Linguistics Department

LING 211 - Introduction to Linguistic Analysis

An introduction to the empirical study of human language. This course introduces students to the core subfields of linguistics (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics/pragmatics), focusing on the essential formalisms and analytical techniques needed to pursue more specialized coursework in the field. Through direct engagement with data from a wide range of the world's languages, students gain experience in describing linguistic structures and formulating testable hypotheses about the organization of mental grammar.

LING 212 - Introduction to Sociolinguistic Patterns

This course is part of the linguistics department's introductory series, and is a survey of scholarship devoted to the inclusion of the social within linguistic inquiry. We focus on the sociolinguistic patterning of language through the key concepts of variation and change. We also explore theoretical notions (ideology, indexicality, repertoires), methodologies for gathering sociolinguistic data, perspectives on sociolinguistic analysis at the level of the group and the individual, and the role of identity, agency, and social categories in sociolinguistics. Students collect original data and write short research write-ups, moving from a collaborative data project to a final research project of each student's choosing.

LING 220 - Language and Discrimination in the United States

Linguistic discrimination is one of the last socially acceptable forms of discrimination, in large part because it serves as a proxy for other forms of discrimination (i.e., attitudes about language, like The Southern accent sounds slow and lazy, actually function as attitudes about speakers). In this class, we will engage with the myths and language ideologies active in the current U.S. context, from Standard Language Ideology to the Myth of Monolingualism, to frame our study of individuals and speech communities who experience discrimination. Students will acquire knowledge of key aspects of the linguistic system that support a positive perspective on linguistic diversity. In addition, specific varieties, including African American Language and Latinx English, as well as social groups and styles, from young people's speech to codeswitching, will be spotlighted, as will a range of contexts for discrimination, from the law to the workplace to the college classroom. Student work will focus on community engagement and application, with final products that directly relate to linguistic social justice in our local community. 

LING 312 - Topics in Linguistic Analysis

Topics vary.

LING 320 - Phonetics

This course covers areas such as the articulation of speech, the basic anatomy of the vocal tract, the acoustic properties of speech sounds, and speech perception. Students will become proficient in reading and using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) through extensive practice in transcribing speech sounds drawn from a wide variety of languages, and will obtain practical skills in doing speech analysis with Praat. The course will prepare students for independent field and laboratory work, as well as familiarizing them with basic techniques necessary for conducting phonetic experiments.

LING 321 - Phonological Theory

Although no two utterances sound exactly the same, speakers of a language overlook distinctions to which mechanical recording devices are sensitive, and they "hear" contrasts that are objectively not there. This course examines the nature of the complex links between abstract language-specific perceptual worlds and the real world of actual sounds in light of the major empirical approaches and theoretical currents in the study of linguistic sound systems. It will consider the relations between the articulatory gestures of language and other levels of linguistic description, notably morphology and syntax, and will also explore different models for formulating phonological rules.

LING 322 - Research Topics in Phonetics and Phonology

The way we understand the phonological grammar has changed as formal phonological theory and psycholinguistic research continue to evolve. Through engaging with both classic and current research, we will seek to answer the question: what do speakers need in order to know about the sounds and sound patterns of their language? Topics to cover include the role of phonetic naturalness; our sensitivity to the gradient nature of phonotactics; the role of lexical statistics, word frequency, and phonological neighborhood density; and our awareness of fine acoustic and nonacoustic details of how speech is produced. We will also cover how our phonology is affected by those we speak with, and how our attention to certain acoustic cues can result in perceptual stretching and illusions, especially in cases of producing and perceiving foreign languages, adapting loanwords into the native phonology, and even juggling multiple phonologies in one's own mind.

LING 323 - Introductory Syntax

The goal of syntax is to characterize the (largely tacit) knowledge that enables speakers of a language to combine words into larger units such as phrases and sentences, and to "parse" (i.e., assign an abstract structural representation to) the phrases and sentences that they read and hear. This course, accessible to students with no previous training in linguistics, will introduce increasingly explicit grammar fragments of English. The goal is to present a range of phenomena of concern to syntax, and to explore formal devices that have been proposed to account for such phenomena. The course will consider such topics as constituent structure, lexical categories and selectional properties of words, movement and locality, case assignment, empty categories, and the interpretation of pronouns. The course also introduces central concepts and notation from contemporary theoretical syntax, focusing on the principles and parameters framework developed by Noam Chomsky and others.

LING 324 - Research Topics in Syntax

This course gives students the opportunity to build on concepts and methodologies learned in introductory syntax by exploring current research problems in formal syntax. Readings for the course include influential papers from the history of generative grammar, as well as more recent contributions to the field. This course also builds on the topics discussed in Linguistics 328 by considering data from a variety of languages, and addressing the issue of how formal syntactic theories handle cross-linguistic variation. Topics covered may include word order variation, constraints on phrase structure and movement, functional categories, and the theory of anaphora.

LING 328 - Morphosyntactic Typology

The course provides an introduction to cross-linguistic variation and grammatical description. We develop the notion of linguistic typology and explore proposed universals of language, based on the comparative study of the morphology and syntax of the languages of the world. We consider such topics as parts of speech, word order, case marking, grammatical relations, passive and its friends, causatives, and configurationality-all with reference to both the familiar languages of Europe and less familiar languages of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania.

LING 330 - Contact Languages

An investigation into the linguistic varieties and linguistic practices that emerge from contact situations. Taking into account both diachronic and synchronic perspectives, we focus on the linguistic effects of language contact, including code-switching, admixture, lexical borrowing, and language shift. We emphasize the most striking cases of language contact-pidgins and creoles-identifying the formal structures of these varieties, describing the social contexts that surround their emergence, and discussing the relevance of creole formation to models of universal grammar. Students gain experience working with audio and other primary source data to present case studies of the structural and sociolinguistic properties of contact varieties.

LING 332 - Dialects of English

This course is an introduction to dialectology-the study of regional variation in language-with an emphasis on the history and description of the varieties of English currently spoken in the United States. Students will acquire a practical knowledge of major linguistic differences among dialects of English, and will gain hands-on experience in collecting linguistic data from varieties of nonstandard English. Forms of English to be discussed include varieties of American English and other global English dialects. Other topics include language attitudes, the rise of "standard" English and its implications, phonological chain shifts and diffusion, and language variation and change. Students will actively collect data on dialects from family, friends, and the media, to be accompanied by audiovisual material in class, including video clips and songs. Students will read scholarly articles and complete short assignments throughout the semester, and conduct a data-driven research project to be submitted at the end of the semester.

LING 335 - Language and Gender

This course is an introduction to the large body of literature on language and gender within sociolinguistics and the study of language in context more generally. Students will investigate how language in use mediates, and is mediated by, social constructions of gender and sexuality. An emphasis on the history of research in language and gender, which contains distinct phases and movements in the field, will culminate in a current description of the state of language and gender research today. Particular attention will be paid to the evolution of feminist theory, the political economy, ideology, hegemony, performativity, resistance, and the "borders" of gender identities. Students will read scholarly articles and write critical reflection papers, and complete a final paper on a topic of their choosing related to language and gender.

LING 336 - Linguistic Field Methods

This course explores the goals and techniques of elicitation-based fieldwork through the empirical study of an unfamiliar and under-studied language, using native speakers as consultants. Students will work together in a hands-on lab setting to produce fragments of linguistic description based on individual and group elicitation.

LING 337 - Methods of Design and Analysis

The tasks of designing, carrying out, and interpreting linguistic research vary across subfields, traditions, and time; in particular, quantitative methods have become increasingly crucial in both formal and social areas of linguistic study. Using a different unifying topic each semester, this course will guide students through the process of quantitative linguistic research from the choice of topic and research design through statistical analysis and presentation. Students will write their own research papers on topics of their choosing using the skills covered here, including devising a feasible research question; designing a study to operationalize that question; gathering, annotating, and analyzing data; visualizing results in various formats; interpreting and evaluating those results; writing a journal article-style paper to present the findings; and preparing a conference-style poster and/or talk presentation to share the conclusions. Students should emerge with a newfound ability to critically engage with journal articles in linguistics and related fields. Throughout the semester, students will make use of software such as Audacity, Praat, Excel, and R, and learn how and when to use statistical tests such as correlations, regressions, t-tests, and ANOVAs.

LING 341 - Semantics

Semantics is the branch of linguistics that deals with the relationship between the form and meaning of linguistic expressions (morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences). The basic project of formal semantics is to develop a theory of how the meaning of a complex linguistic expression is built up, or "computed," from the meanings of its constituent parts and how those parts are combined. In this course we sketch a formal compositional model for the semantics of English and consider how this model captures speakers' intuitions about entailment, presupposition, and ambiguity. Topics covered include inference relations and concepts of meaning, developing a metalanguage (based on simple set theory and propositional logic) for representing the denotations of expressions, functions and lambda notation, definiteness, quantification and logical form, modality and possible worlds, and the relationship between semantics and pragmatics.

LING 348 - Structure of Austronesian

Austronesian is a family of over a thousand languages spoken primarily in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, Taiwan, and Madagascar. Some of these languages (e.g., Malay, Tagalog, Javanese) are well documented and spoken by millions of people, while many others are highly endangered and have received little attention in the linguistics literature. In this course we discuss the grammatical diversity of the Austronesian family and probe some of the distinctive features of these languages, focusing on morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic properties such as word order, reduplication, ergativity, case marking, and wh-question formation. By surveying both classic and contemporary research on Austronesian, we explore how the study of these languages has contributed to developments in linguistic theory. As part of the work for this course, each student will conduct research on a different Austronesian language and report on the grammatical features of that language through a series of in-class presentations and short papers.

LING 350 - Languages of South Asia

The Indian subcontinent is home to five typologically divergent language families (Indo-European, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiatic, Tai-Kadai) in addition to at least two language isolates, creating an ideal setting for the areal spreading of diverse linguistic features across genetic affiliations, affecting all areas of the grammar, from phonetics (e.g., retroflexion) and intonation (e.g., macrorhythmicity) to morphology (e.g., fixed segment reduplication) and syntax (e.g., head finality). In class, we will take a broad typological view of the languages of South Asia while also making more detailed observations of specific languages representing the diversity of the region. Outside of class, each student will focus on a South Asian language of their choice-collecting data from native speakers or from available language grammars-to examine the phonetic, phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and other features, from a synchronic formal perspective as well as from historical and sociolinguistic perspectives.

LING 352 - Intonation

This course is an in-depth study of intonation-the manipulation of pitch, stress, and length to signify sentence-level meaning-in varieties of English as well as in several other languages, including Dutch, German, Swedish, Japanese, Bengali, Korean, and others. This course will have two components, which will overlap considerably. In the laboratory skills component, you will learn how to collect, transcribe, measure, and analyze intonational data in Praat (a program for acoustic analysis and other phonetic work), while in the theoretical component, you will read about and test the claims of various theories of intonation. With these skills, you will conduct independent research over the course of the semester. The course will also cover the interface between intonation and other aspects of the mental grammar, including the realization of morphology, syntactic structure, and focus through prosody.

LING 412 - Research Topics in Sociolinguistics

Variation, Indexicality, and Iconicity
The contemporary field of sociolinguistics is most often associated with the program on language variation and change (or variationism), which focuses on the orderly heterogeneity of the linguistic system and how that variation is indicative of language change. This approach to language in use utilizes quantitative methods to track the patterns of linguistic variables according to both linguistic and social constraints. This course explores the theories that motivate variations as a means to a deeper understanding of the linguistic system. In particular, we will use the "three waves" model of variations to follow the evolution of variations theory over the last 50 years. In tandem, students will work as variationists, collecting data and analyzing it within the quantitative paradigm.

LING 470 - Thesis

LING 481 - Independent Reading

LING 520 - Research Approaches to Speech Sounds

Language can be seen as a means for communication, for expression, and for identification, but the structure and form of language is itself a multilayered and complex object of study that can be viewed from numerous methodological perspectives. One core area in which this interdisciplinary approach is especially tangible is in the physical sounds used to generate speech, and the ways in which users of spoken language produce, interpret, and classify those sounds. Through engaging with both classic and current research, we will seek to answer the question: what do speakers need in order to fluently and effortlessly produce, perceive, and engage with the sounds and sound patterns of their language? Topics to cover include the role of "naturalness" in language, our gradient sensitivity to what is considered acceptable in speech sounds, the role of statistical patterns in our lexicon, the role of neurodivergence in organizing speech sounds, and the role of fine acoustic details as well as visual and even tactile details of how speech is produced. We will also cover how our phonology is affected by those we speak with, and how our attention to certain acoustic cues can result in perceptual stretching and illusions, especially in cases of producing and perceiving foreign languages, adapting loanwords into the native phonology, and even juggling multiple phonologies in one's own mind.