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Main Office
Discovery Park, Room B201

Mailing address:
1155 Union Circle #311068
Denton, Texas 76203-5017

940-565-4552

E-mail: ling-info@unt.edu
Web site: linguistics.unt.edu

William Salmon, Chair

Faculty   

The linguistics department offers a BA with a major in linguistics as well as minors in linguistics, computational linguistics, and information science.

The Bachelor of Arts with a major in linguistics offers students a comprehensive overview of the history of the field and a strong foundation in the core areas of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. A major goal of the BA program is to stimulate student curiosity about linguistic and cultural diversity. Of general interest to our students, but of special interest to those interested in teaching English as a second language, are courses on English grammar and the methods of teaching English. Courses are also offered on theories of second language acquisition and English language variation and change. Courses in computational linguistics can help prepare students for jobs in the tech industry or for further study in computational linguistics and/or natural language processing.

The BA with a major in linguistics provides students opportunities for working with data with an eye to discovering predictable linguistic patterns (linguistic problem solving). Students learn how to read, write, and present syntheses of relevant published work and to arrive at their own original theoretical formulations. The Scientific Methods course and the Capstone course train students in original research, which includes evaluating and reporting on existing findings using appropriate citation methods and creating and reporting on original experiments and arguments. CNN lists linguistics as the second most overlooked job possibility for new graduates. A degree in linguistics makes students competitive for jobs in fields such as:

• language education
• language testing service
• teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language
• speech & hearing – language pathology and audiology
• language documentation/fieldwork
• natural language processing
• codes and code-breaking
• law – forensic linguistics
• translation/interpretation
• advertising
• marketing
• publishing

Because linguistics provides students with the skills to analyze language, companies like Microsoft, Google and Apple are also eager to hire students with linguistics degrees. Read more on the Linguistic Society of America web site (www.linguisticsociety.org).

The strengths of the linguistics program lie in our research areas of language variation and change, language documentation, computational linguistics, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Since moving to the College of Information in Fall 2014, we have added a new research focus in language technology and language data curation. Our international collaborations currently are with Mexico, India, Pakistan and China. Our overall goal is to contribute to the global understanding of the nature of language, and to provide students ample opportunities to conduct and disseminate original research. We strongly encourage and support student participation at conferences and public speaking venues.

Academic advising

Advising on courses, programs, and related questions is available through the college advising office, Discovery Park, Room C232; 940-565-2445; ci-advising@unt.edu. All students should have an approved degree plan audit on file as early as possible, but not later than the beginning of the final 60 hours of courses. Calls and visits by prospective students are welcomed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
 

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