Linguistics and a Modern Language

Linguistics combined with a modern language is a pairing that sheds light on language from two complementary directions. Linguistics is the scientific study of language itself, examining the structures of sounds, words, sentences, and meanings, and asking how languages are acquired, how they vary across communities and contexts, and how they change over time. A modern language provides a specific living system to work with and understand at a high level, giving the abstract principles of linguistics concrete and culturally embedded form.

The combination produces graduates who can both analyse language with scientific rigour and use it with sophisticated proficiency.

At Cardiff University, this three-year, full-time programme allows you to pursue advanced study in linguistics alongside a modern language of your choice. In linguistics, you will cover core areas including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, and language acquisition, developing a systematic understanding of how language functions at every level. In your modern language, you will develop reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills to an advanced level while also engaging with the literature, culture, and intellectual life of the societies in which the language is spoken.

Cardiff's location in a bilingual city, where English and Welsh exist alongside each other in public life, provides a uniquely vivid context for thinking about language variation, language policy, and the social dimensions of language use.

Graduates from this combination go on to careers in teaching, publishing, translation, communications, speech and language therapy (with further training), language technology, the civil service, journalism, and a range of other fields where both analytical understanding of language and practical proficiency are valued. Further postgraduate study in linguistics, applied linguistics, translation, or language education is also a well-established route for graduates who want to develop specialist expertise.