Philosophy and Linguistics

How does your language express who you are and who you want to be? How do language, brain, body and environment shape your thoughts and feelings? How do characteristics like gender and race shape discourse and how should they be taken into account in theoretical inquiry and social decision-making?

Our BA Philosophy and Linguistics degree investigates important questions like these from each of our disciplines and at their intersections. Our priority lies in developing your skills as a thinker in your own right. We’ll support you to critically and creatively engage with difficult problems in an open-minded and collaborative way, including on sensitive and controversial topics.

During your studies, you’ll have the opportunity to explore a broad range of philosophical and linguistic topics and traditions. In philosophy you will develop a solid grounding in moral philosophy, will also study epistemology, philosophy of mind, and political philosophy, and will have the opportunity to study areas such as aesthetics, feminist philosophy, and phenomenology. In the final year of the programme, you can specialise in your preferred areas of philosophical study.

In linguistics you’ll develop a grounding in key aspects of phonetics, morphology, syntax and semantics based on usage from English and comparative examples from a wide range of other languages. You’ll also have the opportunity to explore various other topics, such as forensic linguistics, language and popular culture, professional and intercultural communication, sociolinguistics.

Many of our modules directly address contemporary problems facing society, providing you with a clear link between theory and practice. This is emphasised in the final year of the programme, where you’ll take two core modules that link your studies to their applications outside university. In philosophy, you’ll take part in a project to apply philosophical research to develop policies or strategies aimed at solving a real-world ethical or social problem. In linguistics, you’ll gain key empirical research skills in collecting, analysing and visualising data for professional and workplace settings.

You’ll graduate with a range of professional skills, including collaboration, effective communication and critical thinking. You will be aware of the ethical and social challenges that face contemporary society and industry and have both the ideas and the confidence required to solve them. Your linguistics training will ensure you know how best to use language and communication for different expressive and persuasive purposes. From here, you’ll be ideally placed to progress into a range of exciting careers.

Distinctive Features of the Programme

• Follow your interests: Choose from modules across a range of philosophical and linguistic traditions, trace connections to other disciplines, and engage with new areas of philosophical and linguistic research.

• Think for yourself: Critically and creatively engage with difficult questions in an independent and open-minded way.

• Shape the future: Apply philosophical research to develop policies or strategies aimed at solving real-world social problems.

• Communicate effectively: Develop skills and experience in shaping and presenting your ideas and arguments.

• Develop research skills: Analyse data and communicate findings to a range of audiences.