Course details

Summary

Use language to drive your career

Massey’s BA (Linguistics) will equip you with the knowledge and empathy to lead cross-cultural interactions, growing your ability to drive social change and shape the future of our nation.

Cultivate your personal and professional development

Linguistics is the study of language, its structure and meaning, how it is learnt and used, and what this says about who we are and where we come from.

From interacting with friends to communicating with colleagues, language plays a fundamental role in both our public and private lives. This includes written and spoken communication, problem-solving, and social and cultural awareness. Our lecturers will encourage you to develop a deeper understanding of your own self-identity and social interactions.

A powerful communications tool

Language is the most powerful tool for connecting with and understanding our evolving diversity of people and cultures.

Massey’s BA (Linguistics) puts a strong focus on personal and applied language use, ethnographic analysis, and language forms and structure. This major will help you develop vital career skills.

Specialist language studies and options available

Whether you’re intrigued by the role of language in forensic situations, digital communities, social media, mother-tongue maintenance, or second-language learning, we have a variety of courses on offer. Our courses are taught by leading lecturers in a range of distinctive research areas.

Careers

Language is vital to human communication. The study of linguistics helps you understand the development of language and can lead to an array of careers. We have graduates working in a range of diverse sectors in many varied roles including:

• Education: ESOL teacher, language teacher, literacy advisor, university lecturer
• Business, administration and law: communications advisor, interpreter/translator, forensic document analyst
• Government departments: policy analyst, researcher, cultural adviser, immigrations officer
• Publishing, journalism, media and advertising: writer/editor, advertising consultant
• IT: computer analyst/programmer

Requirements

You will start your studies with one or more of the 100-level Linguistic courses which provide a general background to language study and a base for more advanced courses to build on. At the advanced level you study specific themes and concentrate on specialised areas of linguistics.

Major requirements

A major in Linguistics consists of 135 credits (nine courses).

Entry criteria

Students must have successful completion of a qualification equivalent to the New Zealand Year 13 - NCEA Level 3 University Entrance.

English Language Requirements:

• IELTS score of 6.0 (no band less than 5.5)
• TOEFL iBT score of 80 overall (min 19 in Writing)
• PTE Academic score of 50 Overall (min 42 in communicative skills)
• Cambridge English score of 170