The field of linguistics does tend to attract people who speak more than one language, or people who are interested in learning new languages. But linguistics is much more than being multilingual--it is the scientific study of language. 

Students in our program discover topics--like formal grammar, language and culture, language acquisition, cognition, and bilingualism--in the context of a broad liberal arts experience. UVM linguistics students have continued on to distinguished graduate programs. Many others join the private sector in jobs ranging from technology, medical research, education, translation and teaching as a second language. Students who major in linguistics are equipped with a broad range of transferable skills, enabling them to succeed in any profession.

Meet just a few of our recent graduates here.

  • Sarah Bellavance

    From UVM to Georgetown University

    A native of Indiana, Sarah Bellavance ’17 was attracted by UVM’s inviting outdoor environment and opportunities to study the natural sciences. But it was a first-semester course on linguistics that set her on an unexpected academic path. “I always loved language, but I wasn’t familiar with linguistics as a discipline,” she said. Bellavance was particularly attracted to Professor Julie Roberts’ work on Vermont speech and American English dialects. “She was crucial in helping me start my research career at UVM. I was involved in a group research project on local vowel sounds—we were looking at college-aged students who were native Vermonters to see if their vowels aligned with vowel shifts that were happening elsewhere in the U.S.” Bellavance became especially interested in sociophonetics, which she describes as the study of individual sounds and how researchers examine them to get at questions of identity.

    Read more of Sarah's story.

    She received a Humanities Center Summer Research Award which funded her stay in Burlington while studying “T-glottalization” variations (the propensity for Vermonters to drop the “t” at the end of words like “hot”). Bellavance completed her senior honors thesis on the subject, and also presented her work at the American Dialect Society national conference in Washington, D.C. A Spanish minor at UVM, Bellavance took advantage of a study abroad program in Morocco her junior year to expand her language learning to Arabic, French, and Tamazight. After graduation, she embarked on a five-month backpacking trip in South America which gave her a chance to practice her language skills and observe the social context of language development in places she’d read about as a student. Bellavance was recently accepted into a master’s degree program in linguistics at Georgetown University—she sees herself continuing on to a PhD when she completes the program in 2021. “I think the research background at UVM really prepared me for grad school and whatever happens next. The small classes and individual attention I received had a lot to do with that.”

     

"I came to UVM undecided, but took some linguisitcs courses right away, though I had no idea what that really meant. After two semesters, I declared it as my major! . . . Linguistics helps you become aware of the intricacies/patterns in language that you hear and use on a regular basis."

Shannon Foley '19
Predoctoral Research Fellow at Dartmouth College

 

"I really loved phonetics. I appreciated how it was more on the 'sciency' side of things. I liked being able to pick out differences in speech – now my party trick is to test people for the 'cot/caught merger' and then talk about dialectal differences."

Meghan McClure '19

 

"I’ve always loved languages, and linguistics is a perfect blend between the 'hard' and 'technical,' and the more abstract nature of languages and art."

Yovita Poerwanto '19

 

Many of our students take advantage of the variety of learning opportunities our program and the university offer - from on-campus clubs and residential learning communities to study abroad programs.