Bachelor's in Linguistics

Rutgers University, New Brunswick, offers a wide array of undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs across various disciplines, including liberal arts, sciences, engineering, business, and the arts. Rutgers' strengths lie in its robust research initiatives and its status as a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU). With a world-class faculty and state-of-the-art research facilities, the university provides students with valuable opportunities to engage in cutting-edge research and innovation. Rutgers New Brunswick's central location in the culturally rich region of New Brunswick, along with its diverse student body, creates a dynamic and inclusive learning environment. Through its dedication to academic rigor, research, and a commitment to social impact, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, prepares graduates to excel in their careers and make meaningful contributions to their communities and the world at large.

Linguists study language because they find it interesting in its own right. Language is a complex cognitive and social phenomenon. It is a product of the human mind, yet it requires rich social input in order to be learned properly. Understanding one’s own language is effortless but understanding a foreign language that you’ve never heard before is impossible. How is it that the human mind can turn particular strings of sounds into such a rich stream of information? Why are languages around the world so different, but yet upon closer inspection turn out to have so much in common? Why is it easy to learn a language as a baby, but hard to learn it as an adult? These are just some of the questions that linguistics seeks to answer. It turns out that the study of language, like other fields of empirical research, yields dividends beyond its own domain. Modern work in linguistics has had a profound impact on many fields where language is central: psychology, cognitive science, computer science, philosophy, the study of individual languages, literary theory, and anthropology. Students of linguistics can focus closely on language and its empirical phenomena through the study of syntax, semantics, or phonology, and they can also explore the many cross-disciplinary connections between linguistics and other fields.