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Linguistics students
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Sarah Bellavance, Linguistics student
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Students from Linguistics department
Linguistics is the study of language: its structure and how it is used on a day-to-day basis. Our class sizes are small, and students tend to develop close relationships with faculty mentors. It's a big reason graduates of our program succeed in a wide variety of fields where analysis, critical thinking and reasoning, and intercultural fluency are valued.
 
Student in the Linguistics program have access to an interdisciplinary array of courses including formal grammar, language and culture, language acquisition, cognition, and bilingualism. We also a certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), a five-course sequence that provides academic coursework and direct teaching experience. While it is not a substitute for a M.S. in TESOL or a teaching certification, it prepares students for graduate work in the field, teaching English abroad, and working with speakers of other languages in general.
 

Major requirements

B.A. with major in Linguistics

Concentrations

  • Sociolinguistics Concentration
  • Psycholinguistics Concentration
  • Language Studies Concentration
  • Formal Linguistics Concentration

Beyond the classroom

Linguistics is a living discipline, and the classroom at UVM extends to many locations here in Vermont and abroad. Linguists make enthusiastic and confident travelers, and many students, like Michelle Beaupre '18, apply their classroom learning far from Burlington. Michelle taught English English in Harbin, China. Shannon Foley '19 worked on dialect/sociophonetic research on northern New Hampshire/northwestern Maine. Learn more about student perspectives, and what recent graduates of our program are up to today.

"Why Major in Linguistics?"

Careers

  • Advertising/Marketing
  • Computational Linguist
  • Foreign Language Teacher
  • Forensics
  • Lexicographer
  • Linguist
  • Technical Writer
  • Translator

Graduate Schools

  • Boston University
  • Colombia University
  • Georgetown University
  • Hofstra University
  • School for International Training
  • University of Kansas
  • Wake Forest University

Related Information

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Learning Goals for Majors:

Upon completion of the  B.A. with major in Linguistics degree, students will be able to:

  • Articulate a linguistics research question and design a qualitative or quantitative study of appropriate scope to gather relevant data
  • Interpret linguistics data by applying qualitative or quantitative linguistic research methods
  • Present findings and interpretations of linguistics data orally in a clear and concise manner with appropriate use of visual tools
  • Present findings and interpretations of linguistics in writing that is clear, concise, uses appropriate terminology and is free of errors
  • Demonstrate a linguistic perspective applying critical thinking and problem-solving skills to a given problem or issue