About

The Department of Linguistics and TESOL seeks to deepen the knowledge of the UT Arlington community about the primary vehicle of human communication: natural language. The department works toward this goal by fostering excellence in teaching and research. As teachers, members of the faculty educate future professionals in linguistics through its three graduate degree programs, with the expectation that our graduates will ultimately work, study, or conduct research in one of three areas: field linguistics, the linguistic structure of oral and written texts, and teaching English to speakers of other languages. As researchers, members of the faculty enrich society's understanding and appreciation of how human languages are structured and used around the world. With its special emphases in the study of minority languages and the application of linguistics to the teaching of English (particularly to adult learners), the department seeks to represent and validate speech communities often underrepresented in academic discourse.

Graduates of the department have found employment not only in traditionally defined academic positions (i.e. university-level teaching and research), but also in fieldwork and field program administration, international development, literacy consultation, language planning, language technology (Microsoft, Amazon), and ESL teaching, both in the United States and abroad. The Department of Linguistics & TESOL is an academic unit of UT Arlington's College of Liberal Arts (Dr. Elisabeth Cawthon, Dean).