Linguistics with Study Abroad BA

How is meaning created? How do we transfer an idea from one person to another? On this four-year course, you will develop your knowledge and expertise in linguistics theory. You may study evolutionary biology to shed light on the origins of language, deploy psychological and neuroscientific methods to observe language processing in the brain in real time, use philosophy and logic to analyse meaning, and put together field studies to learn more about languages from all over the world.

This course is essentially the same curriculum as our three-year Linguistics BA but you will complement your studies at UCL with a year spent abroad studying at one of our partner institutions. Please note that year abroad options are subject to change without notice. The course also shares many core elements with the Experimental Linguistics BSc course.

Linguists work across many different environments and industries, and this wide-ranging course reflects that variety. You might find yourself comparing how questions are formed in Russian and Swahili, exploring the factors that influence stuttering, or recording speakers’ dialects and accents for phonetic or sociolinguistic analysis.

In your first year, you’ll acquire a foundational understanding of the three core areas of grammatical description:

• Phonetics and phonology (how sounds are produced and perceived)
• Morphology and syntax (how words are formed and combined into sentences)
• Semantics and pragmatics (what sentences mean and how they are used)

As you progress into the second year, and alongside four compulsory modules, you’ll select four elective or optional modules, allowing you to tailor your course around your own interests and career goals. Your third year is the year abroad. You will gain further linguistic knowledge with exposure to research and education from another leading linguistics department. Places at individual partner institutions are competitive and subject to availability. In order to qualify for the study year abroad, you must maintain an average mark of 60% during each of your first two years.

Your undergraduate dissertation is the main focus of your final fourth year. It is the culmination of your studies where you will work with an academic supervisor to develop an original piece of research on a topic of your choice. Additionally, you will take three advanced modules from the core areas of linguistics, one intermediate or advanced module offered in an area of linguistics, and two further elective modules. Your elective modules can be studied within linguistics, but you may also choose modules from outside the department. Students studying a foreign language in Year 2 often continue this later in their studies.

UCL has a rich tradition of research into language with a strong history in the cognitive scientific approach to the study of language. The UCL Linguistics department is at the heart of this tradition, and so the students will be learning directly from our tight-knit community of leading researchers in the world of linguistics.

In your third year, you will study abroad at one of our partner institutions. The partner institutions are internationally recognised for their excellence in linguistics and updated yearly. Generally, our partner institutions are located in Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. The year abroad allows you to deepen and broaden your understanding of linguistics, to experience a new culture, and potentially to improve your knowledge of a foreign language.

Your home department is based at Chandler House, a dedicated building for linguistics and language sciences. Facilities include sound-proof booths and eye-tracking facilities to conduct psycholinguistic experiments. There are social and study spaces for students, and subject specific events and talks are held throughout the academic year.

Chandler House is based in Bloomsbury, in the heart of London, so you have access to a global city with world-class facilities, clubs and social venues.

Additionally, you gain access to:

• World-leading linguistics training. Study with one of the world’s most prestigious research universities, and the top ranked university for Linguistics in London (The Guardian University Guide 2026). We are also ranked 3rd in the UK for Linguistics according to The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2026.
• Diverse London location. With around 1,000 languages spoken, this exceptionally multi-cultural city provides a wealth of opportunities to test and develop your linguistic abilities.
• A broad set of multidisciplinary skills and linguistics competencies. Gain expertise and explore how linguistics intersects with fields as varied as anatomy, psychology, statistics and neuroscience.
• A tightly knit, supportive academic environment. You’ll join a small but lively community (typically 50 students in each year) in the linguistics building, Chandler House, in the heart of London.
• Statistical methods, data analysis and computational linguistics. You may develop the fundamental skills used to analyse quantitative psychological data, and learn about computational linguistics through optional modules from expert lecturers and researchers from leading tech companies (including Google DeepMind).
• Routes to industry and academia. Leave well equipped for a broad range of highly-skilled roles in language or communication-based industries, or pursue a PhD.
• Professional networking opportunities. Build connections within the international linguistics community, through our department’s enduring associations with the Linguistics Olympiad and the Linguistics Association of Great Britain (whose annual award for Outstanding Undergraduate Dissertation has been won by UCL students six times since 2017).