Linguistics

Students may submit an application to major in Linguistics through the independent major program. Students may complete a minor in Linguistics at Haverford College.

Coordinators

Ted Fernald, at Swarthmore College
Shizhe Huang, at Haverford College
Jason Kandybowicz, Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College students may take advantage of courses offered by the Department of Linguistics at Swarthmore College . Students interested in majoring in linguistics may do so via the independent major program. Such students must meet the requirements set by the independent major program at Bryn Mawr.

Linguistics is the study of language. On the most general level it deals with the internal structure of language, the history of the development of language, the information language can give us about the human mind and the roles language plays in influencing the entire spectrum of human activity.

The relevance of linguistics to the disciplines of anthropology, language study, philosophy, psychology and sociology has been recognized for a long time. But recently a knowledge of linguistics has become important to a much wider range of activities in today's world. It is a basic tool in artificial intelligence. It is increasingly a valuable tool in literary analysis. It is fundamental to an understanding of communication skills and cognitive science. And, because the very nature of modern linguistic inquiry is to build arguments for particular analyses, the study of linguistics gives the student finely-honed argumentation skills, which stand in good stead in careers in business, law and other professions where such skills are crucial.

Bryn Mawr offers the following course in linguistics.

GNST B239 Introduction to Linguistics

(Kandybowicz, Division I)

Swarthmore College currently offers the following courses in Linguistics:

LING 001 Introduction to Language and Linguistics
LING 006 FYS: Language and Deafness
LING 020 Natural Language Processing
LING 024 Discourse Analysis
LING 040 Semantics
LING 045 Phonology
LING 050 Syntax
LING 055 Writing Systems, Decipherment and Cryptography
LING 070R Translation Workshop
LING 094 Special Project in Linguistics
LING 100 Research Seminar
LING 195 Senior Honors Thesis