The Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics is a multi-cultural and multi-lingual community which sees its role as situated at the very heart of the liberal education that Syracuse University espouses. The purposes of the Department are parallel and multiple: to promote the knowledge of languages, to study and facilitate the study of literary and other cultural texts, to study and facilitate the study of language on a theoretical level, and in all its endeavors to promote critical thinking. These areas of study are held to be of equal value.

To these ends, the Department is committed to excellent and innovative scholarship and teaching, to the promotion of diversity and trans-cultural understanding within the Department and the University, and to excellence in departmental support services.