Sample Courses
- Languages of the world surveys the variability and distribution of the world’s languages in terms of linguistic typology, genetic relationships, and geographic location.
- Writing systems investigates the types, origins, development, and migration of writing systems of the world, both extinct and modern. This course also covers problems of decipherment and issues of literacy.
- Introduction to linguistic analysis studies human language and linguistics as a scientific and humanistic discipline, and covers basic concepts of the lexicon, phonology, syntax, semantics, and language evolution.
- Language, culture, and society looks at the ways in which language reflects culture and determines cultural worldview, interaction between language and social structure, social relations, and interpersonal communications.
- Pathological language examines the language symptoms of aphasia, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other neurological and psychiatric conditions from a neuro-linguistic perspective.
Hands On Learning
The American English Institute and the Yamada Language Center are two UO facilities that will enhance your study of languages.
The American English Institute focuses on English as a second language. Undergraduates can do practicums with the Institute to learn methods for teaching English.
The Yamada Language Center has a wide range of equipment, materials, facilities, and employees to help you in your study of languages—even those not offered at the UO, such as Swahili, Turkish, Thai, Portuguese, Cantonese, Arabic, Shona, Hindu and Urdu. The facility offers self-study programs, a virtual language lab, and a computer lab.
Students may also try a Participatory Learning Experience (PLE). Doris Payne, professor of linguistics, has students work with her on a variety of linguistics research projects, including the Yagua texts, a minority language of South America, and the Masai language project. She says these kinds of research opportunities have helped students develop skills uniquely related to linguistics research, such as the understanding and use of electronic programs for text analysis, and the use of acoustic phonetic tools for language processing.
Interdisciplinary Opportunities
The study of linguistics allows you to look at language and learning from many fresh perspectives. Language is easily integrated into the fields of psychology, philosophy, computer science, anthropology, and sociology. The department of linguistics regularly cooperates with the departments of anthropology, biology, computer science, and psychology to offer interdisciplinary courses.