BS in Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. A growing and exciting field, it has links to diverse fields including psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, computer science, artificial intelligence, sociology, language teaching, anthropology, and education. Linguistics is a key component of the field of cognitive science, the study of the structure and functioning of human cognitive processes. Linguistics at Northeastern offers courses in the theory and structure of language (such as phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics); the sociocultural nature of language (such as language and culture, language and gender, and sociolinguistics); the psychology of language (offered by the Department of Psychology); and applications to related domains (such as language acquisition, language change, and historical linguistics) that cross into the humanities and social sciences. Linguistics offers a variety of co-ops, including positions at local and national companies involved in speech recognition and production, as well as at Northeastern’s own speech perception and language processing labs in the Department of Psychology. Linguistics majors can also participate in international co-ops. For example, working with research teams at the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. Students with backgrounds in linguistics have pursued advanced degrees in fields including law, cognitive science, education, English, interpreting, business, speech pathology, computer science, developmental psychology, sociology, and linguistics itself. Other graduates have gone on to work in neurological research, computational linguistics, translation, language software, education, dictionary publishing, robotics, and criminal justice.