Linguistics: General Linguistics

The General Linguistics Master's programme aims at students who would like to deepen their knowledge of linguistics and want to specialise in a subdiscipline of linguistics in a relatively short time.

In the one-year Master's programme General Linguistics, you come to understand how human language works by comparing as many language systems as possible, including spoken languages from all continents, sign languages, child language, and disordered language. The programme has a typological focus: it aims at finding out to what extent language systems can vary and to what extent this variation is constrained. Drawing on evidence from language observation, behavioural and neuro-imaging experiments, and explicit modelling, you will learn how language is structured and how language users produce, comprehend and acquire the phonetics, phonology, syntax and semantics of their language(s). You will conduct an in-depth research project under close supervision, culminating in your final thesis.
General Linguistics is coordinated by the large and thriving linguistics community unified in the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication (ACLC). General Linguistics offers a linguistics programme at a level that consistently ranks highest in Continental Europe (QS World University Rankings by Subject), with an international and highly-motivated group of students and lecturers.