Linguistics and Communication Studies

How must a homepage be designed so it can be operated by different types of users? According to which laws does communication function in personal conversations, chat rooms, or emails? Why do some technologies prevail, while others do not? Which arguments are dominant in public discussions and why? How can they be used convincingly in speeches and presentations? How can space be constructed using language? The Linguistics and Communication Studies program looks at the description and analysis of communication phenomena. Special attention is given to the topics Language and Thought, Internet Communication and Public Use of Language, Culture of Technology, and Sociology of Technology. The spectrum of topics ranges from socially relevant text types to questions of rhetorical communication and medical ethics in media discourse. Students deal with two subject areas – linguistics and communication studies. In addition, studying at a technical university offers them the opportunity to discover perspectives from the engineering and natural sciences, from which they can take an interdisciplinary look at the phenomena of language and communication.Thus, three disciplinary approaches are interlinked: Linguistics, with its sub-disciplines of phonology, morphology, and syntax, describes the structure of language – from the smallest to the most complex linguistic units. The fields of semantics and pragmatics focus on meaning and action-related aspects. For example, language use in specific texts or in different contexts and domains, such as politics, business, or advertising, is described. Communication studies expand this linguistic approach with regard to language as a means of communication. Among other things, they take into account interactions and communication with different media, with interactions between media and their users being of particular interest. In addition, communicative possibilities and limits of different media and application contexts will be investigated. These interdisciplinary perspectives open up approaches to the phenomenon of language from the perspective of other subjects. Neighboring disciplines from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering offer diverse insights and methods that can enrich the repertoire of linguistics and communication studies.