The concentration in Linguistics, the scientific study of language, emphasizes linguistic theory, historical linguistics, and the relationship between language and cognition, and cuts across the humanities, social sciences, cognitive sciences, physical sciences, and biological sciences. Students are also eligible to apply for an A.B./A.M. degree program.
The Department of Linguistics is home to one of the oldest and most distinguished linguistics programs in the United States. Today, students and faculty come from many different backgrounds and represent a wide range of interests, from purely theoretical to typological, historical, and experimental. What they share is a commitment to empirically grounded research and a respect for the rich traditions of the field.