香港中文大學

The field of Linguistic science has established a wealth of scientific findings on language. Through a programme of rigorous study, students will develop a basic understanding of the methods of linguistic analysis and an appreciation of some of the achievements of the field. Students will acquire an enlightened outlook on language, as well as general problem-solving and research skills.

The BA programme in Linguistics aims to achieve the following learning outcomes in students:

• Possessing a body of knowledge about theories of language and language acquisition as well as the associated methods of analysis.
• Possessing a body of knowledge about the relationship between theoretical linguistics and linguistics applied to other disciplinary studies.
• Possessing a sharpened awareness of the languages used in the local community through developing their abilities in analyzing, primarily but not exclusively, Cantonese, Mandarin and English, in particular how these languages are structured and acquired as a linguistic system, and how they function socio-linguistically in the local community, the region and the world.
• Possessing analytical and critical thinking capabilities and a sufficient set of research skills for work and postgraduate study.
• Being linguistically competent in Mandarin, Cantonese and English for work and postgraduate study.
• Developing an appreciation and knowledge of Modern Languages for intercultural communication.

Career prospects

• With solid training in linguistics and wide exposure to diverse disciplines, our graduates are in a strong position to pursue careers in language education, business and public administration, interpretation and translation, journalism and various other media and communications-related services, computer language processing and language engineering research, speech therapy, and brain and cognitive science research.
• Those wishing to further their studies may consider our postgraduate programmes. Some of our graduates from these programmes also received competitive scholarships to further doctoral studies in prestigious universities abroad.
• Our B.A. and M.A. programmes in Linguistics are exempted from the English Language Proficiency Assessment by the Education Bureau, HKSAR upon completion of relevant teacher training.