Language is one of the most fundamental human instincts. It is an extraordinarily intricate system that all of us master as young children without special teaching, and that gives us the ability to communicate, tell stories, and express our deepest feelings.
Linguistics is the scientific study of this human language ability. It is concerned with describing languages and with understanding our knowledge of language as speakers and how we come to have that knowledge. It is connected to many other fields of study, including psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology, physics, mathematics, computer science, philosophy, and literature.
The Linguistics department at UCI focuses on the theoretical and formal approaches to the nature of language. The department is part of the School of Social Sciences and has close working relationship with Cognitive Sciences. For comments or suggestions regarding this web site, contact the webmaster.