School of Philosophy
Faculty of Philology
General information
The discipline of Linguistics is concerned with the scientific study of language. Its many branches study, among other things, the structure of individual languages and of language in general, the use of language in different social settings, circumstances and types of communication, the acquisition of first and second language, language change and the history of individual languages, as well as the biological, psychological and cognitive aspects of language. As in all areas of Humanities, the ultimate goal of linguistic research is to gain a better understanding of the nature of humanity and to improve the human condition.
Graduates of the Faculty of Philology majoring in Linguistics can seek employment in secondary education but also in sectors as diverse as the teaching of Greek as a second/foreign language, lexicography, translation, editing, advertising and even computer science and the legal sector (not only as linguistic advisors, but also as forensic linguists).
Linguistics was taught for the first time as an independent academic subject at the University of Athens by Georgios Hatzidakis, the founder of Greek Linguistics. He was followed by a number of well-known linguists, among them the Professors George Babiniotis and Dimitra Theophanopoulou-Kontou. Apart from the academic profile of the University, the Department (and the Chair of Linguistics before its foundation in 1984) has contributed significantly to the University's administration, with several of its members having served as Chairs of the Faculty and Deans of the School of Philosophy and two (Georgios Hatzidakis and George Babiniotis) having been elected Rectors of the University.
Doctoral Dissertations of the last 30 years
Glossologia journal
The Department publishes the annual journal Glossologia, available in electronic form at glossologia.phil.uoa.gr
Seminars
The Department organizes a series of Wednesday Seminars and a series of seminars on "Language and the Brain", with invited speakers from universities and research centres in Greece and abroad. The programmes of previous semesters are available here.
Conferences
The Department has organized several international conferences in the last
decades. For more information click here.
Research projects
Several members of the Department are involved in independently funded
Research Programmes, some as coordinators. For more information click
here.