Learning Outcomes

Students who complete a major in Linguistics:

• Grasp the complexity of language as a communication system shaped by cognitive, biological, cultural, and social factors.
• Demonstrate understanding of the concepts, theories, and methodologies used by linguists in qualitative and quantitative analyses of linguistic structure, and patterns of language use.
• Demonstrate understanding of processes of language change and variation, the role of language in reflecting and constructing social identities, and the distinctive properties of human language.
• Are able to collect, organize and analyze linguistic data from diverse languages, to form hypotheses about language structure/use and to test those hypotheses against new data.
• Acquire the technical vocabulary and theoretical tools of the field, necessary to read published linguistic research.
• Can synthesize research findings and construct a readable, well supported research report.
• Are ready for significant scholarly participation in the field of linguistics.