Beginners' Italian and Linguistics

Italian and linguistics, studied together at Oxford from beginner level in Italian, is a combination that develops both deep linguistic immersion and rigorous scientific understanding of how language works. Italian is one of the great languages of Europe, carrying a literary tradition that runs from Dante and Petrarch through to Calvino and Eco, and a living culture of art, music, film, and design that continues to shape the world. Linguistics, as a discipline, steps back from any particular language to ask systematic questions about the structures all languages share and the ways they differ, how language is acquired, how it varies across social groups, and how it changes over time.

At the University of Oxford, this four-year full-time programme is designed for students who arrive without previous Italian study, giving you the opportunity to develop your practical language skills to a high level from scratch alongside a theoretical study of linguistics. You will engage with Italian literature and culture as you develop fluency, and you will explore the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of language through the formal analytical tools that linguistics provides. The combination is intellectually unusual: you are simultaneously mastering a language through practice and analysing language as a formal system, and the two activities genuinely illuminate each other.

Graduates from Italian and linguistics programmes go on to careers in translation and interpreting, language teaching, academic research in linguistics or Italian studies, journalism, publishing, the civil service, international organisations, and the cultural sector. Further study at postgraduate level in linguistics, translation studies, Italian studies, or cognitive science is a natural route for those who wish to develop specialist expertise or pursue academic careers.