The Department seeks to promote actionable research in the domain of human languages and fulfil its mandate of promoting and strengthening participatory democratic practices. This involves research in sound patterns, word formation processes, sentence structures, the emergence of linguistic meaning, processes of language change, language use, the relationship between language and society etc. In line with the mandate, special attention is given to the languages of linguistic minorities of India. Such an orientation sensitizes the students to the diversity of language structures found in human languages.
Given the importance of linguistic resources for a thriving participatory democracy, the teaching and research programmes in the Department are geared towards equipping students with research tool-kits which would enable them to understand, describe and work with these resources. Working with lesser-known and understudied languages instils in the students a sense of responsibility and respect towards the linguistic diversity of the world, by developing an attitude which is responsive to the needs of the plurilingual ethos prevalent in human societies.