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Subject Overview

Our capacity for language sets us apart from other species, and is an important part of our national and ethnic identities.
Linguistics explores how we combine words into phrases and sentences, how we convey social information and social goals, how language changes, how children learn language, and even how we understand what is meant but has not been said.
Linguistics at the University of Auckland was ranked 56th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021.

Knowledge and Skills

We welcome PhD research proposals in areas such as:

  • Semantics
  • Pragmatics
  • Pragmatics-syntax interface
  • Phonetics and phonology
  • Language documentation
  • Theoretical syntax
  • Comparative syntax
  • Syntax-semantics interface
  • Linguistics fieldwork
  • Austronesian languages
  • Papuan languages
  • Indo-Aryan languages

Potential Careers

Linguistics can prepare you for a career in language education, speech and language therapy, journalism, lexicography, advertising, marketing, computational linguistics, machine translation, speech synthesis and recognition and forensic linguistics.

Schedule

Plan Schedules