The Department of Romanian Language and General Linguistics is, along with the Department of Romanian Literature, one of the oldest departments of the Faculty of Letters. The old department was founded in 1919, along with foundation of the Romanian University in Cluj, immediately after the Great Union of 1918. Over the years, highly regarded key figures in linguistics have held lectures in our department. Among these key figures we recall: Sextil Pușcariu, Nicolae Drăganu, Dimitrie Macrea, Stefan Pașca, Romulus Todoran, Mircea Zdrenghea, D.D. Drașoveanu, and others. They designated essential domains of linguistic research (namely, history of language, dialectal studies, contemporary Romanian language, and stylistics). Taking into account the current structure, the department is constituted by three main branches which cover three large academic fields: Contemporary Romanian Language, History of Romanian Language, General Linguistics and Semiotics.

Our department’s staff serves the following academic specializations: Romanian A (Romanian – foreign languages), Romanian B (foreign languages – Romanian), as well as the linguistic mutual trunk (General Linguistics, Semiotics, Normative Grammar, and Introduction to the Methodology of Research), following a self-balanced theoretical line of study, which the Cluj linguistic school, with remarkable openings and results in the field of modern linguistics. The research studies in the field of relational neo-traditional syntax, as well as those in the field of Coseriu’s integral linguistics, semiotics and pragmatics are a well-known product of this train of thought.