To add Linguistics as your major (either as a Change of Major or for the Double Major form) please go here.
Majors Overview
The Department of Linguistics offers a major in Linguistics; a major in Language, Culture & Society; and a number of emphases that add a specialization to the Linguistics major.
- Linguistics Major, BA - Language Emphases (in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Slavic, or Spanish)
- Linguistics, BA - Language and Speech Technologies Emphasis
- Linguistics, BA - Speech-Language Sciences and Disorders Emphasis
Linguistics Major, BA
The department’s major in Linguistics (LING) focuses on the structure and use of language as a fundamental human activity, exploring similarities and differences across the languages of the world in phonetics, phonology, grammar, meaning, historical linguistics, and other aspects of linguistic structure, function, and cognition. It is especially recommended for students planning to pursue a graduate degree in linguistics, and for students interested in careers allowing them to make use of the knowledge and analytical skills they develop in linguistic analysis.
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics
Language, Culture & Society Major, BA
The department's major in Language, Culture & Society (LCS) is an interdisciplinary degree that focuses on sociocultural linguistics, combining aspects of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and related fields. It is especially recommended for students planning to pursue a graduate degree related to sociocultural linguistics, and for students interested in careers allowing them to combine issues of language, culture, and society.
Bachelor of Arts - Language, Culture & Society
Linguistics Major, BA - Language Emphases
The department also offers emphases in a variety of modern languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Slavic (Russian), and Spanish. These emphases allow students to combine a strong foundation in linguistics with close study of a particular language. The language emphases are especially recommended for students planning to pursue graduate study of linguistics within a modern language department, and for students interested in careers involving a high degree of language ability and knowledge of linguistic structure, including international careers.
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics – Chinese Emphasis
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics – English Emphasis
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics – French Emphasis
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics – German Emphasis
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics – Japanese Emphasis
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics – Slavic Emphasis
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics – Spanish Emphasis
Linguistics Major, BA - Language and Speech Technologies Emphasis
In addition, the department offers an emphasis in Speech and Language Technologies (SPTEC). Students in this emphasis complete a range of courses that cover the structural analysis of language, quantitative and statistical methods for detecting sequential and hierarchical patterns, and computational approaches for parsing and synthesizing speech and language. The Speech and Language Technologies emphasis is ideal for students planning to pursue careers in many aspects of tech-oriented industries, such as software development, search algorithms and analytics, voice recognition, language-based user interfaces, and speech synthesis.
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics – Speech and Language Technologies
Linguistics, BA - Speech-Language Sciences and Disorders Emphasis
Finally, the department offers an emphasis in Speech-Language Sciences and Disorders (SLDS), designed to provide students with pre-requisite courses for entrance into a graduate program in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) or for Speech-Language Pathology (SLP). However, this program alone will not fulfill all of the pre-requisites for a CSD or SLP graduate program as CSD and SLP do not have standardization for their pre-admission requirements . For more information, please see our LING FAQ's section on SLDS.
Bachelor of Arts – Linguistics – Speech-Language Sciences and Disorders