Courses
LING 1000. Linguistics at Northeastern. (1 Hour)
Introduces first-year linguistics majors to the discipline, the department, and the University as a whole; offers students an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the skills needed for success as a university student.
LING 1150. Introduction to Language and Linguistics. (4 Hours)
Explores linguistics, the scientific study of language. Major topics include phonetics (production of speech sounds), phonology (sound systems in languages), morphology (structure of words), syntax (grammatical relationships between words and sentences), and semantics (meaning of words and sentences). Other topics may be surveyed such as the relationship between language and culture, language use within speech communities, languages in contact, the study of language change, language and brain, animal communication, and first language acquisition.
Attribute(s): NUpath Natural/Designed World, NUpath Societies/Institutions
LING 1449. English Now and Then. (4 Hours)
Introduces the field of linguistics from current and historical perspectives. Covers the scientific study of language: phonetics (production of speech sounds), phonology (sound systems in languages), morphology (structure of words), syntax (grammatical relationships between words and sentences), and semantics (meaning of words and sentences). These linguistic structures provide the basis for exploring the origins and development of the English language. Emphasizes both the major structural changes English has experienced over time, as well as the sociohistorical contexts that gave rise to these changes.
Attribute(s): NUpath Interpreting Culture, NUpath Natural/Designed World
LING 1990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)
Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.
LING 2350. Linguistic Analysis. (4 Hours)
Builds on the foundations of linguistic analysis developed in LING 1150. Offers students an opportunity to obtain a foundational basis for future study by focusing on four core areas of linguistics: phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax. Students hone their analytic abilities as they work with increasingly complex datasets. Adopting a descriptive, nontheoretical approach, students conduct linguistic research through a semester-long analysis of a world language.
Prerequisite(s): LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D-
LING 2990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)
Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.
LING 3150. Field Linguistics. (4 Hours)
Exposes students to the basic techniques of field methods with the goal of reinforcing the fundamental skills used in linguistic analysis. Through readings, discussions, and practical experience, students explore best practices in conducting linguistic field work: working with a native speaker consultant, eliciting linguistic structures, managing data effectively, analyzing the data collected, and presenting findings formally. May be repeated two times.
Prerequisite(s): LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Analyzing/Using Data, NUpath Integration Experience
LING 3250. Discourse Analysis. (4 Hours)
Introduces approaches to the analysis of interpersonal and institutional discourse and offers multiple opportunities to carry out small-scale analyses of talk-in-interaction. Major topics include conversational involvement and inference, conversation analysis, intertextuality, linguistic politeness, conversational style, framing, positioning, identity construction, epistemics, and conversations within institutional contexts.
Prerequisite(s): LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D-
LING 3412. Language and Culture. (4 Hours)
Explores the complex, often inexplicit relationship between language and culture, using a variety of methods drawn from the fields of anthropological linguistics and sociolinguistics. Questions may include: How do language and thought interact? How is language used to create and maintain social institutions and individual personae? How is language used differently by and across gender, ethnicity, and social class?.
Prerequisite(s): (LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or ENGL 1150 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D- ); (ENGL 1102 with a minimum grade of C or ENGL 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1102 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1113 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1114 with a minimum grade of C )
Attribute(s): NUpath Difference/Diversity, NUpath Interpreting Culture, NUpath Writing Intensive
LING 3420. Phonetics. (4 Hours)
Surveys phonetics, the study of speech sounds, including articulatory, acoustic, and auditory phonetics. Articulatory phonetics topics include anatomy and physiology; cross-linguistic consonant and vowel articulation; aerodynamics of speech production; coarticulation phenomena; and phonetics of supersegmentals such as syllables, stress, tone, and pitch accent. Acoustic phonetics topics include the physics of sound waves, reading spectrograms, and performing acoustic analyses. Auditory phonetics topics include audition and speech perception.
Prerequisite(s): LING 2350 with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Analyzing/Using Data
LING 3422. Phonology. (4 Hours)
Examines phonology, the study of the mental representation, organization, and patterning of sounds in human language. Major topics include phonological typology, phonemes, underlying and surface representations, phonological rules and alternations, natural classes of sounds, syllables and prosody, autosegmental phonology, rule-based vs. constraint-based approaches, morphophonology, diachronic phonology, and current theoretic models of sound systems.
Prerequisite(s): LING 2350 with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Analyzing/Using Data, NUpath Formal/Quant Reasoning
LING 3424. Morphology. (4 Hours)
Introduces morphology, the study of the structure, distributional behavior, and use of words. Covers descriptive methods of analysis, hierarchical word structure, morphological processes and rules, productivity, morphological change, and the interaction of morphology with phonology and syntax. Introduces major contemporary theories, including split morphology and single-component architecture.
Prerequisite(s): LING 2350 with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Analyzing/Using Data, NUpath Formal/Quant Reasoning
LING 3440. Language Acquisition. (4 Hours)
Examines the milestones and developmental patterns of typical first language acquisition across the linguistic system. Details the patterns and expected norms for the acquisition and development of speech perception and production, semantics, morphosyntax, pragmatics, and the lexicon. Considers biological, environmental, linguistic, and other factors that contribute to the processes of language acquisition, as well as major theories in the field. Students gain hands-on experience transcribing, analyzing, and evaluating child language data throughout the semester.
Prerequisite(s): LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D-
LING 3442. Sociolinguistics. (4 Hours)
Focuses on why people choose to say things in different ways in different situations. Examines language behavior in its social context and outlines the linguistic constructs that allow conversation to occur, the types of variation that can occur in registers and dialects, and the possible reasons for choosing different linguistic varieties. Also explores linguistic variation in relation to social context, gender, socioeconomic class, race, and ethnicity.
Prerequisite(s): (ENGL 1150 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D- ); (ENGL 1102 with a minimum grade of C or ENGL 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1102 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1113 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1114 with a minimum grade of C )
Attribute(s): NUpath Difference/Diversity, NUpath Societies/Institutions, NUpath Writing Intensive
LING 3446. Language Endangerment and Vitality. (4 Hours)
Examines the sociolinguistics of endangered languages. Major topics include global language vitality, language endangerment, ethnography, language death and its relation to loss of cultural identity within communities, and language planning and policy. Discusses these topics theoretically and in cross-linguistic perspective by examining various case studies.
Prerequisite(s): LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D-
LING 3450. Syntax. (4 Hours)
Introduces syntax, the theory of sentence structure. Explores how to do syntactic analysis using linguistic evidence and argumentation. Focuses primarily on English, with some discussion on the syntax of other languages. Other topics include syntactic universals and the relation between syntax and semantics.
Prerequisite(s): LING 2350 with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Analyzing/Using Data, NUpath Formal/Quant Reasoning
LING 3452. Semantics. (4 Hours)
Focuses on meaning and how it is expressed in language—through words, sentence structure, intonation, stress patterns, and speech acts. Considers how content, logic, and speakers’ and listeners’ assumptions affect what sentences can mean and how linguistic meaning is determined by one’s perceptual system or culture.
Prerequisite(s): LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Analyzing/Using Data, NUpath Formal/Quant Reasoning
LING 3454. History of English. (4 Hours)
Surveys the linguistic and social history of the English language from its Indo-European beginnings to the present. Examines the changes that have occurred in the sound system, word and sentence structures, vocabulary, semantics, and spelling from a formal linguistic perspective. Considers issues in language change—the influence of foreign invasion and migration, differences in dialect, and the emergence of English as a “world” language.
Prerequisite(s): LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D-
LING 3456. Language and Gender. (4 Hours)
Investigates the relationship between language and gender. Topics include how men and women talk; the significant differences and similarities in how they talk, why men and women talk in these ways, and social biases in the structure of language itself.
Prerequisite(s): (LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D- ); (ENGL 1102 with a minimum grade of C or ENGL 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1102 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1113 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1114 with a minimum grade of C )
Attribute(s): NUpath Difference/Diversity, NUpath Societies/Institutions, NUpath Writing Intensive
LING 3458. Topics in Linguistics. (4 Hours)
Focuses on one of a range of topics from the perspective of current linguistics, such as American dialectics, contemporary syntactic theory, language and law, women’s and men’s language, words and word structures, or issues in linguistics and literature. May be repeated without limit.
Prerequisite(s): LING 1449 with a minimum grade of D- or LING 1150 with a minimum grade of D-
LING 3460. Historical Linguistics. (4 Hours)
Introduces diachronic linguistics, the study of language change over time. Surveys common changes in the areas of sound systems, word and sentence structure, and semantic meaning. Introduces methodologies to access earlier stages of language, including the comparative method and internal reconstruction. Other topics include linguistic borrowing, analogical change, linguistic paleontology, and areal diffusion.
Prerequisite(s): LING 2350 with a minimum grade of D-
LING 3462. Constructed Languages. (4 Hours)
Focuses on constructed languages (conlangs): linguistic systems that have emerged from conscious creation, rather than natural development. Surveys a number of well-known conlangs. Examines the motivations for their creation, their internal linguistic structures, and their status and effectiveness within the cultures (real or fictional) for which they were designed. Building on their knowledge of linguistic structure, offers students an opportunity to develop their own constructed languages.
Prerequisite(s): LING 2350 with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov, NUpath Interpreting Culture
LING 3550. Syntax 2. (4 Hours)
Introduces topics in advanced syntax, building on students’ knowledge of basic concepts in phrase and sentence structure. Explores a wide range of complex syntactic constructions, and considers how current theory can be applied to numerous cross-linguistic syntactic phenomena.
Prerequisite(s): LING 3450 with a minimum grade of D-
LING 3990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)
Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.
LING 4654. Seminar in Linguistics. (4 Hours)
Explores a topic in current linguistics research. Requires prior completion of either two 3000-level LING courses or one 3000-level LING course and permission of instructor. May be repeated without limit.
Prerequisite(s): LING 2350 with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Capstone Experience, NUpath Writing Intensive
LING 4891. Research Seminar in Linguistics. (4 Hours)
Offers individualized research experience on a chosen topic under the direction of a faculty member. Also includes group meetings of students and the faculty member to study relevant research methods, to discuss relevant research literature, and to present research progress and results. Research content and requisites depend on the instructor, and prior arrangements should be made with the faculty member well in advance of registration. May be repeated up to eight times.
Attribute(s): NUpath Integration Experience
LING 4970. Junior/Senior Honors Project 1. (4 Hours)
Focuses on in-depth project in which a student conducts research or produces a product related to the student’s major field. Combined with Junior/Senior Project 2 or college-defined equivalent for 8-credit honors project. May be repeated without limit.
LING 4971. Junior/Senior Honors Project 2. (4 Hours)
Focuses on second semester of in-depth project in which a student conducts research or produces a product related to the student’s major field. May be repeated without limit.
Prerequisite(s): LING 4970 with a minimum grade of D-
LING 4990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)
Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.
LING 4991. Directed Study Research. (4 Hours)
Offers individualized research experience on a chosen topic under the direction of a faculty member. Research content and requisites depend on the instructor, and prior arrangements should be made with the faculty member well in advance of registration.
Attribute(s): NUpath Integration Experience
LING 4992. Directed Study. (1-4 Hours)
Offers independent work under the direction of members of the department on a chosen topic. Course content depends on instructor. May be repeated twice.
LING 4996. Experiential Education Directed Study. (4 Hours)
Draws upon the student’s approved experiential activity and integrates it with study in the academic major. Fulfills the college’s experiential education requirement. May be repeated without limit.
Attribute(s): NUpath Integration Experience