Linguistics

专业详情

Linguistics is the systematic study of human language. Superficially, there’s huge variation among the world’s languages, and linguists not only describe the diverse characteristics of individual languages but also explore properties which all languages share and which offer insight into the human mind.

The study of linguistics draws on methods and knowledge from a wide range of disciplines. For instance, the study of meaning draws on philosophy, the analysis of the speech signal uses methods from physics and engineering, and the study of language acquisition draws on psychology.

This variety is one of the things that makes linguistics fascinating: one day you might be poring over a medieval text for evidence of how the grammar of a language has changed, and the next, learning about how the larynx creates sound energy for speech, or how we can record brain responses in a categorisation task.

Linguistics at Cambridge

Cambridge Linguistics is internationally recognised, having come third in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2022. Situated within the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, the Linguistics Tripos benefits greatly from colleagues specialising in the linguistics of particular European and other foreign languages.