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Celebrating 60 years of linguistics at Simon Fraser University
Laurel Weldon: “The exciting new collaborations with other departments, universities and communities around the province and across the world lead me to expect another 60 years and beyond of even greater success.” learn more →
Hear from our students
Watch videos of our undergraduate students sharing their experiences at LING:
“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
“My favourite part of this class is developing language games and gaining real-world experience with kids visiting Science World. The course truly brings linguistics to life and you get to see what the science of language is about first hand.”
— Student of LING 350: First Language Acquisition
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 a certificate program in the Linguistics of Speech Science. 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 early childhood, how second languages are acquired, and what insights can be gained from computational analysis of language data.
Career options related to linguistics continue to expand as the value of skills in areas such as natural language processing, discourse analysis, practical application of phonetic science, and sociolinguistic analysis is being recognized in our increasingly data-driven world. Linguistics graduates may choose to work in language analytics, big data processing and management, forensic linguistics, ESL instruction, speech language pathology, and publishing.
News and events
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September 08, 2026
Welcoming the 2026 cohort of Linguistics grad students
We'd like to introduce Favour Chibueze, Vic Lancaster, Marcell Maitinsky and Alice Munro, and to welcome back Ben Chung, Ellie Dueck and Gento Okawa. -
August 31, 2026
Celebrating 60 years of linguistics at Simon Fraser University
Laurel Weldon: “The exciting new collaborations with other departments, universities and communities around the province and across the world lead me to expect another 60 years and beyond of even greater success.” -
August 18, 2026
PhD Thesis Defence: Yifang Yuan
Yifang’s thesis is titled “Asking questions in context: Evidence, social relations and question-form choice in Mandarin Chinese conversation.” -
August 06, 2026
Boey Kwan earns First Class with Distinction and begins career in fintech
“In my everyday life, I constantly feel excited to expand my horizons and challenge the way that I approach puzzles and problems, so that I don't become complacent or stagnant.” -
August 06, 2026
PhD Thesis Defence: Sylvia Cho
Sylvia’s thesis is titled “Cross-language voice variation and talker identity in Korean heritage speakers.” -
August 05, 2026
Phoenix Neuscheler wins 2026 CLA Best Student Poster
“Judges mentioned that the presentation of data on the interaction between reduplication and applicatives was fascinating and constituted an impressive feat of elicitation.” -
August 04, 2026
Marianne Ignace appointed to Order of British Columbia
“A leading advocate for Indigenous data sovereignty, she helped reshape research ethics by promoting community ownership of oral histories and knowledge.”