Ranked by the National Research Council among the top 10 programs of its kind in the country, Linguistics places undergraduates in classes with beginning graduate students and offers opportunities to collaborate on faculty research. The faculty’s research agenda includes verbal categories, American Indian languages, historical and synchronic phonology, syntax and semantics, Bantu morphosyntax, and cultural semiotics. The department has its own library and computer lab. Students also benefit from the substantial resources available in UChicago’s Language Laboratories and Archives. Proficiency in a non–Indo-European language is required. Including:
- Languages in Linguistics
- American Sign Language
- Swahili
The purpose of the BA program in Linguistics is to provide a solid, integrated introduction to the scientific study of language through course work in the core subdisciplines of Linguistics, as well as to ensure that the student has a language background sufficient to provide a complement to the theoretical parts of the program and for an understanding of the complexities of human language. This program provides students with a general expertise in the field and prepares them for productive advanced study in linguistics.
Students who are majoring in other fields of study may also complete a minor in Linguistics.