With a focus on English Language and through the exploration of the other languages of the world, you will learn about the characteristics that build language(s), including grammar, vocabulary, syntax, phonetics, and semantic structure. This provides a solid understanding of language construction, namely the rules and patterns that govern its internal organisation, structure and use.

Deep diving into the science of language, you will also investigate how people acquire knowledge about language, how language varies between speakers and geographic regions, and how it influences thinking and the ways in which we interact we each other across the globe.

One of the first Linguistics departments in a UK university, our internationally recognised research into language and cognition covers applied and theoretical specialisms. These include acquisition, processing, comprehension, disorders and atypical language development, use, structure, variation, change, communication, maintenance, preservation, teaching, and technologies.

Outstanding facilities include a professional grade sound/recording studio and speech laboratory with Yamaha, Alesis and RØDE recording equipment, an eye tracking laboratory with a Tobii Pro X2-60 eye tracker, and an ERP (Event Related Potential) laboratory with an actiCHamp Plus ERP machine to measure the brain’s electrical activity in response to language. An extensive range of equipment and specialised software is available to loan for student projects, such as state of the art ERP, eye tracking, sound recording, corpus and psycholinguistic resources. In addition to our dedicated library, Bangor Linguistics Society organises regular socials, guest lectures and workshops.

One of the things that sets Bangor University apart is our bilingual community. We have a long history of important research, teaching, and research project supervision in the fields of bilingualism and multilingualism, as well as more generally in the Welsh language and in Welsh linguistics.