| Description: | Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Topics include: the structure of the world’s languages at the level of sounds (phonetics and phonology), words (morphology), sentences (syntax), and meaning (semantics); how people learn languages (acquisition); how people use two languages (bilingualism); how language is processed and represented in the brain (psycho- and neurolinguistics); how languages change over time (historical linguistics); and how languages vary in relation to region and social identity (dialectology and sociolinguistics). In addition to preparing students for advanced academic work in linguistics and related disciplines (e.g., anthropology, cognitive neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, or psychology), courses in linguistics provide a useful background for many careers, for example, language teaching, translation, child psychology, speech-language pathology, communication, and speech technology. |