Skip to main content

Graduate Program

The graduate program of the UC San Diego Linguistics Department combines training in descriptive and theoretical linguistics with innovative experimental approaches to the study of human language. Our graduate students also participate in interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers in related fields like anthropology, cognitive science, computer science, and psychology.

Theoretical training is provided in the core areas of linguistic analysis (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics). Theoretical issues are explored through a variety of mechanisms, including formal analytic assessment, primary linguistic data collection and analysis, and experimental investigations. Research training in the Department includes field methods and documentation of understudied languages, phonetics (acoustic, perceptual and articulatory analysis), language acquisition (spoken and signed languages), psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and computational modeling.

These areas of activity reflect the Department's commitment to cognitively realistic analyses of language structure on a typologically diverse range of languages. With its instructional and research program, the Department is actively working toward a synthesis of the basic insights and findings of diverse theoretical and experimental perspectives.