Overview

INTRODUCTION

Linguistics is the study of language, whether it be old, new, everyday, special, spoken, or written language.  Are you curious about how children acquire language?  About how adults learn a second language?  Are you interested in how law enforcement can identify people by their voice or what they write?  Or how you can tell the ethnic background of people by what they say?  Or how you can inadvertently insult people by what you say?  What is the best way to learn a new language?  Linguists are interested in questions such as these.

Whether language users are selling a product or selling a president, spoken, written, and visual messages are part of the communication process.  Would you like to know about the relevance of Linguistics to mass communication?  Would you like to know more about what people do with words when they defend a person accused of a crime?  When they help a patient understand how a prescribed treatment can alleviate a health problem?  When they advise a student on a course of action?  Linguistics has the answers to all of these questions.

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Our Origins

Linguistics at the University of Florida began in 1969 with five co-operating departments:  Anthropology, English, Germanic and Slavic Languages, Romance Languages, and Speech.  It has continued to the present with the co-operation of those departments (Speech having been renamed Communication Sciences and Disorders), and of the African and Asian Languages and the Classics Department.  An important adjunct of the Program from the very beginning was the English Language Institute, providing intensive English language training to international students seeking admission to universities throughout the United States.

The original goal of the Linguistics Program was to train graduate students in Descriptive Linguistics, Linguistic Theory, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Phonetics, Teaching English as a Second Language, and Historical Linguistics.  We remain strong in these areas and have added courses in Discourse Analysis, Semantics, Sociolinguistics, Second Language Acquisition and Neurolinguistics.  Graduate students are encouraged to pursue their interdisciplinary interests.

Degrees offered include the Ph.D., M.A. (both thesis and non-thesis), B.A., and two undergraduate minors (the Linguistics minor and the TESL minor). A TESL certificate is offered at the undergraduate level; A SLAT program is offered at the M.A. level.

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Career Opportunities Available Through Linguistics
 

• University and community college language teaching

• Foreign language teaching

• Teaching English as a second or foreign language in the USA or abroad

• Public school teaching in the language arts

• Teacher trainee

• Foreign Service and diplomatic corps

• Translation and materials development for less commonly taught languages

• Journal and Newspaper Editing

• Adult literacy and education 

• Speech Pathology

• Law

• Technical writer

• Develop materials for computer assisted language teaching

• Teaching in the department of anthropology, foreign languages, psychology, English, education, or speech