Course summary

Do you find language and communication fascinating? Do you enjoy solving puzzles? Would you like to learn about the languages of the world, and in doing so learn about how the human mind works? Do you have broad interests, from the language arts through the sciences? Students on Linguistics degrees at UCL investigate the world’s languages in order to understand the fundamental nature of human language, how the human mind gives rise to it, and how human social abilities combine with language abilities in communication. Students study the sound patterns (Phonetics and Phonology) and grammatical structures (Syntax) of the world's languages, and how meanings are expressed through words and grammar (Semantics), and through social aspects of use (Pragmatics). The flexible degree structure allows students to purse a range of option modules that relate the study of linguistics to broader questions – child language development, multilingualism, animal communication, language evolution, sociolinguistics, and neurolinguistics. The BSc Experimental Linguistics is an interdisciplinary programme that focuses on the sounds, structures and meanings of language along with the experimental methods to understand how language is acquired, represented and processed in the brain. In comparison to the BA Linguistics programme, the BSc Experimental Linguistics has fewer mandatory modules in phonetics, phonology, syntax and semantics and pragmatics in exchange for experimentally based ones. This includes language acquisition (how children acquire language), psycholinguistics (what representations and mechanisms are used to process language), neurolinguistics (how those representations and mechanisms are implemented in the brain), and practical experience in research design and statistical data analysis. Students can choose to pursue the International Route (a 4-year programme) which includes a year abroad in their third year at one of our partner institutions. Students can apply for the International Route after their first year of study.