Courses Offered

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Linguistics Courses We Offer

Linguistics is a Bachelor of Arts. In addition to the major, students must complete the general education and bachelor degree requirements, including the BA language requirement. In order to declare linguistics as a major or minor, you need to make an appointment with an advisor. You will work with your advisor to select electives that meet your needs and interests.

Below are course suggestions for the following interests:

Cognitive Science Computational Linguistics Phonology Syntax Psycholinguistics Semantics Discourse Analysis or Pragmatics General Theoretical Overview TESOL / Language Teaching

Getting Started in Linguistics

Linguistics Foundation Course option for major, fulfills HF
This Foundation Course is an introduction to linguistic study through the lens of taboo language, a pervasive part of all languages. Surveys topics in modern linguistics by studying taboos in various languages. Students sensitive to obscene words are discouraged from enrolling, as are students with only a prurient, non-scholarly interest in taboo language.
[Typically offered fall, spring, and summer]

Linguistics Foundation Course option for major, Introductory course for minor, TESOL Certificate course, fulfills BF
The Foundation Course is an introduction to the nature of human language from the perspective of modern linguistics. Focuses on sounds, words, and sentences through analysis of data from various languages. Additional topics may include: social and geographic variation, language change through time, first- and second-language acquisition, language and culture.
[Typically offered fall, spring, and summer]

Language Myths (Fulfills BF and QB)
This course investigates popular beliefs about language and discusses the perspective of modern linguistics concerning those beliefs.
[Typically offered fall, spring, and summer]

Language, Culture, and Society

TESOL Certificate course, fulfills IR
The purpose of this course is to investigate the spread of English as an international language: its historical development, socio-cultural diversity and linguistics variation. In addition to numerous readings on native and non-narrative varieties of English, which can be found throughout the world (e.g., Indian English, Singaporean English, Chicano English, etc.), topics related to educational linguistics within a World Englishes paradigm will also be addressed in order to better understand common pedagogical problems and concerns related to the English language teaching in international contexts. [Typically offered fall, spring, and summer]

Fulfills HF and IR
This course discusses ways a human language reflects the ways of life and beliefs of its speakers, contrasted with extent of language's influence on culture. Wide variety of cultures and languages examined.
[Typically offered fall, spring, and summer]

Fulfills DV and HF
Brings together native and non-native speakers of English to explore the theory and practice of communication across languages and cultures.
[Typically offered fall, spring, and summer]

Meets with LING 6040
Theoretical principles governing social and linguistic variation, and the methodology used to study it. How speech is affected by age, sex, socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and regional background, and the political/educational implications, all with a focus on the United States.

This course will present an overview of forensic linguistics with an emphasis on the areas where linguistics and the law intersect. We will especially focus on the nature of legal language, language and disadvantage before the law, the expression of defendants' rights, linguistic methods applied to statutory interpretation, and the role of language in the legal process.

The Sounds of Language

Required for Linguistics Major, required for Linguistics Minor, prerequisite: LING foundation course
Analysis of speech sounds of the world's languages, with a focus on both their articulatory and acoustic properties. An introduction to phonetic alphabets, including practice in transcribing a variety of language samples. Analysis of the systematic organization of speech sounds in the worlds languages, with reference to features and rule-based explanations of phonological phenomena.
[Typically offered fall and spring]

Prerequisite: LING 4010
An introduction to subcomponents of nonlinear phonology: syllable phonology, prosodic and metrical phonology, autosegmental phonology, and feature geometry. Also treated are phonological interfaces with morphology and syntax, and preliminary comparisons between rule-based and constraint-based models of phonology. Includes an exploration of the phonetic bases for phonological generalizations, as well as the phonetic detail of their expression.

The Structure and Meaning of Language

Required for Linguistics major, required for Linguistics minor, prerequisite: LING foundation course
Introduction to the structure and organization of phrases and clauses in natural language. A scientific approach to an empirically motivated theory of syntax. Students learn terminology, problem-solving, logical argumentation, and its presentation.
[Typically offered fall and spring]

Prerequisite: LING 4020
Groundwork in a modular, constraint-based approach to syntactic competence. Focus on case-assignment, thematic roles, movement, coreference, empty categories, and levels of representation.

Prerequisite: LING 4020
Introduction to the study of meaning of phrases and clauses. Meets with LING 6030.

How Languages are Learned and Processed

This class familiarizes students with tools (e.g., regular expressions, NLTK) used to find, retrieve, identify, tag, manipulate and analyze data from primary/in-the-field sources and established corpora. Students are introduced to ideas fundamental to Natural Language Processing, including Finite State Automata, parsing techniques, token identification, and the incorporation of statistical information for automated token tagging and identification.

Prerequisite: LING foundation course Meets with LING 6024.
Nature and acquisition of child grammar, from experimental and theoretical perspectives.

Prerequisite: LING foundation course
This course surveys core issues in the field of psycholinguistics. Throughout the course we will study how humans understand and produce language in real-time and how these complex abilities develop in infants and adults second-language learners. Topics may include, sounds (categories and speech perception), words (lexical access), sentences (structural ambiguity; dependency resolution), and their development.

Prerequisite: LING foundation course or LING 4020 or co-requisite LING 4021. Meets with LING 6300.
A survey of different subfields of computational linguistics. Topics include information retrieval, natural language processing, machine translation, and computer-assisted language learning. Students examine how linguistic concepts like syntax and morphology are articulated in a computational environment for specific purposes, such as text search. Basic programming knowledge helpful but not required.

The Structure and Meaning of Language

TESOL Certificate course
A descriptive overview of the forms and function of English grammar structures with guidance in standard usage.
[Typically offered fall and spring]

Fulfills CW
Examines common grammatical and stylistic problems from a rhetorical and functional perspective.
[Typically offered fall and spring]

Prerequisite: LING foundation course. Meets with LING 6233.
An analysis of a broad range of English phonetic and grammatical structures and models for teaching this material in the ESL/EAS classroom.

TESOL Certificate course, prerequisite: LING foundation course.
Meets with WLC 5410.
An examination of approaches and methods in second-language teaching, as well as the theories of language and language acquisition on which they are based. Discussion and practice of current assessment procedures. Also a focus on educators' implicit theories of L2 learning and teaching. Includes critiqued peer teaching. This course is restricted to students in the TESOL certificate and Foreign Language majors and minors.
[Typically offered fall and spring]

TESOL Certificate course, prerequisite: LING 5810 or LANG 5400
LING 5813 focuses on the development of second and foreign language teaching skills, particularly skills for lesson planning and delivery for different levels of language proficiency and different contexts. To this end, the course is designed to give preservice teachers opportunities to do the following: (1) identify indicators of effective language instruction, (2) develop skills in observing second language (L2) classes, (3) select and/or develop instructional activities appropriate for different levels of language proficiency and contexts, (4) develop skills in planning lessons for L2 learners, (5) practice teaching skills using a variety of instructional strategies, (6) incorporate constructive criticism into lesson planning and micro-teaching demonstrations. The course has either a 30-hour field experience requirement for LING 5813 or a 45-hour field experience requirement for LING 6813. LING 6813 also requires that students develop a professional e-portfolio.
[Typically offered fall and spring]

Prerequisite: LING 5810 or LANG 5400, and LING 1200
An overview of the conceptual bases of language testing and procedures for designing and developing useful language tests.

Department of Linguistics

College of Humanities