Linguistics is an unusually exact and structured discipline within the humanities. Since it centers on the study of human language and language ability, it connects to many other fields in the humanities (philosophy, literature, history), the social sciences (psychology, anthropology, sociology), and the natural sciences (neurobiology, acoustics, computer science).

At UCSC, the linguistics curriculum is built upon a core sequence of courses in language structure, divided roughly into three components: the study of sounds (phonetics and phonology), the study of words and sentence structure (morphology and syntax), and the study of meaning (semantics). All faculty in the department have primary research and teaching interests in one or more of these areas.

The major in Linguistics provides students with a thorough and rigorous introduction to the central aspects of linguistic structure and the major perspectives of the field, while allowing for further specialization and considerable diversity. Successful completion of the major leads to a BA degree in Linguistics. The department also offers a minor in Linguistics.

The undergraduate linguistics program at UC Santa Cruz is recognized as one of the best in North America. Our graduates are routinely admitted to top graduate programs. Undergraduate alumni/ae from this department are on the faculty at the University of Chicago, Rochester University, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Michigan. A linguistics degree is excellent training for many careers. See the "Life After the Department" link to learn more about this.