About Us

The Ohio State Linguistics Department is a vibrant and creative intellectual community that is committed to excellence in research, teaching and outreach. There are 18 core faculty, nearly as many faculty with courtesy appointments, several Senior Research Scientists, and about 45 doctoral students.  The department is also at the core of a large interdisciplinary community of linguists who participate in the Buckeye Language Network (BLN). Many of us are affiliated also with the Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences.  The department actively participates in the international research community, not only in the research we pursue, but also in the conferences, workshops, and symposia we host.

The department offers a rigorous and broad graduate training program leading to the Ph.D. degree, ranked 20th of 200 programs in the QS World University Rankings for 2017. We are proud of our strong placement record in both academia and industry for the more than 150 doctoral graduates since the program was established in 1965.  There is an equally broad and rigorous undergraduate program with both a major leading to a BA degree and minors tailored to many of the related disciplines that are part of the BLN. Many of our doctoral students have received teaching awards and the department as a whole was given the University Departmental Excellence Teaching Award in 2001 which continues to fund teaching-related projects such as our conversations on teaching and an annual pedagogy lecture. We also reach out to high school students who are interested in language and linguistics, by hosting an annual summer institute for high school students -- the Summer Institute in Language for Young Scholars.

Our strength as a community comes from many places. It comes from our people, who conduct and support some of the best linguistics research in the world. It comes from our discussion groups, which bring us together to talk through ideas and develop new ones. It comes from our much-loved and newly renovated <building>, which creates a welcoming space to unite us under one roof. 

It also comes from our everyday choices to treat each other with respect and consideration. We believe that good intellectual work comes from people who are supported and valued, in a community that cares for everyone. See our Code of Conduct here.