About us

Source: https://www.york.ac.uk/language-linguistic-science/about/ Parent: https://www.york.ac.uk/language-linguistic-science/study/undergraduate/

We're a thriving department with expertise that spans the arts, sciences and humanities.

Our advanced knowledge is reflected in the vast range of courses that we offer. Students are also able to combine our subjects with a subject from another department, such as English or history. Our degrees are designed to give you a solid grounding in specialist topics, as well as providing students with the transferrable and intrapersonal skills needed to succeed in a range of careers.

We also actively invest in teaching languages to people beyond our department, through Languages for All and language electives. Our aim is to make language-learning accessible to all, including to people outside the University.

Our high-quality research feeds directly into our teaching. This allows us to constantly evolve and ensure that both staff and students are always challenging current issues in society.

Core values

Language learning is for everyone.
We're interested in language in all its forms.
Our purpose-driven research is designed to solve current societal problems.

As a team of people who care about language and language learning, our outlook is by its nature international and diverse. We care about our students and colleagues, and realise that each brings their own experience and perspective. We're passionate about allowing you all to develop your own understanding and skills.

Professor Monika S. Schmid, Head of Department

Expert research

We're 1st in the UK for the quality of our linguistics research, according to the Times Higher Education's ranking of the latest REF results (2021).

Athena Swan Bronze

We create an inclusive environment through understanding communication, languages and cultures in every aspect.

Language expertise

We're highly ranked in multiple league tables for our teaching in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Our facilities

We boast a range of specialist research and teaching facilities, including a premium multilingual conference suite and several labs for dedicated linguistics research.

Our spaces are available for both researchers and students to use. The conference suite is also available for commercial hire.

Explore our facilities

Equality, diversity and inclusion

As well as holding an Athena Swan Bronze award, we run many initiatives to ensure that we're a welcoming and open community. These include, but aren't limited to:

a working group dedicated to neurodiversity and providing support where necessary
sessions to help students adjust to academic life and culture
opportunities for students to have their say on teaching through nominated student representatives.

We recognise that nurturing language, communication and culture play is integral to better understanding the world and our place within it.

Discover more about our culture