Undergraduate Course Offerings

Below you'll find a complete list of undergraduate course offerings. You can also find a list of courses offered during the current school year.

LIGN 3

Language as a Social & Cultural Phenomenon

• Introduction to the study of language: language variation, change, and loss; multilingualism, pidginization, and creolization; language planning, standardization, and prescriptivism; writing systems; the role of language in thought, myth, ritual, advertising, politics, and the law.
  • With 2 of LIGN 4, 7, and 8: satisfies Muir Social Sciences Requirement. Counts towards Sixth College breadth requirement.

LIGN 4

Language, Communication, and the Mind

• Fundamental issues in language and cognition. Differences between animal communication, sign systems, and human language; origins and evolution of language; neural basis of language; language acquisition in children and adults.
  • With 2 of LIGN 3, 7, and 8: satisfies Muir Social Sciences Requirement. Counts towards Sixth College breadth requirement.

LIGN 5

Linguistics of Invented Languages

• The history of invented languages and the science behind them. Includes philosophical languages of the Renaissance, international languages of the 19th and 20th centuries, and languages created for literature and film. Students learn basic principles of language design by developing their own language.

LIGN 6

Computers and Language

• Computers and 'virtual assistants' are increasingly expected to understand, process, and interact with us using natural human language. In this course, we'll focus on the difficult computational and linguistic problems that working with natural language presents, and learn to implement some of the basic computational techniques used to model, process, and produce human language in Python.

LIGN 7

Sign Languages and Their Cultures

• Deaf history since the eighteenth century. The structure of American Sign Language and comparison with oral languages. ASL poetry and narrative and Deaf people's system of cultural knowledge. Basic questions concerning the nature of language and its relation to culture.
  • Satisfies: Muir cultural diversity requirement, Revelle American cultures requirement, Warren cultural diversity requirement. Counts toward Sixth College breadth requirement, Marshall disciplinary breadth requirement, ERC regional specialization requirement. With 2 of LIGN 3, 4, and 8: satisfies Muir Social Sciences Requirement. Satisfies the DEI requirement.

LIGN 8

Languages and Cultures of America

• Language in American culture and society. Standard and non-standard English in school, media, pop-culture, politics; bilingualism and education; cultural perception of language issues over time; languages and cultures in the 'melting pot', including Native American, Hispanic, African-American, Deaf.
  • Satisfies: Muir College cultural diversity requirement, Revelle College American Culture requirement, Warren cultural diversity requirement and the campuswide DEI requirement. Counts toward Marshall College disciplinary breadth requirement and Sixth College breadth requirements. Satisfies the DEI requirement.

LIGN 9GS

Sign Languages ad Deaf Culture in the U.S. and France 

This course explores and compares the use of sign language and its role in the cultures of deaf people in the U.S. and France. Through signed discussion and viewing language samples, students become acquainted with how introductions, descriptions, numbers, fingerspelling and more are commonly communicated in the two countries and gain practical experience in signing both ASL and Langues des Signes Francaise (LSF). Restrictions: Student must apply and be accepted to the Global Seminars program.

LIGN 17

Making and Breaking Codes

• A rigorous analysis of symbolic systems and their interpretations. Students will learn to encode and decode information using progressively more sophisticated methods; topics covered include ancient and modern phonetic writing systems, hieroglyphics, computer languages, and ciphers (secret codes).
  • Satisfies Marshall College computational skills requirement, Roosevelt and Warren College formal skills requirement and lower-division formal skills requirement for HDP majors. Satisfies  Sixth College Structured Reasoning requirement.

LIGN 42

The Linguistics of Memes

• A great meme can perfectly capture your feelings, sum up a situation, leave you laughing, or just add a bit of spice to life. In this course, we'll look at memes as an aspect of modern communication, discussing the concept of a 'meme', the life cycle of a meme, the social nature of memes, and more, all explored using tools and concepts from language and the field of linguistics. All of this will show that memes aren't just silliness, but a rich communicative medium for a modern multimedia era.

LIGN 87

First-year Seminar

• The First-year Seminar Program is designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. First-year Seminars can be offered in all campus departments and undergraduate colleges, and topics vary from quarter to quarter.
  
  • Enrollment is limited to fifteen to twenty students, with preference given to entering first-year students.

LIGN 101

Introduction to the Study of Language

• Language is what makes us human, but how does it work? This course focuses on speech sounds and sound patterns, how words are formed, organized into sentences, and understood, how language changes, and how it is learned.
  • Required for all majors. Serves as prerequisite for most Linguistics General courses. Satisfies psychological foundation requirement for HDP majors. Counts towards Sixth College breadth requirements.

LIGN 105

Law & Language

• The interpretation of language in understanding the law: 1) the language of courtroom interaction (hearsay, jury instructions); 2) written legal language (contracts, ambiguity, legal fictions); 3) language-based issues in the law (First Amendment, libel and slander).
  • Elective for majors. May be used as an elective course for the minor in Law & Society. Counts towards Sixth College breadth requirements.

LIGN 108

Languages of Africa

• Africa is home to an astonishing variety of languages. This course investigates the characteristics of the major language families as well as population movements and language contact, and how governments attempt to regulate language use.
  • Elective for majors.

LIGN 110

Phonetics

• The study of sounds that are used in human languages. How speech sounds are physically produced; acoustics of speech; speech perception; practical training in phonetic transcription and in interpreting visual representations of the acoustic signal. The class covers both English and its dialects and languages other than English.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101, concurrent enrollment in LIGN 101, or consent of instructor.

LIGN 111

Phonology I

• Why does one language sound different from another? This course analyzes how languages organize sounds into different patterns, how those sounds interact, and how they fit into larger units, such as syllables. Focus on a wide variety of languages and problem-solving.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 110. Required for all majors.

LIGN 112

Speech Sounds and Speech Disorders

• How do we measure differences in the way sounds are produced and perceived? This course focuses on measuring and analyzing the acoustic and auditory properties of sounds as they accur in non-pathological and pathological speech.
  
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 110.

LIGN 113

Hearing Science and Hearing Disorders

• An introductory course focused on the hearing component of speech, speech perception, and language disorders, this course gives students an introduction to the anatomy and function of human hearing, the principles and practice of audiology, and to modern methods of addressing hearing loss in patients like hearing aids and cochlear implants.
  
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 and LIGN 110.

LIGN 115

Phonology II

• How are phonological systems organized, and what generalizations can be made about the phonological patterns found across languages? Exploration of advanced concepts in phonological theory through the analysis of cross-linguistic phenomena. Emphasis on empirical justification and argumentation.
  
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 111.

LIGN 119/EDS 119

First and Second Language Learning: From Childhood through Adolescence

• An examination of how human language learning ability develops and changes over the first two decades of life, including discussion of factors that may affect this ability.

LIGN 120

Morphology

• How do some languages express with one word complex meanings that English needs several words to express? Discovery of underlying principles of word formation through problem solving and analysis of data from a wide variety of languages.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 or consent of instructor. Required for majors.

LIGN 121

Syntax I

• What universal principles determine how words combine into phrases and sentences? Introduction to research methods and results. Emphasis on how argumentation in problem-solving can be used in the development of theories of language.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101. Required for majors.

LIGN 125

Syntax II

• How are syntactic systems organized, and what generalizations can be made about the syntactic patterns found across languages? Exploration of advanced concepts in syntactic theory through the analysis of cross-linguistic phenomena. Emphasis on empirical justification and argumentation.
  
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 121. Elective for majors.

LIGN 130

Semantics

• Introduction to the formal study of meaning. The meanings of words and phrases have an intricate internal structure that is both logical and intuitive. How, precisely, do words mean what they do in isolation and in context?
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101. Required for majors.

LIGN 139

Field Methods

• Methods and practice of gathering, processing and analyzing data based on working with a native speaker of a language. Students gain experience in learning to discriminate and transcribe sounds, and analyze grammatical features from their own collected data. Ethical and practical issues of working with native speakers and language communities are addressed.
  
  • Prerequisites: LIGN 101 and LIGN 110

LIGN 141

Language Structures

• Detailed investigation of the structure of one or more languages.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101. Elective for majors. May be repeated for credit as topics vary. Particularly recommended for Language Studies majors.

LIGN 142

Language Typology

• The systematic ways languages differ. Cross-linguistic studies of specified topics (e.g., word order, agreement, case, switch reference, phonological systems and rule types, etc.) in an effort to develop models of language variation.
  
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 or consent of instructor. Elective for majors.

LIGN 143

The Structure of Spanish

• Surveys aspects of Spanish phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax. Topics include dialect differences between Latin American and Peninsular Spanish (both from a historical and contemporary viewpoint), gender classes, verbal morphology, and clause structure.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101. Elective for majors. Required for Language Studies majors with a concentration in Spanish.

LIGN 144

Discourse Analysis: American Sign Language Poetry and Performing Arts

• This course provides a discourse-centered examination of ASL verbal arts: rhyme, meter, rhythm, handedness, non-manual signals and spatial mapping; creation of scene and mood; properties of character, dialogue, narration and voice; cultural tropes; poetic constructions in every genre; transcription, body memory and performance. The course will be conducted entirely in ASL with no spoken English.
  
  • Prerequisite: LISL 1C/1CX or consent of instructor.

LIGN 145

Pidgins and Creoles

• Pidgin and creole languages provide important insights into the processes arising from natural language contact. Origins of pidgins and creoles; detailed description of salient aspects of their structure; relevance of pidgins and creoles for theories of syntax, morphology, language acquisition.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101. Elective for majors. May be used towards Sixth College breadth requirements. May be used towards the language and ethnicity requirement in the Ethnic Studies major (see Ethnic Studies Dept. for details).

LIGN 146

Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities

• This course provides an examination of sociolinguistic research on Deaf communities throughout the world, including: sociohistorical contexts for phonological, lexical and syntactic variation, contact between languages, multilingualism, language policies and planning, second language learning, language attitudes, and discourse analysis of specific social contexts. The course will be conducted entirely in ASL with no spoken English.
  • Prerequisite: LISL 1C/1CX or consent of instructor.

LIGN 148

The Psycholinguistics of Gesture and Sign Languages

The study of how sign languages are structured, and how they are understood and produced by adults. Topics include the contrast between gesture and language, sign language acquisition, brain processing, sociolinguistics, and the role of sign language in reading.

• • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 or LISL 1CX or consent of instructor.

LIGN 149GS

The Historical Roots of American Sign Language

• Emphasizing linguistic evidence and historical documents, this course examines the roots of ASL with particular focus on contributions from Langue des Signes Francaise, Native American Sign Language, Black ASL and Hawaiian Sign Language. Topics include illustrated and descriptive records documenting the linguistics of each language, and similarities and differences among the varieties. This course will be taught in Paris as part of the Global Seminar program. 

LIGN 150

Historical Linguistics

• Language is constantly changing. This course investigates the nature of language change, how to determine a language's history, its relationship to other languages, and the search for common ancestors or 'proto-language'. 
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101. Elective for majors. 

LIGN 152

Indigenous Languages of the Americas

• This course is an introduction to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas. Its goals are to offer orientation in a broad field and to prepare students for possible future research. Topics covered include grammatical structures, genetic classification, characteristics of major language families, and factors affecting language use and mother tongue transmission of these languages in contemporary societies.
  
  • Prerequisite: Upper-division standing of consent of instructor. Elective for majors.

LIGN 154

Language and Consciousness

• Origins of linguistic analysis (phonetics, phonology, morphology, thematic and grammatical relations, lexical semantics) in ancient India, history of naturalism vs. conventionalism, sound symbolism, relationship of language with myth and ritual, linguistic relativism, physical effects of language, metaphysical approaches to language.
  
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101.

LIGN 155

Evolution of Language

• History of thought on language origins, genetic, neural, anatomical, and gestural theories of language evolution in relation to prior hominid and other species, the role of generational differences in language acquisition, and computatioal models.
  
  • Upper-division standing of consent of instructor. Elective for majors.

LIGN 160

Pragmatics

• An introduction to the context-dependent aspects of language meaning. Topics include given versus new information, Gricean maxims and rules of conversation, presupposition, implicature, reference and cognitive status, discourse coherence and structure, and speech acts.
  • Prerequisites: LIGN 101 or consent of instructor.

LIGN 165

Computational Linguistics

• An introduction to the fundamental concepts of computational linguistics, in which we study natural language syntax and semantics from an interpretation perspective, describe methods for programming computer systems to perform such interpretation, and survey applications of computational linguistics technology.
  • Recommended for majors interested in computational applications of linguistics.

LIGN 167

Deep Learning for Natural Language Understanding

• An introduction to neural network methods for analyzing linguistic data. Basic neural network architectures and optimization through backpropagation and stochastic gradient descent. Word vectors and recurrent neural networks, and their uses and limitations in modeling the structure of natural language.

• Prerequisites: MATH 10C or MATH 20C or MATH 31BH. No background in linguistics required.

LIGN 168

Computational Speech Processing

• An upper-division course focused on understanding some of the many approaches, algorithms, and processes used in the computational processing of speech, both by linguists and in industrial and engineering applications. We will consider topics like pitch and formant extraction, automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech and voice transmission codecs, we'll discuss the limitations of current approaches, and consider ongoing areas of growth and development in the field.

• Prerequisite: LIGN 110

LIGN 170

Psycholinguistics: Experimental Approaches to Language and Cognition

• The study of how humans learn, represent, comprehend, and produce language. Topics include visual and auditory recognition of words, sentence comprehension, reading, sentence production, language acquisition, neural representation of language, bilingualism, and language disorders.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 or upper-division standing or consent of instructor. Particularly recommended for Cognition & Language majors.

LIGN 171

Child Language Acquisition

• A central cognitive, developmental mystery is how children learn their first language. Overview of research in the learning of sound systems, word forms and word meanings, and word combinations. Exploration of the relation between cognitive and language development.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 or upper-division standing or consent of instructor. Particularly recommended for Cognition & Language majors. Satisfies psychological development requirement for HDP majors.

LIGN 174/SOC 116

Gender and Language in Society

• This course examines how language contributes to the social construction of gender identities, and how gender impacts language use and ideologies. Topics include the ways language and gender interact across the life span, within ethnolinguistic minority communities in the US, across sexual orientations and cultures.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101, or upper-division standing, or consent of instructor. Cross-listed with Sociology (SOC 116). Satisfies Socio-Cultural development requirement for HDP majors. Counts towards Warren College Cultural Diversity requirement.  Counts towards Sixth College breadth requirements. May be used towards the language and ethnicity requirement in the Ethnic Studies major (see Ethnic Studies Dept. for details).

LIGN 175

Sociolinguistics

• The study of language in its social context, with emphasis on the different types of linguistic variation and the principles underlying them. Dialects, registers, gender-based linguistic differences, multilingualism, pidginization and creolization, factors influencing linguistic choice, formal models of variation; emphasis is given both to socially determined differences within the US and US ethnic groups and to cross-cultural differences in language use and variation.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101, or upper-division standing, or consent of instructor. Particularly recommended for Language & Society majors. Counts towards Sixth College breadth requirements. May be used towards the language and ethnicity requirement in the Ethnic Studies major (see Ethnic Studies Dept. for details). Satisfies the DEI requirement.

LIGN 176

Language of Politics and Advertising

• How can we explain the difference between what is literally said versus what is actually conveyed in the language of law, politics, and advertising? How people's ordinary command of language and their reasoning skills are used to manipulate them.
  • Particularly recommended for Cognition & Language majors or Language & Society majors.

LIGN 177

Multilingualism

• Official and minority languages, pidgins and creoles, language planning, bilingual education and literacy, code switching, and language attrition. 
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 or upper-division standing of consent of instructor. Particularly recommended for Language Studies majors or Language & Society majors. Satisfies psychological development requirement for HDP majors. Counts towards Warren College Cultural Diversity requirement. Counts towards Sixth College breadth requirements. May be used towards the language and ethnicity requirement in the Ethnic Studies major (see Ethnic Studies Dept. for details).

LIGN 178

Spanish Sociolinguistics

• This course examines how social variables, such as age, education, gender, and social status may be linguistically expressed in different varieties of Spanish. Attitudes toward different linguistic variants and how these impact language policy will be studied. Special emphasis will be given to the varieties of Spanish spoken in the United States. 
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 or consent of instructor. Satisfies the DEI requirement.

LIGN 179

Second Language Acquisition Research

• Topics in second language acquisition including the critical period, the processing and neural representation of language in bilinguals, theories of second language acquisition and creolization, exceptional language learners, and parallels with first language acquisition.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101. Particularly recommended for Cognition & Language majors. Satisfies psychological development requirement for HDP majors.

LIGN 180

Language Representation in the Brain

• The mind/body problem, modularity, basic neuroanatomy, cerebral lateralization, re-evaluation of classical language areas, aphasia, dyslexia, the KE family and FOXP2 gene, mirror neurons, sign language, brain development, cortical plasticity, and localization studies of language processing (electrical stimulation, MEG, fMRI, and PET). Student may not receive credit for both LIGN 172 and LIGN 180.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 or upper-division standing or consent of instructor. Particularly recommended for Cognition & Language majors.

LIGN 181

Language Processing in the Brain

• Modularity and models of language processing, basic neurophysiology, EEG/MEG, linguistic event-related brain potentials (ERPs), cross-linguistic functional significance of ERP components and their MEG correlates: N400, N400-700, lexical processing negativity, slow anterior negative potentials, (early) left anterior negativity, and late positivity.
  • Prerequisite: LIGN 101 or upper-division standing or consent of instructor. Particularly recommended for Cognition & Language majors.

LIGN 187

Seminar on Special Topics

• Special topics in linguistics are discussed.
  
  • Department Restrictions: As topics will vary with each offering, and will be advanced in level, the department must approve if students have already obtained the relevant background.

LIGN 195

Apprentice Teaching

• Students lead a class section of a linguistics course. They also attend a weekly meeting on teaching methods.
  • Prerequisites: consent of instructor, advanced standing. Does not count toward minor or major. May be repeated for credit, up to a maximum of 8 units (P/NP only).

LIGN 197

Linguistics Internship

• The student will undertake a program of practical research in a supervised work environment. Topics to be researched may vary, but in each case the course will provide skills for carrying out these studies.
  • Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

LIGN 199

Independent Study in Linguistics

• The student undertakes a program of research or advanced reading in linguistics under the supervision of a faculty member of the Department of Linguistics.
  • Prerequisite: consent of instructor. May be repeated for credit (P/NP only).

LIGN 199H

Honors Independent Study in Linguistics

• The student undertakes a program of research and advanced reading in linguistics under the supervision of a faculty member in the Department of Linguistics.
  • Prerequisite: Admission to Honors Program. (P/NP only.)