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This academic minor focuses on the rigorous study of language from the perspectives of several contributing disciplines: the study of a specific language or language group in its contemporary condition or historical development; classical philology; philosophy; psychology and neuroscience; acoustic analysis; computer science.
Students minoring in linguistics will encounter a wide variety of methodologies: careful data collection and classification, rigorous philosophical analysis, sociological surveys, psychological experiments, ethnographic and ethnolinguistic methodologies, and the writing of computer programs to analyze and interpret language data.
The themes addressed by the minor include: the sounds of language; word structure and etymology; styles and dialects; syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of language; language acquisition by children and adults; language in society; language and culture, historical development and language families; language and mind; language and the brain; language processing by computer; psychological perspectives on language.