Linguistics
Fellows
- Dr Fionnùala Sinclair (Director of Studies)
Details and statistics
- Number of students admitted per year (1 course only available since October 2010)
- Typical offer: A*AA
- Interview arrangements: usually 2 interviews.
- Course details: Linguistics Website
What to expect from Linguistics
Language is central to our human nature, and linguistics is the systematic study of human language. Although on the face of it there is huge variation among the world’s languages, linguists not only describe the diverse characteristics of individual languages but also seek to discover the deeper properties which all languages share. These common properties may give us an insight into the structure of the human mind.
Part of the appeal of linguistics is that it draws on methods and knowledge from an unusually wide range of scholarship and transcends the usual subject boundaries. For instance, the study of meaning draws on work by philosophers, whereas the part of our course concentrating on the sounds of speech takes place in the Phonetics Laboratory. Here computers are used to display and analyse the speech signal using methods from physics and engineering. This variety is what makes linguistics fascinating: at one moment 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.
Brief details of the course
Linguistics is divided into a one-year Part I and a two-year Part II, subdivided into Parts IIA and IIB. Part I, where you follow four lecture series, provides a foundation across a wide range of linguistics taught within the Department of Linguistics. Part II allows you to specialise in the areas which particularly interest you, and in both IIA and IIB there is a wide choice of lectures taught within and beyond the Department, the latter including the linguistics of particular languages. Part IIB includes an element of individual research as you write a dissertation on a topic of your choice.
Studying Linguistics at Girton
Formal lectures, seminars and (for phonetics) practical sessions are arranged by the Department of Linguistics in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages. Fortnightly supervisions for each paper (usually in pairs) are arranged by the Director of Studies in Linguistics at Girton.
Preparation
The main requirement for studying linguistics is a lively curiosity about the nature of language. It may be that you’ve been struck by a language that puts its verbs in a different position in the sentence, or wondered why languages change (making Chaucer hard to understand, for instance), or been puzzled that automatic speech recognition software gets a perfectly clear word wrong, or realised that an utterance such as ‘it’s cold in here’ may mean more than the words (understood: ‘do close the window!’), or been excited to learn that languages as diverse as Welsh and Hindi have a common ancestor. Basically, if you’ve found yourself asking ‘why?’ or ‘how?’ in relation to language, linguistics is for you. Because linguistics is interdisciplinary we don’t require specific A-level subjects, and welcome applicants with an outstanding academic profile whether science-oriented or arts-centred. Some formal study of language, either through learning languages or through English Language A-level, does however serve as a good preparation.