The Department of General Linguistics is situated in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. The Department offers undergraduate modules in General Linguistics, Applied English Language Studies (AELS), and Sign Language Studies, including South African Sign Language Acquisition. On a postgraduate level, the Department offers programmes in General Linguistics, Second Language Studies, and Intercultural Communication.

The Department is also involved in several research projects, focusing inter alia on intercultural discourse in health care, multilingualism in South Africa, youth language and gesture​, child language assessment ​methodology, the bilingual and multilingual mind, and aspects of Afrikaans and SASL​​ syntax.​​