What Linguistics Is and What Linguists Do...
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. We seek to understand the structure of language, how it is learned, how it changes over time, how it interacts with the world, how it is represented in the mind, and how humans produce and understand language.
Our work informs a wide variety of human concerns: education (foreign-language teaching, the way to approach standard and non-standard languages in the classroom), technology (speech recognition, artificial intelligence), health care (diagnosis and treatment of language disorders), language's place in a diverse society (the role of multilingualism, protections for endangered and minority dialects and languages), and the legal system (interpreting legal language and the significance of linguistic evidence).
Humanities Radio
For more information, we encourage you to listen to Episode 2 of the Humanities podcast, where Aaron Kaplan, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, answers all of these questions.
Mission Statement
The Department of Linguistics at the University of Utah is committed to advancing the understanding of human language in the service of local, national, and global communities.
We accomplish this by:
- conducting cutting-edge research on language structure, acquisition, and processing
- preparing students to achieve personal and professional goals equipped with the knowledge and skills developed through the study of linguistics.
Our Specializations and Interests
In the Department of Linguistics at the University of Utah, our faculty specialize in:
- theoretical syntax and semantics
- theoretical phonology
- second language acquisition
- second language phonology
Our faculty also have interests in historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics. We offer undergraduate, MA, and PhD degrees, as well as a computational linguistics certificate and a TESOL certificate.
About the Department
Linguistics provides the intellectual satisfaction of learning how human language works, while at the same time developing the analytical skills necessary to be highly competitive on the job market. Students in linguistics learn how to analyze languages and develop crucial skills for today’s job market: reasoning, critical thinking, rigorous analysis, and written and verbal communication.
Graduates of our program have been admitted to some of the top graduate programs in linguistics and other fields and found careers in ESL instruction, language analysis, and computational linguistics.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF LinguisticsGet Involved
News
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PhD Student Yan Shi Awarded Diversity Travel Fellowship to Present His Paper at the 49th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development
PhD student, Yan Shi, was awarded the Diversity Travel Fellowship by the organizing committee of the 49th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. This fellowship covered expenses (approximately $1300 USD) to present his research paper, co-authored with Xuan Wang, Na Gao, and Utako Minai, at the conference held from November 7th to 10th at Boston University in Boston, MA. Additionally, Yan was honored to be invited to the VIP dinner at the conference, attended by other awardees, members of the organizing committee, plenary speakers, and invited speakers.
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New article by members of the Speech Acquisition Lab!
Congratulations to Shannon Barrios, Rachel Hayes-Harb and Joanne Moffatt on their new article titled, "Investigating Adult Learners' Perceptual and Phonolexical Representations of Novel Phonological Contrasts."
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Aniello De Santo's co-authored article "The Problem-Ladenness of Theory" published in Computational Brain & Behavior
Daniel Levenstein, Aniello De Santo, Saskia Heijnen, M. Narayan, Freek Oude Maatman, Jonathan Rawski, and Cory Wright. The Problem-Ladenness of Theory. Computational Brain & Behavior (2024)
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PhD Student Eunjin Lee Publishes Research Article in the 14th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Proceedings
Ph.D. student Eunjin Lee’s article “English Listeners’ Perception of Korean Laryngeal Contrasts Among Word-Initial Stops” was published in the 14th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching proceedings.
