Courses

Linguistics is the study of structure in language. Along with having grammatical structure, language plays a key role in social structure, where it is used to express our identity, convey meaning, and connect with others. Linguistic structure is also at the core of large language models used in AI. This course offers an introductory-level approach to sound, meaning, word and sentence structure, language change, and language's role in society. Through lectures, interactive activities, and weekly problem sets, students will gain insight into how language works and how linguists analyze it. Concrete examples from English and diverse global languages will illustrate the course concepts. By the end of the course, you will understand the systematic nature of human language, appreciate linguistic diversity, and recognize how linguistic analysis contributes to fields from education to artificial intelligence and machine learning.