Computer Science, Linguistics and a Language

B.A. (Mod) in Computer Science, Linguistics and a Language. CSLL combines the study of Computer Science; a natural language, either Spanish, French or Irish; and Linguistics.

Computer Science Component

The computer science component of CSLL seeks to impart a mastery of the techniques and technologies that lie behind what you see on the screen of one of today's computers, giving you a full understanding the computer applications of today, and enabling you to participate in the development of the applications of the future. No prior knowledge of programming is required; some aptitude for mathematics, for the analysis of a system, for recognition of structure will help. For this reason the degree requires a C3 or better in Higher Level maths.

Participating department: School of Computer Science and Statistics.

Language Component

For the chosen language (Spanish, French or Irish), this component of CSLL will provide you with a degree-level standard of comprehension, grammatical competence and fluency, in both written and spoken language. For those undertaking Spanish or French, a significant feature of the programme is you will spend the third year abroad as an Erasmus exchange student . The CSLL degree has an extensive network of exchange agreements with European universities that offer a similar combination of computer science and linguistics, and during the year abroad education in these components of the CSLL degree continues, via the relevant language. See Course Structure.

Participating departments: Spanish, French and Irish.

Linguistics Component

Besides mastering a particular language, CSLL students become acquainted also with the scientific study of language in general (linguistics), as well as technologies specifically focussed on language (computational linguistics). This involves study of such things as the sound systems used by languages generally, how these are produced by humans by manipulating a flow of air, how they can be recognised by a computer from a digital encoding of sound, how syntactic structures show regularities across languages, how a sentence's syntactic structure relates to its meaning, and so on.

Participating departments: School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences and School of Computer Science and Statistics.

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