![]() Linguistics is the scientific study of language and is concerned with the following questions (among others): What does knowledge of a language consist in and how is this knowledge acquired and put to use? What are the similarities and differences among languages? How is language represented in the human brain? How does language differ from animal communications systems? How does language function in society? How and why does language change over time? In addition, linguistics is applied in the teaching of languages and in education generally, in computer programming, in advertising, and in many other areas of study and activity in which language plays a central role. Our professors work on different areas that range from inclusive pedagogy in public schools to the revitalization of indigenous languages.Degrees Offered: Minor, B.A., M.A. Linguistics provides students with many skills beyond just languages, including critical thinking, problem solving, pattern finding, work with data sets, etc. If you are interested in either, please reach out any linguistics professor. Others that wish to major in linguistics have done so through the Independent Scholar Program, which allows them to focus on their specific interests within linguistics. Many students chose to minor in linguistics (5 courses). ![]() How do I study linguistics at Middlebury? This allows students to choose from a variety of approaches to the study of language, all of which are mutually supportive. In addition, given the interdisciplinary nature of the field, linguistics courses are typically cross-listed with other disciplines such as sociology/anthropology, philosophy, education studies, and the division of languages, literatures, and cultures and can count as electives for majors such as neuroscience. This has the great advantage of allowing students to have knowledge of both general linguistic analysis as well as the linguistics of specific languages of their interest. In addition, many students also take courses that focus on the linguistics of specific languages (e.g., Hispanic Linguistics, Chinese Sociolinguistics, and German Linguistics, among several others). The Linguistics Department offers a variety of courses that introduce students to many of the sub-areas of modern linguistics (e.g., Introduction to Linguistics Phonetics and Phonology Language, Culture, and Society and Syntax and Morphology, to name a few). Linguists also study language development and change (historical linguistics), geographical and social linguistic variation (dialectology and sociolinguistics), the relation between language and culture (linguistic anthropology), how language is acquired by children and adults (first and second language acquisition), how it is perceived, produced, and represented in the mind (psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics), how it is taught (applied linguistics), and how it can be modeled for use by machines (computational linguistics). Studying linguistics allows us to learn about the physical properties of human sounds and how they pattern in different languages (phonetics and phonology), how words are formed (morphology), how sentences are structured (syntax), and how meaning of linguistic utterances emerges (semantics and pragmatics).
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