Explore the fascinating phenomenon of human language

Academics

Our faculty are interested in many different aspects of language: how we speak, understand and learn language; how languages change over time; how computers can understand and generate language; and how social and cultural contexts influence language. Undergraduate and graduate students study these and other aspects of language through our diverse course offerings. Our academic programs allow students the flexibility to develop programs of study specific to their personal goals and interests.

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Undergraduate Major Honors Program Graduate Admissions Courses

What do linguists study and teach?

Linguistics attempts to answer such questions as:

How the mind enables us to produce and understand utterances
How children acquire language
How and why languages resemble and differ from each other
How and why languages change over time and how they are related
How the categories of language relate to the world
How language use varies across different social and cultural contexts
How to make computers talk and 'understand' human languages

Getting started...

Students interested in learning more about linguistics and its relationship to other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences are encouraged to take Linguistics 1101, a general overview that is a prerequisite for most other courses in the field or one of the first-year writing seminars offered in linguistics (on topics such as metaphor, language processing and disorders, English outside the box and the language instinct). Linguistics 1101 and our other introductory courses fulfill various distribution requirements of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Most of our 1100- and 2200-level courses have no prerequisites. These cover various topics in linguistics or the historical development of particular languages:

LING 1109 - English Words: Histories and Mysteries
LING 2221 - Language and Society
LING 2223 - Language and the Law
LIGN 2248 - Native American Languages
LING 2264 - Language, Mind, and Brain
LING 2285 - Linguistic Theory and Poetic Structure

Linguistics News

Visiting Storyteller to Perform Narrations in American Sign Language

11/21/2022

Storyteller and comedian Cassie Simmons will perform narrations centered around her growing up as an African-American, Deaf woman in Detroit in a Nov. 28 American Sign Language Literature Series event in Klarman Hall.

The Department of Linguistics American Sign Language (ASL)

ASL at Cornell: It’s More Than a Language

11/07/2022

Opinion piece by Halle Swasing in the Cornell Daily Sun: ASL at Cornell: It’s More Than a Language.

American Sign Language (ASL) Literature Series features ASL Poets/Storytellers

10/11/2022

Six American Sign Language (ASL) poets and storytellers will visit Cornell between Oct. 12 and Nov. 28, in conjunction with this semester’s ASL Literature course.

A&S opens application portal for Klarman postdoc fellowships

8/23/2022

Klarman Fellows pursue research in any discipline in the College, including natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and the creative arts as well as cross-disciplinary fields. The application deadline is October 14.

'Words Matter' recognized as Outstanding Academic Title

8/22/2022

At the end of 2021, Words Matter: Meaning and Power (Cambridge, 2020) by Sally McConnell-Ginet, Professor Emerita of Linguistics, was selected by Choice Reviews as one of the best academic books of 2021. In late July 2022, the Choice website highlighted five of its “Outstanding Academic Titles” on ...

More Linguistics News