, phonology and semantics. Linguistics students explore how a language is structured, how is it acquired, how is it used in the production and comprehension of messages, how does it change over time. They will try to answer questions relating to the nature of language such what all languages have in common or how do children learn a language.

Because language accompanies almost all human activities, and is the medium for many of them, Linguistics is a highly interdisciplinary study with connections to Philosophy, Psychology, Computer Science, Cognitive Science or Health Sciences. Knowledge of linguistics is useful in a variety of careers including computer sciences, information and telecommunications, language teaching, speech pathology or audiology, or translation and interpreting, just to name a few.

Note: Students in this program are eligible for the Queen’s Undergraduate Internship Program (QUIP) which provides 2nd or 3rd year students with a 12-16 month work experience. The internship normally occurs following the student’s third year of study, after which the student completes the final year of the honours degree. The internships are paid, professionally supervised, career-related positions offering students the opportunity to learn about current advances, practices, and technologies in business and industry.