The Department of English Linguistics is one of the first departments that started education at Mersin University, initially named English Language and Literature. While the department, like other departments of the same name in other universities, offered a program based on literary and cultural studies during its establishment phase, it started to carry out a 100% English Linguistics program starting from the 1999-2000 academic year due to the rapid development and change in its academic staff. After the closure of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as a result of the decree published in the Official Gazette dated 26 July 2022, the English Linguistics program continued its educational activities within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences as of 2022, and as of 2024, the name of the department was changed to the Department of English Linguistics, in line with the program name.

Graduates who complete the undergraduate program are awarded a Bachelor's degree in English Linguistics. The program aims to educate students who can analyse linguistic structures in natural languages, especially Turkish and English, synchronically and diachronically within the framework of all subfields of linguistics. They can also apply their linguistic knowledge in interdisciplinary fields of study and propose original and critical approaches in language teaching environments. The primary objective is to educate individuals who have high academic motivation, who follow the developments in the field, who can question the knowledge they have acquired and who can produce knowledge by using information tools effectively; who can both use English correctly and fluently and who can create original studies in the field of linguistics by using scientific methods in this language, and as a result, who can contribute to linguistics both in Turkish and in a universal context.