The Department of Languages, Linguistics and Classical Studies has been constituted after merging African Languages, Classics and French departments at Chancellor College. In its new set-up it will be oriented to offer a variety of courses and programmes incomparable to any other linguistics department in Malawi. In this new structure there will be two language sections, one focusing on languages and linguistics the other section focusing on languages culture and history of civilisations of France, Ancient Greece and Rome.

The department responds to national needs and trends in linguistics teaching and research. It also moves on with the aim of analysing French, Greek and Roman cultures which have had an enormous influence on European and African culture and thought for centuries, and continue to be widely used and adapted today, in post-colonial contexts as well as their more traditional areas.

Our mission is to provide students with an understanding of the human capacity to acquire and use language, and language’s role in contemporary society. We will accomplish this through the systematic pairing of theoretical and experimental investigations of linguistic knowledge and language studies. The courses and programmes offered are designed to provide students with a solid foundation and well-grounded training in linguistics and language studies.

The department offers the following undergraduate and postgraduate programmes: BA in Linguistics, MA in Pure Linguistics, MA in Applied Linguistics, MA in Translation Studies, PhD in Pure Linguistics and PhD in Applied Linguistics. The department also offers courses which can be taken as part of a BA in Humanities as well as the BEd in Language education.

The department prepares students for careers in education, publishing, the media and information technology, translation, transcribing, advertising, forensics, dictionary writing, speech and language therapy, communication, trade and international relations. In addition, students acquire many transferable skills such as accuracy, attention to form, confidence, critical and logical thinking, data analysis, report writing, and argumentation.