24 Interesting Undergraduate Dissertation Ideas In Linguistics


Sometimes the hardest part about working on a dissertation on linguistics is coming up with really good topic ideas. We’ve compiled a list of 24 of the most interesting undergraduate dissertation ideas for you to consider for you to use on your own project:

  1. Provide a discussion and analysis of how changes to Australian English have come about over the last two centuries.
  2. Analyze how different cultures develop colloquialisms relating to day to day situations recognizable to certain areas.
  3. Write a linguistics dissertation on how different people from around the world talk about time (hours, days, weeks, etc.).
  4. How are verbal affixes used differently across European languages when presenting an argument through written form?
  5. Evaluate how emotion is discussed across different countries in South America compared to European ones.
  6. How do classic literary works from different parts of the world affect the way language has developed in those parts?
  7. Evaluate different methods for categorizing linguistic elements across different regions of the United States.
  8. Analyze language differences among people of different social and economic classes. Is language learned in the same way?
  9. What does it mean to be “bilingual” in today’s world where automatic and computer driven translations are commonplace?
  10. Analyze special noun compounds and the effects they have had towards both spoken and written English.
  11. Evaluate the work of a pioneering professional in the discipline of linguistics and provide a critical analysis on how it has held up in the field.
  12. Provide a case study for how language has created a barrier in a person or people’s lives and prevented them from experiencing other cultures.
  13. Is technology negatively or positively affecting the development of language? Consider texts, tweets, and other forms of abbreviated communication.
  14. Conduct a forensic study on how word length and phrasal structure is used to convey different meaning in written language.
  15. Evaluate and analyze grammatical and lexical changes in the last two centuries and describe the differences with changes in previous centuries.
  16. Provide a critical analysis of different computational aspects of the English language and how artificial intelligence fits within this context.
  17. Conduct a study proving or disproving humans’ need to develop a written and spoken language.
  18. How does the wide use of incorrect English affect the evolution of the language and what is or isn’t likely to become a part of the lexicon?
  19. Analyze the process of semantic change in European languages. Have these processes changed in the last century?
  20. Describe the positive effects that shorthand forms of communicating ideas has on the way people express emotions.
  21. What are some features of spoken language that are different from features of the same written language?
  22. Conduct a critical comparison of both pragmatics and semantics in two texts written by the same author in separate decades.
  23. Discuss how vocabulary has evolved to express distinct ideas throughout the history of human existence.
  24. Thinking beyond language how will humans continue express complex ideas in the future.