An examination of the structure, history, and sociolinguistics of the English spoken in the southeastern United States.

An introduction to the study of language relationships and linguistic structures. Topics covered the basic elements of grammatical description; genetic, areal, and typological relationships among languages; a survey of the world's major language groupings and the notable structures and grammatical categories they exhibit; and the issue of language endangerment. Prerequisite: One year study of a world language or permission of instructor.

Introduces sign systems, language as a sign system, and approaches to linguistics description. Emphasizes the application of descriptive techniques to data.

Introduces students to the descriptive grammar of English and applied methods for reasoning about linguistic structure through community-engaged group research introducing linguistics to Virginia High School students. Covers units of sound and phonemic transcriptions, word building and inflection, lexical categories, basic sentence types, common phrase and clause patterns, and syntactic transformations structural analysis and use of evidence.

Conducted by students under the supervision of an instructor of their choice.

A two-semester course in which the student prepares a thesis under the supervision of a Linguistics faculty member. Prerequisite: Participants in the Distinguished Majors Program in Linguistics.

A two-semester course in which the student prepares a thesis under the supervision of a Linguistics faculty member. Prerequisite: Participants in the Distinguished Majors Program in Linguistics.

An introduction to the theory and analysis of linguistic sound systems. Covers the essential units of speech sound that lexical and grammatical elements are composed of, how those units are organized at multiple levels of representation, and the principles governing the relation between levels.     

Independent study conducted by the student under the supervision of, and with agreement of, instructor.

Linguistic Theory and Analysis

A discuss of the structure and history of the English spoken in the Southeastern United States. Prerequisites: Instructor Permission.

This course focuses on the psychological processes that underlie the use of language and speech. Is language competence different from other human skills? Is language a biological, a psychological, a cultural phenomenon, or all of these? Why do people speak with an accent? Why do we forget words (and why do we remember them)?

This course provides students with a foundation in the grammar of the English language. Topics include phonology, morphology, syntax, with a focus on structural analysis. Students will gain confidence in discussing the form, function, & usage of linguistic structures. These topics will also be related to the teaching & tutoring of English as a second language including error correction & feedback which will be reflected in advanced final papers.

Preparation for Master's Research, no thesis director.

For Master's thesis, taken under the supervision of a thesis director.

Special Areas Students should choose electives in one or more of the following areas: anthropology, Asian and Middle Eastern languages and Cultures, comparative Latin and Greek, English language study, Germanic linguistics, Indic linguistics, philosophy, psychology, Romance linguistics, Slavic linguistics.