Top 3 Colleges for a Linguistics Program

What are linguistics?
Linguistics is the study of languages – how it is put together and how it functions, its history and the script. Its story. Various factors come together to make a language. Words are arranged in a certain order, and sometimes the beginnings and endings of the words are changed to alter the meaning. The meaning changes with the arrangement of words, the knowledge of the speaker about what the listener interprets. Linguistics is the study of all of this.
There are several subdivisions under linguistics like phonetics, the study of the sounds of speech; phonology, the study of how signs are arranged in each language to convey messages; Morphology study of how individual words are formed from smaller chunks of meaningful units called morphemes; Syntax, the study of how phrases, clauses and sentences are constructed and combined in particular languages; Discourse analysis looks at bigger chunks of language – texts, conversations, stories, speeches, etc; Semantics, the study of meaning; Historical Linguistics, the study of how languages have changed over time and Sociolinguistics is the study of society and language are some of them.

Which are some of the top universities offering Linguistics in their curriculum?

1) Harvard University
The college offers a three year undergraduate program in linguistics and the fourth year as a master’s program. The courses aim to make the students familiar with linguistic analysis and actively engage them in it. It also takes care to expose the students to the immense diversity found in languages around the world.
Concentrators in Linguistics may choose among three options. The courses emphasize on argumentation and methodology in phonology, syntax, semantics, and historical linguistics.
1) Linguistics
2) Linguistics with Related Field
3) Linguistics with Mind, Brain, and Behavior

2) Stanford University
The department offers courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Some focus primarily on analyzing structural patterns of sounds, meanings, words, and sentences. Others examine how these structures vary over time, or how they have an impact over individuals and social groups, or how language is processed and learned by human beings and computers.

3) Oxford University
Oxford University offers a program in Linguistics at the undergraduate level. The Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics at Oxford brings together scholars working in theoretical and descriptive linguistics, psycholinguistics, linguistics of the Romance languages, experimental phonetics, historical linguistics and comparative philology. Unlike other subjects in the humanities, it includes two scientific research laboratories – the Language and Brain Laboratory and the Phonetics Laboratory.

If you love the study of languages and how they came to be, this is the course for you! Good luck! Do reach out to us for any queries whatsoever!