UC Santa CruzLinguistics
HomeAbout the DepartmentNews and EventsGraduate ProgramUndergraduate ProgramPeopleResearchCourse Offerings
UCSC A-Z Index | Find People

Linguistics Dept.
UC Santa Cruz
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077

--------------

Linguistics Major
Overview
Degrees and Requirements

--------------

Language Studies Major
Overview
Degrees and Requirements

--------------

Advising
Getting Advice
Declaring a Major
Office Hours

--------------

Other Resources
The Language Program
Study Abroad
Career Paths
Courses
Academic Calendar
MyUCSC Portal
The Navigator
Disability Resource Center
Financial Aid
Learning Support Services
EOP

--------------

Printable Materials
Undergrad Handook (pdf)
Curriculum 2007-8 (pdf)
Academic Calendar (pdf)
Worksheet (Ling) (pdf)
Worksheet (LS) (pdf)
Worksheet (Minors) (pdf)

--------------

Print

 


Linguistics Undergradute Program Overview

Linguistics is an unusually exact and structured discipline within the humanities. Since it centers on the study of human language and language ability, it connects to many other fields in the humanities (philosophy, literature, history), the social sciences (psychology, anthropology, sociology), and the natural sciences (neurobiology, acoustics, computer science).

At UCSC, the linguistics curriculum is built upon a core sequence of courses in language structure, divided roughly into three components: the study of sounds (phonetics and phonology), the study of words and sentence structure (morphology and syntax), and the study of meaning (semantics). All faculty in the department have primary research and teaching interests in one or more of these areas.

The major in Linguistics provides students with a thorough and rigorous introduction to the central aspects of linguistic structure and the major perspectives of the field, while allowing for further specialization and considerable diversity. Successful completion of the major leads to a BA degree in linguistics. The department also offers a minor in Linguistics.

The undergraduate linguistics program at UC Santa Cruz is recognized as one of the best in North America. Our graduates are routinely admitted to top graduate programs. Undergraduate alumni/ae from this department are on the faculty at the University of Chicago, Rochester University, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Michigan. Many also work on language-related projects in the computer industry. In 2000, the recipient of the the UCSC Steck Family Award for the Finest Senior Thesis was a linguistics major.

The current Linguistics and Language Studies Undergraduate Handbook can be found here.