J.R.R. Tolkien’s academic field at Oxford was philology.
Philology is the historical study of languages and written texts. Tolkien specialized in the languages and literature of Germanic traditions, including Old English, Middle English, Old Norse, and related linguistic history. His scholarly training deeply influenced the names, sounds, and invented histories of Middle-earth.
At Oxford, Tolkien held several academic posts. He became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in 1925 and later Merton Professor of English Language and Literature in 1945. He retired from his Oxford professorship in 1959.
The term philologist is sometimes confused with linguist, although the fields overlap. Tolkien’s work combined language study, textual scholarship, and literary interpretation. His famous 1936 lecture and essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics helped change how scholars viewed the Old English poem.