Department of Linguistics

About the Department of Linguistics

An umbrella organisation, The Cambridge Institute of Language Research, brings together academics and students with interests in linguistics from various Faculties within the University. CamLing, the University of Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research, provides a forum for postgraduate students to present and discuss their research.

A staff-student liaison committee meets regularly to discuss matters of common interest, while events organised by the Linguistic Society provide more informal opportunities for interaction and discussion.

Aims of the Department

The aims of the Department of Linguistics are:

1. to achieve excellence over a broad spectrum of linguistic research
2. to provide high quality teaching informed by current research
3. to foster a broad but integrated approach to the study of linguistics

(1) The academic staff cover in their research and teaching a large variety of fields within linguistics. The staff of the Department are listed here, with brief indications of their research interests. It should also be noted that a number of linguists work in the language departments of the Modern and Medieval Languages Faculty (in particular there is a thriving Centre for Romance Linguistics), and in other Faculties such as Classics, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Experimental Psychology, and English. These colleagues collaborate with members of the Linguistics Department under the auspices of the Cambridge Institute of Language Research. The Department obtained the highest possible grade (5*) in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, reflecting the stature of its members as internationally known experts in their respective fields.

(2) Courses on offer. Courses across a wide range of linguistics are taught at both undergraduate and MPhil levels, and the breadth of the Department is also reflected in PhD research. It is recognised that at undergraduate level in particular linguistics is likely to be a new subject for most students, and courses are carefully structured to take account of this. From 1997-8 it has been possible to do a complete Part 2 in Linguistics. All courses, particularly at more advanced levels, benefit directly from the research of members of staff.

(3) The Department encourages a catholic approach to linguistics and avoids uncritical adherence to particular views or theories. This helps students to develop a balanced approach to the discipline, and to realise that there are always alternative ways of looking at any linguistic phenomenon. In addition, boundaries between subdivisions of linguistics are highly permeable within and beyond the Department. Students have done research in the phonetics laboratory to explain a historical change, and collaborated with psychologists in the analysis of the speech of schizophrenic patients, for instance. The Department is relatively unusual, in the British context, in that it has developed within the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, concerned with European languages other than English. This lends a special character to research and teaching, which benefit considerably from cooperation with and input from members of specific language Departments.