Welcome to the General and Applied Linguistics Programme
General Linguistics is the scientific study of language in all its facets. Language is a fundamentally important aspect of human life, and impinges on virtually everything that we do. Thus, Linguistics is a study which shares interests with a very wide range of other disciplines, and usefully complements a variety of other subject areas, such as the language subjects, Philosophy, Education, Sociology, Social Anthropology, Psychology and Artificial Intelligence.
Applied Linguistics is concerned with the application of the insights gained from the study of language to practical problems, such as how best to teach languages, what are the issues in language policy formulation, language in communication, especially electronic communication, and so on.
Our courses in Linguistics constitute a major for the BA and BSocSc degrees of the University, while the Applied Linguistics courses are taught for three specific qualifications, the Postgraduate Certificate in Second Language Teaching, the Postgraduate Diploma in Second Language Teaching and the MA (Applied) in Applied Linguistics.
There will be no intake into the Postgraduate Certificate in Second Language Teaching nor the Postgraduate Diploma in Second Language Teaching for 2021
NZ Linguistics Society Journal
Read the NZ Linguistics Society Journal, edited by Waikato Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Dr. Andreea S. Calude.
Staff Profiles
Get to know our staff, their key areas of interest, and what exciting projects they're working on.
Sciblogs - The Lippy Linguist
A blog about language, words, grammar and linguistics ideas by Dr. Andreea S. Calude, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University.
Does Grammar Matter?
A TED ED discussion by Dr. Andreea S. Calude.