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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.
Popular Destinations
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
17th Annual Cornell Undergraduate Linguistics Colloquium (CULC17)
Cornell University's undergraduate linguistics association, The UnderLings, presents its seventeenth annual undergraduate research colloquium. By facilitating communication and discussion between researchers, the conference aims to promote undergraduate research at all levels throughout the linguist...
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Students can learn ASL during summer, winter sessions
Interest in ASL is growing, prompting Cornell to increase opportunities for students to explore the language.
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Support Arts & Sciences on Giving Day March 16
On Thursday, March 16, join the Cornell community to make a difference for students on Cornell Giving Day.
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Researchers use computational tools to understand linguistic processing
Two recently-hired faculty in the Department of Linguistics are expanding the use of computer modeling and experimental techniques as they forge new paths of research in the discipline.
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Sireemas Maspong Accepts Postdoctoral Fellow Position at the Institute for Phonetics and Speech Processing (IPS), LMU Munich
Sireemas Maspong has accepted a position as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Phonetics and Speech Processing (IPS) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She will be working with Prof. James Kirby, Professor of Spoken Language Processing. She will be joining the department in April...
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Francesco Burroni Accepts Postdoctoral Fellow Position at the Institute for Phonetics and Speech Processing (IPS), LMU Munich
Francesco Burroni Accepts Postdoctoral Fellow Position at the Institute for Phonetics and Speech Processing (IPS), LMU Munich
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Two A&S alums honored for volunteer efforts
The two are among five winners of the inaugural Robert S. Harrison ’76 Recent Alumni Volunteer Awards.
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