DELC HoD Message

Welcome message from the Head of Department, Department of Linguistics, English Language Studies and Communication Skills (DLEC)

Welcome to the website for the Department of Linguistics, English Language Studies and Communication Skills (DLEC). We would like to take this opportunity to inform you that the Department was created in 2011, when Makerere became a collegiate University.  The Department is found in the School of Languages, Literature and Communication, in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Before collegisation, the Subjects of Linguistics, English Language Studies and Communication Skills existed each independently in the former Institute of Languages, along with other language Subjects. With the collegisation, they were grouped together to form a Department. DLEC was adopted as the acronymic name for the Department.

DLEC has now come of age since its creation. As a Department, it is responsible for implementing the academic agenda of the University at the lowest unit level. The agenda is three-fold, namely, conducting research to discover new knowledge (in its discipline(s)), teaching the new knowledge and disseminating it through publications and outreaches. This is done by evaluating the existing knowledge as a basis for realising new research areas. The stakeholders in the Department are the academic staff, administrative staff and students. With a robust staff, a desired number of students and quality infrastructure, the Department is set to implementing its mandate, as these are the pillars on which its work revolves. 

Its impact needs to be seen taking the direction of providing more and more answers on things in the world we live in. They should be answers on the nature of language and how to better exploit it, answers on the specific form of English to understand its nature and usage, and answers on communication skills in the language communication processes. The Department is organised under sub-units to cater for the study of the different phenomena. The sub-units include the following subjects: Linguistics (LIN), English Language Studies (ELS) and Communication Skills (CSK).

Overtime, the Department has produced graduates, publications (through individual staff members) and staff in their different ranks. It has a lot to offer as you will see on the different links of this page. Thank you for visiting the Departmental website, and feel free to leave your questions and comments on the guest section to help us improve our performance. We Build for the Future.