Department of Linguistics & TESOL

at the University of Texas at Arlington

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W H A T I S L I N G U I S T I C S ?

Linguistics, the systematic study of human language, lies at the crossroads of the humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences. Linguists, then, are not necessarily individuals who can speak multiple languages, but rather, individuals who have acquired specialized training in the art and science of analyzing patterns of language structure and language use. The UTA Department of Linguistics & TESOL prepares students for careers in both language research and ESL teaching by offering a curriculum that focuses on theoretically-informed analysis of language structure and use. Students pursuing a degree in Linguistics take courses in four core areas: sound systems (phonetics & phonology), grammar (morphology & syntax), meaning and use (semantics & pragmatics), and language in its social context (sociolinguistics, historical linguistics). Beyond the areas of research represented in the core curriculum, the department has special strengths in discourse analysis, field linguistics, and the documentation of lesser-studied / endangered languages. Members of the faculty have published linguistic work on languages spoken across the globe, including North America and Europe (English, German, Portuguese, Spanish), Asia (Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese), and Africa (Hausa, Ngas). Students pursuing a degree or certificate in TESOL divide their class time between theory and practice. All UTA TESOL students acquire not only a working knowledge of how to be an effective teacher of English to speakers of other languages, but also a sense of how other languages operate. Also included in the curriculum is a required practicum course, a course on curriculum development, and options to take elective courses in UTA's College of Education. The Department of Linguistics & TESOL is an academic unit of UTA's College of Liberal Arts (Dr. Beth Wright, Dean). Why Study Linguistics? Given that language plays a vital role in the intellectual and social lives of all human beings, the study of linguistics has bearing on a wide range of fields, including (but not limited to) language learning and teaching, literary analysis and criticism, linguistic psychology, communication, linguistic anthropology, philosophy, neurology and neurolinguistics, speech recognition and synthesis, and artificial intelligence. Graduates of the department have found employment not only in traditionally defined academic positions (i.e. university-level teaching and research), but also in fieldwork and field program administration, international development, literary consultation, language planning, language technology, and ESL teaching, both in the United States and abroad. In the age of information exchange, linguistic knowledge can enhance your acquisition and analysis of language data for educational, missionary, diplomatic, or military purposes. Even though UTA doesn't offer courses in languages of strategic concern to both the nation and the world, the Department of Linguistics & TESOL can provide motivated students with the sorts of core knowledge about how human languages work in general to prepare them for future study at other universities or language institutes that specialize in the more "exotic" languages.