The Linguistics Department at Cornell is a center for research in the core areas of theoretical linguistics—syntax, phonology, semantics, pragmatics and phonetics—as well as in the interdisciplinary fields of computational linguistics and historical linguistics. A distinctive feature of the departmental character is research at the various interfaces, such as phonetics-phonology, phonology-syntax and syntax-semantics.

Many of the faculty have expertise in particular language areas, ranging from Romance, Germanic and Slavic to Cheyenne; the department is a distinguished center for comparative linguistics. Members of the department are also involved in various interdepartmental activities with Computer Science, Psychology, Classics and Philosophy.