语言学课程旨在让学生了解人类语言科学研究及其与认知，社会和历史的关系的方法和发现。它可以为语言学或相关领域的研究生培训做准备，也可以作为严格的通识教育的一部分。语言培训与人类学，哲学，心理学以及语言和文学方面的工作以及教育，计算机科学和法律等领域的职业有关。宾州语言学系由Zellig Harris于1947年成立，是美国最古老的现代语言学系。我们在语法和语音学的核心学科以及社会语言学，语义学，话语，历史语言学，语音学和心理语言学等领域都有杰出的课程。宾夕法尼亚大学还是语言数据协会（LDC）的所在地，该协会
The Linguistics Program is intended to acquaint students with the methods and findings of the scientific study of human language and its relationships to cognition, society, and history. It serves as a preparation for graduate training in linguistics or related areas, and as part of a rigorous general education. Linguistic training is relevant to work in anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and language and literature, as well as to careers in such fields as education, computer science, and law. Founded by Zellig Harris in 1947, the Penn Linguistics Department is the oldest modern linguistics department in the United States. We have outstanding programs in the core disciplines of syntax and phonology, as well as in sociolinguistics, semantics, discourse, historical linguistics, phonetics, and psycholinguistics. Penn is also the home of the Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC), a compiler and distributor of linguistic materials for language engineering research. The graduate group in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania is an interdisciplinary team of faculty from the Department of Linguistics and related departments. Our program has strong concentrations in several areas and a tradition of collaboration among its faculty.