Linguistics is the study of human language: how we use languages to communicate, how languages vary and change over time, how meanings are expressed, how children and adults acquire language, communication differences across communities, and much more. In this major, students will learn about branches of linguistics, including sound systems (phonetics and phonology), word and sentence structure (morphology and syntax), conversation and text structure (discourse), meaning (semantics), language use in society (sociolinguistics), language in education and the law. Students study data from a wide variety of languages and may do detailed work on a number of different languages and language families. Thorough training is given in linguistic theory and in both qualitative and quantitative research methods, which students apply to a variety of empirical problems.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:- demonstrate an understanding of the nature of the structures found in all human languages
- demonstrate an understanding of how people use languages to communicate, and of the role of language in human society
- describe the most important sorts of variation found in human languages
- make in-depth analysis in at least one linguistic sub-structure
- evaluate popular beliefs and arguments concerning language use and language diversity
Relevant Degrees
Requirements
This major requires the completion of 48 units, which must include:
6 units from completion of the following course(s):
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| LING1001 | Introduction to the Study of Language | 6 |
A maximum of 6 units may come from completion of courses from the following list:
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| AUST1001 | Learning an Indigenous Australian Language | 6 |
| CLAS1001 | Traditional Grammar | 6 |
| LING1002 | Language and Society | 6 |
| PHIL1005 | Logic and Critical Thinking | 6 |
| STAT1003 | Statistical Techniques | 6 |
| STAT1008 | Quantitative Research Methods | 6 |
A minimum of 12 units must come from completion of courses from the following list:
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| LING2003 | Introduction to Syntax | 6 |
| LING2008 | Semantics | 6 |
| LING2010 | Sounds of the World's Languages: Phonetics and Phonology | 6 |
| LING2020 | Structure of English | 6 |
A maximum of 18 units may come from completion of courses from the following list:
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| ASIA2001 | Language in Asia and the Pacific | 6 |
| ASIA2103 | Language in Asia and the Pacific (L) | 6 |
| ASIA2308 | Linguistic Histories in Asia and the Pacific | 6 |
| AUST2008 | Learning an Indigenous Australian language 2 | 6 |
| COMP2620 | Logic | 6 |
| GERM2048 | Spoken Interaction in German: Theory and Practice | 6 |
| HUMN2001 | Digital Humanities: Theories and Projects | 6 |
| JPNS2024 | Japanese Grammar and Expressions | 6 |
| LING2005 | Language Change and Linguistic Reconstruction | 6 |
| LING2013 | Teaching Languages | 6 |
| LING2015 | Language, Culture, Translation | 6 |
| LING2016 | Language in Indigenous Australia | 6 |
| LING2017 | Chinese Linguistics | 6 |
| LING2018 | Languages in Contact | 6 |
| LING2021 | Cross Cultural Communication | 6 |
| LING2022 | Language Policy and Language Politics | 6 |
| LING2023 | Dictionaries and Dictionary-Making | 6 |
| LING2027 | Language and Society in Latin America | 6 |
| LING2028 | Japanese Linguistics | 6 |
| LING2029 | Assessing Language | 6 |
| LING2101 | Second Language Acquisition | 6 |
| LING2104 | The History of the English Language | 6 |
| LING2105 | Language and the law: introduction to forensic linguistics | 6 |
| LING2106 | Language and Social Interaction | 6 |
| LING2107 | Advanced Academic English | 6 |
| MATH2301 | Games, Graphs and Machines | 6 |
| PASI2010 | Talking the Pacific: Melanesian pidgins and creoles in social context | 6 |
| PHIL2016 | Philosophy of Language | 6 |
| PHIL2080 | Logic | 6 |
| PHIL2121 | Philosophical Logic | 6 |
| SPAN2601 | The Sounds of Spanish | 6 |
| SPAN2602 | The Structure of Spanish | 6 |
| SPAN2603 | History of the Spanish language. A linguistic time travel | 6 |
| SPAN2604 | Multilingualism and indigenous peoples in the Americas | 6 |
A minimum of 6 units must come from completion of courses from the following list:
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| ARAB3003 | Introductory Course to Arabic Linguistics | 6 |
| FREN3515 | The sounds of French: phonetics and pronunciation | 6 |
| GERM3048 | Spoken Interaction in German: Theory and Practice | 6 |
| LANG3001 | Translation across Languages: the translation of literary texts | 6 |
| LANG3002 | Translation across Languages: specialised material | 6 |
| LANG3004 | Language and Society in Latin America | 6 |
| LING3008 | Study of A Language Family | 6 |
| LING3012 | Field Methods in Linguistics | 6 |
| LING3021 | Child Language Acquisition | 6 |
| LING3022 | Seminar on Semantics | 6 |
| LING3025 | Special Topics in Linguistics | 6 |
| LING2040 | Austronesian languages | 6 |
| LING3031 | Papuan Languages | 6 |
| LING3032 | Advanced Forensic Linguistics: Forensic Voice and Text Comparison | 6 |
| LING3033 | Advanced Sociophonetics | 6 |
| LING3107 | Morphology | 6 |
| LING3119 | Phonological analysis | 6 |
| LING3126 | Syntactic Theory | 6 |
| SPAN3031 | Advanced Spanish Topics in Language and Linguistics | 6 |
A maximum of 6 units may come from completion of courses from the following list:
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| STAT3040 | Statistical Learning | 6 |
| STAT3016 | Introduction to Bayesian Data Analysis | 6 |