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What can I do with a Linguistics degree?
In addition to providing you with analytical skills that are useful in any kind of career, an undergraduate degree in Linguistics prepares you for a number of specialized career paths as well. These include teaching English and other languages as second languages, doing educational research, developing language programs (for instance, for First Nations Communities), Literacy work, Speech Pathology and Audiology, developing and editing dictionaries, computer programming, developing telecommunication and other systems involving speech technology, and graduate studies leading to teaching and research at colleges or universities.
What skills will Linguistics give me?
All university programs teach you how to learn, how to do research, and how to use your mind. Linguistics focuses on teaching you how to think analytically by requiring you to analyze language data, to form and test hypotheses, and to present your analyses in a clear format, providing evidence and arguments to support them. These kinds of analytical and presentational skills are invaluable for any kind of career that you might wish to follow.
What high school preparation do I need to enroll in Linguistics?
You begin the study of Linguistics at the university, since Linguistics is not a subject that is currently taught in high schools. It is extremely useful to take language courses in school, however, since this allows you to learn to think consciously about a language, and therefore about Language in general. It is an interesting fact that most of us use language in almost all our interactions without ever thinking about what we're doing and how we're doing it. So while many of us find it exhilarating to be forced to think about Language, it is an experience which may be enhanced by having some previous practice in thinking about languages.
Although there is no special high school preparation necessary to study Linguistics, you should remember that Linguistics is part of the Faculty of Humanities at UVic. To be able to take Linguistics courses, therefore, you must satisfy the general requirements for entry into courses in the Faculty of Humanities.
What should I do in First Year?
The Linguistics department at UVic does not require you to take Linguistics courses at the First Year Level. However, we do strongly recommend that you in fact enroll in one of our First Year offerings if you plan to take higher-level Linguistics courses. Students who have First Year courses in Linguistics find it considerably easier at the Second Year level than students with no First Year background in the subject.
There are a number of great First Year offerings in Linguistics. Linguistics 100A is the core introductory course, providing instruction in Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax. Linguistics 100B, the second half of the core introductory course, introduces you to various topics in Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, and Psycholinguistics. Linguistics 110 considers the relationship between language and thought. Linguistics 150 introduces you to the study of the way in which the vocabulary of English has developed from many different origins. Linguistics 172 provides an introduction to Linguistics through the study of First Nations' languages. Linguistics 195 introduces you to sociolinguistics by asking you to consider why different forms of language are evaluated so differently in social contexts.
Linguistics program changes 2012-2013
The Linguistics Department's programs and courses are undergoing a major round of changes in 2012-2013. The following FAQ entries are designed to help students who are already enrolled in a Linguistics program to navigate these changes.
Q: A lot of the course numbers have changed. How will this affect me?
A: It won’t. All it means is that you need to substitute the new numbers into your existing program requirements. The following courses have been renumbered:
| Course name | Old number | New number |
| Experimental Phonetics | LING 382 | LING 486 |
| Morphology | LING 409 | LING 309* |
| Syntax | LING 410A | LING 311 |
| Advanced Syntactic Analysis | LING 410B | LING 411 |
| Second Language Phonology | LING 438 | LING 338 |
| Generative Phonology | LING 440 | LING 312 |
| Advanced Phonological Analysis | LING 441 | LING 412 |
Q: Will I need to meet the new program requirements?
A: No, unless you registered in the Faculty of Humanities for the first time in 2012-2013 (or later). For more detailed information, please see the section of the Undergraduate Calendar on Program Requirement Change (found in Undergraduate Information > Undergraduate Academic Regulations): http://web.uvic.ca/calendar2012/FACS/UnIn/UARe/PRCh.html.
Q: So what are my program requirements?
A: Normally, your program requirements are those listed in UVic’s Undergraduate Calendar for the year in which you first registered in the Faculty. For one example of how the renumbered courses fit into the existing programs, you can click on the link below. This shows the Linguistics program requirements from the 2011-2012 Calendar, with the renumbered courses indicated in red.
2011-2012 Program requirements (PDF format)
If you have further questions about your program requirements, please contact the Linguistics Undergraduate Adviser (Martha McGinnis-Archibald, mjmcginn@uvic.ca) or the Academic Advising Centre: http://web.uvic.ca/advising/.