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We offer degrees in Linguistics as well as many research opportunities for undergraduates
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Learn about our cross-disciplinary PhD program and our three Master's programs.
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Our research investigates the structure, complexity and diversity of human languages.
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How does the brain cut through noise to understand speech?
Rochester researchers investigate how visual cues enhance the brain’s ability to understand speech in noisy environments.
Continue ReadingWhat's Linguistics?
The field of linguistics explores the nature of languages, seeking to describe what human languages are like, how languages develop and change, and how people learn and use language. Unlike courses in a language, where the point is to gain an automatic, unconscious ability to use the language, courses in linguistics attempt to develop a fully explicit, scientific theory of how language works. Linguistics thus offers a unique combination of humanistic and scientific concerns.
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Fall 2025 Featured Course
LING 215/415 Languages of Africa
Instructor: Associate Professor Nadine Grimm
Day, time: Tuesdays/Thursdays, 2:00pm - 3:15pm
About 2,000 of the world’s 7,000 languages are spoken in Africa. The diversity that characterizes these languages is exceptional, but little known to non-specialists. In this course, we will learn about the languages of Africa: the diversity of their linguistic structures (including famous features that are found nowhere else, e.g. click consonants), their history and the history of their speakers (from ca 10,000 BP to the (post-) colonial period), and their cultural contexts, among other topics. We will explore the wealth and diversity of African cultures through the lens of language. This course also incorporates a variety of other disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, history, archaeology, human genetics, as well as the arts, to bring to light the variety of institutions, norms, and social practices produced by African societies which have historically been excluded from dominant cultural narratives.
Fall 2025 Featured Course
LING 214/414 Statistical Methods in Linguistics
Instructor: Associate Professor Aaron White
Day, time: Mondays/Wednesdays, 12:20pm-1:45pm
This course provides an introduction to probability and statistics for linguistics, serving as an essential foundation for linguistics students who aim to analyze experimental and corpus linguistic data. Topics include (i) elementary probability theory; (ii) elementary descriptive and inferential statistics; (iii) elementary machine learning concepts; and (iv) fixed and mixed effects models. Concepts are explored through linguistic case studies, including the analysis of formally collected judgment data, reaction times, and acoustic measurements.
Center for Language Sciences
The Center for Language Sciences (CLS) is an organization at the University of Rochester that brings together faculty, postdocs, and graduate students who conduct research on any aspect of human language as a vehicle for active interdisciplinary work.
CLS fosters research and activities that reach across a very broad group of disciplines covering a wide research focus and range of interests. It's a continually evolving organization with a history of serving as a platform for training students and postdocs in interdisciplinary research and enhancing collaborations among members.
Learn More About CLS