General linguistics

What is linguistics?

Linguistics is the science of human languages and the human language capacity. It deals with the architectural principles of the world’s languages (e.g., which speech sounds, words and grammatical rules and regularities are found?), the functions of languages (e.g., what roles do languages play for communication and thought?), and how human beings process language in production, perception and understanding, and in language learning.

Central aspects of linguistic research

Linguistics as a subject is concerned with linguistic diversity, language use and behaviour in different modalities (speech, sign language, gesture, writing) and in real-time (known as processing of language), as well as over a longer period of time, i.e. during language development. Some profile areas at the linguistic’s unit at Lund university are language typology, neurolinguistics, first and second language acquisition, bilingualism, multimodality, prosody and language documentation. Linguistic methodology includes qualitative and quantitative methods, field research, experimental research, corpus methods, etc.  Linguistics in Lund often draws on the research techniques and tools available at Lund University Humanities Lab.

Study linguistics in Lund

Linguistics at Lund university is organized into two subdisciplines: General linguistics and Phonetics. There is a close cooperation with Cognitive Semiotics. Courses in linguistics are given at undergraduate level and as part of the Master's program in language and linguistics.