Linguistics Major
Visit the Linguistics website
Program Director: Professor Janet Randall
(617) 373 3678
j.randall@neu.edu
What is language? How do children learn to speak? How are signed languages different from spoken languages? How do language barriers keep people apart, and how do language ties bring them together? Do men and women speak differently? How can language serve as a window into the mind? If you are interested in these questions, then linguistics is essential.
To use or teach a language effectively, you need historical, stylistic, and sociolinguistic information. To be at the cutting edge of cognitive science or artificial intelligence, you need to understand how natural languages are learned and processed. If your field involves language in any way, you need to know how language works.
The major in linguistics can prepare you for a graduate program in linguistics, education, languages, law, speech disorders, and many other fields. The major has also prepared students for careers ranging from robot-designer to museum curator, from psycholinguistics researcher to English teacher abroad, from dictionary maker to sign language interpreter. Here at Northeastern the major in linguistics is an interdepartmental enterprise. Seven departments (African American Studies, American Sign Languages, English, Modern Languages, Philosophy and Religion, Psychology and Sociology/Anthropology) collaborate to offer a comprehensive program with courses in core areas (syntax, phonology, semantics), in psycholinguistics, in socio-linguistics, and in the structure and history of French, Spanish, and African- American English, among others. The major reflects the current research of our faculty: linguists, sociologists, psychologists, language educators, and teachers of second languages.