College Crunch

Linguistics is the study of language from a scientific perspective. It strives to answer one singular question.

What is Language?

In general linguists focus on explaining and organizing language and are not concerned with the individual rules of any given language. They focus on the universal aspects of language rather than the rules and exceptions of any given language. They are not interpreters, nor analysts of any given language, nor have to have a mastery of multiple languages.

The underlying goal of any linguist is to find that which is in common between all languages, and develop a theoretical framework around these commonalities to predict how languages will change and evolve.

Here at College Crunch we’ve taken a look at a variety of criteria like history,achievement, and notable students and come up with the following list of the top 10 schools for Lingustics. While the departments at these colleges are cream of the crop, keep in mind that there are many other very solid programs out there.

1. University of California, Berkeley

Berkeley, is one of the premier universities in the country, and one of the top research institutes in the world. It’s linguistics program was the first program established in the United States. It was established in 1901. Its original mission was to record the minority languages of the United States, particularly those spoken by Native American groups. The Linguistics Department still remains cutting edge today. It continues the tradition of a strong anthropological focus, integrating in-depth analysis, research and documentation with advanced theoretical work focused on phonetics, phonology and morphology, syntax and semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and the revitalization of language, historical linguistics, typology and cognitive linguistics. Because of its focus on the substance of anthropology and historical linguistics it has established itself as America’s Premier School of Linguistics.

2. Stanford University

Stanford University‘s Department of Linguistics is one of the top programs in the nation.
Stanford offers a diverse range of languages its primary scope of active research is very broad and includes acquisition, computational linguistics, historical linguistics, morphology, phonetics, phonology, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, semantics, sociolinguistics, syntax, typology and variation. Stanford’s Linguistics Department works closely with various other schools within California, and non-profits to continue the tradition of being one of the premier linguistics research institutes in the United States.

3. Cornell University

Cornell University‘s Linguistic Program remains one of the premier programs in the country. It’s phonetics lab remains the center of its research program that catapults it into the it’s premier status. It offers one of premier Undergrad Linguistics Majors on the East Coast as well.

4.University of California, Los Angeles

UCLA’s Linguistics Department is one of the major world centers for scientific study of language. The experience of the faculty includes the traditional core areas of phonetics, phonology, syntax and semantics, as well as the interdisciplinary fields of psycholinguistics, language acquisition, historical linguistics, language and mathematics. The faculty also include specialists in African and American Indigenous languages.

5. Penn State University

Penn State has a great linguistics program. It’s real focus appears to be on Language Acquisition and Historical Linguistics. It remains one of the most influential research institutions in Applied Linguistics it accepts a small amount of students to its graduate program every year keeping its student to teacher ratio small and the program very elite.

6. University of Chicago

The University of Chicago’s Linguistics Department is one of the oldest linguistics department in the United States. One of its outstanding characteristics is its commitment to a wide range of approaches to the study of language. With its never ending commitment to excellence it remains the standard by which many other universities base there linguistics standards and approach on.

7. Amherst University

Amherst University‘s Linguistics Department has the top ranked PhD program in theoretical linguistics. It remains an elite school focused on theoretical linguistics and continues to gain in popularity and growth because of its specialized focus.

8. Yale University

The first doctorate in linguistics was granted by Yale University in 1930 and has taught linguistics at the current departmental structure since 1961. It has one of the first class research departments focused on phonology and semantic relationships, and work hard to maintain one of the best graduate programs focused on linguistics in the country.

9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT Linguistics Group has participated in the study of language since the 1950s. Their main goal has been to discover the rules and relationships underlying the structure of languages and what they reveal about the principles to choose the form and language development. It’s standard of education is what makes it one of the leading research institutes and linguistics labs in the Nation.

10. New York University

NYU Linguistics Department study structural and social aspects of language, and their interaction. They specialize in phonetics and phonology. They work in close collaboration with the MIT linguistics program too.