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What is Linguistics?

How does language work? What is its structure, in sentences, words and sounds or signs? How do we learn it? How do we use it to communicate? How does it change over time?

Linguistics is the science of human language. From the individual level to the social, language permeates our experiences and human interactions. Language enables us to communicate with people around us, to listen to our neighbors, and we learn new languages to cross boundaries, to forge new connections both locally and on a global scale.

At Carolina we provide students with the tools to analyze the languages of the world and the languages and dialects spoken in our state. We offer courses in formal grammar, sentence structure, sound patterns and meaning, computational linguistics, language acquisition and sociolinguistics, and more. We offer an Undergraduate Major and Minor, an MA in Linguistics, and students can pursue a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics in conjunction with Romance Studies.

Syntax Tree

Latest News

We extend a warm welcome to all of our new and returning students in Linguistics!

Welcome Students!

We extend a warm welcome to all of our new and returning students in Linguistics!

We are excited to have Jamilläh Rodriguez join the department as an Assistant Professor!

Welcome Assistant Professor Jamilläh Rodriguez

We are excited to have Jamilläh Rodriguez join the department as an Assistant Professor!

Upcoming & Recent Events

September

22

Friday Colloquium Speaker: David Mora Marin (UNC)

3:30 pm – 4:30 pm, Smith – 107

November

3

Friday Colloquium Speaker: Paul Portner (Georgetown)

3:30 pm – 4:30 pm, Smith – 107

Featured Alumni

Iyad Ghanim

MA Linguistics
2016

Hans Boas

MA (1995), PhD (2000)
2000

Hugo Salgado

MA
2014