Linguists study how languages are structured, how they are learned and used, and how languages change through time. All are three year degrees. Students with a pass in TEE Discrete Mathematics only will be required to take additional Mathematics in first year. Prospective students often ask whether they have to know many languages, or have to be 'good at languages' to do well in Linguistics. It certainly doesn't hurt to know several languages, but it isn't necessary either.
Many excellent linguists speak only one language.
What is most important is to have a curiosity about languages, because that is where Linguistics really starts. The aim of our teaching programme is to give students the broadest possible grounding in contemporary linguistics, as part of a general education in the arts or sciences, and to enable those students choosing linguistics as their major focus to specialise in those areas of interest both to them and to the staff of the Department. The first year linguistics course consists of three semester length units, of which students typically take one in each semester. In the first semester, the unit The Nature of Language introduces students to concepts viewed as fundamental in understanding the form and fuction of language. The second semester unit Language as a Cognitive System deals with how language evolved in the species homo sapiens, how linguistic abilities develop in the normal human child, and how language is represented in the human brain.