Rhodes University English Language and Linguistics Department

What is Linguistics?

Language is involved in and helps to shape most of our major concerns as people. Thus Linguistics is a multifaceted discipline, which is involved with language in all its manifestations and examines all these links between language and human life. In the Rhodes University English Language and Linguistics courses we aim to provide an explicitly South African focus and to use examples from local languages and texts.
 

Why study Linguistics?

Linguistics will give you insights into how language is structured, how people communicate and use language, how people learn languages and how language changes and develops in society. Training in Linguistics will also be very relevant to your career if you plan to specialise in Education, Journalism, Teaching, Law or Psychology. You don’t need to know many languages to study Linguistics, but you do need a fascination for language and a basic competence in English.
The programme in English Language and Linguistics is designed to meet the needs of anyone involved in language and communication. Its brief can broadly be defined as the exploration of language in its changing context in the light of contemporary linguistic theory.
Rhodes University English Language and Linguistics Contact