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Flash talks to be presented on December 11
Join us for a rapid round of research talks on Dec 11th at 10:00am in AQ 6106. learn more →
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Undergrads share origin stories of their love of linguistics
View the video on our YouTube channel! learn more →
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Electives: Spring 2026
By taking LING 220: Introduction to Linguistics, you will gain access to the majority of upper division Linguistics courses, as this course is the keystone prerequisite of LING offerings. learn more →
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Term Info: Spring 2026
View undergraduate course offerings for Spring 2026, as well as info on office hours, electives and more. learn more →
Hear from our students
“What I love about Linguistics is that language is such a human thing. And what Linguistics does is instead of enforcing or prescribing rules for how people should speak, it describes and seeks to understand how languages evolve and develop and how they work.”
— Student of LING 220: Introduction to Linguistics
Watch video of our undergraduate students sharing their experiences of falling in love with linguistics.
The science of language
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, including language analytics, how languages evolve, and how we use language to communicate. Linguistic research advances knowledge on how we socialize, how we understand or misunderstand one another, and how we use language to interpret the world around us. Areas of study include sounds (phonetics and phonology), words (morphology), sentences (syntax), pattern and variation analysis (corpus linguistics), narratives and conversations (discourse analysis), meaning (semantics and pragmatics) and the study of individual languages, including Indigenous languages.
SFU Linguistics is one of the largest and most diverse linguistics programs in Canada. We offer a wide range of courses about language at the undergraduate level, including certificate programs in Linguistics of Speech Science and Teaching English as a Second Language. We also offer graduate programs for MA and PhD degrees. The work conducted in our research labs aims to address questions such as how language is acquired in infancy, how second languages are acquired, and how language can be processed by computers.
Career options related to linguistics are expanding each year, as the value of skills such as computational text analysis, practical application of phonetic science, and sociolinguistic analysis is being recognized in the increasingly data-driven job market. Linguistics graduates may choose to work in analytics, language data management, ESL instruction, speech language assistance, and natural language processing (NLP). With further education, a student can become an audiologist, speech-language pathologist, forensic linguist, and more.
News and events
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December 05, 2025
Undergrads share origin stories of their love of linguistics
View the video on our YouTube channel! -
December 01, 2025
Flash talks to be presented on December 11
Join us for a rapid round of research talks on Dec 11th at 10:00am in AQ 6106. -
November 26, 2025
Inaugural alumna Virginia Uhi shares her course-based MA experience
“As a course-based MA student, my tasks came to completion at a steady, regular pace rather than building lengthily over years to a singular completion. For me, this format was more fulfilling.” -
October 31, 2025
MA Thesis Defence: Laurens Bosman
Bosman’s thesis is titled Morphosyntactic Variation in the Past Tense of Greek as Spoken by Greek Canadians. -
October 30, 2025
Melissa Wong selected for 2026 FASS Dean's Undergraduate Fellowship
Students are selected not only for their exceptional academic achievements and intellectual potential, but also for their embodiment of core humanistic values such as compassion, creativity and leadership. -
October 29, 2025
Marianne Ignace receives FASS Research Excellence Award
“The most impressive aspect of Dr. Ignace’s work is how her deeply nuanced and insightful research, a model of academic work, has been translated into effective action in terms of Indigenous language revitalization. It is one of the best examples of what we should strive for as an engaged university.” -
October 16, 2025
Alum Xing Yu investigates impact of residential noise on language development in children
“Noise pollution has been linked to impaired development in a variety of language-related skills in laboratory settings. While studies have focused on school environments, residential noise exposure’s impact remains underexplored.” Yu is a PhD student at the School of Population and Public Health, UBC.