•      problems of historico- comparative and general linguistics;

•      problems of theoretical grammar of German (modality, semantic syntax);

•      lexicological and linguo-stylistic studies (phraseological peculiarities of modern German, national varieties of German functional styles);

• methods of intensive German Language teaching, didactic basis of language- oriented area studies.

The Department of German Philology is one of the centers of Germanic studies in Ukraine. Its history reaches as far back as to 1784, when professor Leopold Umlauff started lecturing on history of German Literature in Lviv University.

In the XIX and XX centuries in connection to scientific-educational activity of professors Yanota, M.Kavchynskyi, M.Verner, V.Dolmayer and Doctors Shats and Zauer the department flourished especially. Their scientific interests were chiefly pertaining  to the problems of esthetics, historical German linguistics and literary criticism.

The most prominent representative of pre-war Germanistics was professor R.M.Verner – the author of more than 200 scientific works. Most of them are connected with problems of German literary criticism of the so-called period of “Storm and Pressure” as well as theoretical questions of literary criticism and esthetics.

An important event for Lviv Germanistics proved to become the scientific and educational activity of one of the most distinguished linguists of the XX century Y.R.Kourylovych – generator of new ideas in the field of Indo-European, General and German linguistics, creator of original concepts of the Indo-European root structure, historical origins of categories of tense, gender and aspect, intonation in many Indo-European languages. It was during the Lviv period that his scientific creativity was the most fertile. His views were developed in his first monograph “Etudes indoeuropeens” (Krakiv, 1935).

The traditions of Germanistics were kept up and developed by post-war generation of scientists led by the founder of Historical linguistics in Germanistics in Ukraine professor B.Zadorozhnyi. Owing to scientific-pedagogical activity of such scholars as B. Zadorozhnyi, M.Rozdolskyi, E.Kashchiy, A.Myuller, F.Shumylyuak, M.Svyentsitska, M.Yatsykevych, S.Pelynyo, V.Voznytsya, I.Huzar, O.Vynnytska, O.Skrypiy, O.Ripetska, P.Kurko the department of German Philology became the leading in training philologists in Ukraine in the 50-70’s. This has been kept up to present days. All scientific and pedagogical activity of the department is focused on training of the philologists – teachers of German language and literature for secondary, specialized and higher educational institutions in the field of German Philology. The level of our graduates allows them to apply their skills to various spheres of social life and business.

To provide a high level of education the staff pays attention towards the European standards of teaching and learning theory and practice of German language. The students are also on probation in Austria, Germany, Switzerland.

Teachers from Austria and Germany are on the staff too.

Comparing to pre-war years the subjects of scientific work at the department widened. It has now shifted to problems of linguistics represented the scientific school by Y.Kourylovych and B.Zadorozhnyi. The scientific heritage by professor O.Chycherin has also influenced the choice in research of the staff. New scientific and pedagogical trends are growing to become: didactics and methods of German language teaching, problems of didactics of linguistics and country studies.