Are you considering studying linguistics? Maybe you’re currently taking your first linguistics course. Are you curious what else there is to learn beyond the basics?

When I was an undergraduate student pursuing my linguistics major, it wasn’t the prerequisite courses covering the core areas of linguistics—phonetics, phonology, semantics, and syntax—that drew me into the program. Rather, it was the upper-level courses that explored other areas of linguistics I hadn’t considered before.

In this blog post, I go over some of my favourite courses that I had the opportunity to take while completing my Bachelor of Arts.

Disclaimers

Just a few disclaimers before I go into the list.

I graduated with my Bachelors in 2019, so the Linguistics program I pursued has undergone changes to its curriculum since I was a student there.

Also, the courses I discuss are specific to my alma mater, the University of Toronto. If you are attending a different school, especially a school in a different country, then the course offerings will vary greatly because of this as well.

Finally, the instructor impacts the structure of the course, from the subjects covered to what kinds of assessments are used to determine your grade.

Linguistics Course Recommendations

1. Psychology of Language

Associated text: Language in Mind: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics by Julie Sedivy

U of T offers this as a third-year joint course between the Linguistics and Psychology departments. As the name suggests, this course goes through the key topics of psycholinguistics: how humans acquire the building blocks of language (sounds, words, syntactic structure), word recognition, conversational inferences, and so on. I recommend this course to anyone generally interested in psycholinguistics, but especially if they intend to become a speech-language pathologist.

2. Writing Systems

Associated text: Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach by Henry Rogers

This is a joint course between the Linguistics and Anthropology departments. This class went through the history of writing, discussing the different kinds of writing systems–or scripts–which have existed throughout history. It covers cultures and writing systems such as: cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Chinese script, Devanāgarī, and so on. It also discusses how one system has evolved into another over the centuries. I recommend this course for anyone interested in the historical context of linguistics.

3. Language Acquisition

Associated text: How Language Comes to Children by Benedicte de Boysson-Bardies (out of print but available as a pdf online or check your local library)

Language Acquisition is another joint Linguistics-Psychology course (see Psychology of Language, above). It delves into how children develop the ability to speak and understand the speech of others. You’ll understand how babies start babbling and how that ties to why the names for a mother or father in many languages begins with /m/, /b/, or /p/ sounds (Hint: all three are bilabial sounds). You’ll also learn about the neurological differences between children who are spoken to in one vs. multiple languages at home. I recommend this course to anyone pursuing speech-language pathology as a profession or who want to pursue research work in language acquisition.

4. Quantitative Methods

Associated text: Quantitative Methods in Linguistics by Keith Johnson

This linguistics course offers a primer on data analysis for linguistic research. Data analysis is taught using the programming language R and IDE RStudio. Therefore, you’ll also develop coding skills in this class. R is the programming language of choice for analysing linguistic data. For that reason, this course is a valuable choice for anyone who wants to continue studying linguistics beyond the undergraduate level. You may find other courses at your institution that instruct you on data cleaning, visualization, and analysis. However, a generic statistics course will not provide the necessary tools for working with and understanding linguistic data.

5. Brazilian Indigenous Languages

Associated text: Various academic articles

This course and the remaining linguistics courses discussed in this post had a crucial impact on the remainder of my time in academia. Brazilian Indigenous Languages introduced me to the topic of linguistic research focussing on Indigenous languages of Brazil, but also to the issue of langauge endangerment and extinction, and is why I became interested in language revitalization and documentation as a field of study. This course included a semester-long project where students selected a language and researched its linguistic structure. Students also had the chance to interview a linguist studying an Indigenous language and learn why they decided on their language and related subject matter. For myself, this course opened me up to the real-world work that linguistics can offer. I recommend it to anyone looking for the same thing.

6. Structure of a Specific Language

Associated text: Various academic articles

This is a linguistics seminar course offered to fourth-year students at U of T. The ‘specific language’ from the name depends on what is decided by the course instructor. In my case, professor Keren Rice chose to have us study languages of the Dene family and spend the semester going through the linguistic structure of several Dene languages by linguistic sub-field. As the final project, students were placed in groups and presented on the available language-learning materials existing for Dene languages: dictionaries, online resources, language learning mobile apps. This linguistics course introduced me to the Dene family. When I pursued my Master’s degree, I focussed on the Dene family, specifically the language Tsuut’ina, for my thesis.

7. Revitalizing Languages

Associated text: Various academic articles

This course, offered to third-year students at U of T, delves further into the linguistic sub-field of language revitalization. Students learned about different methods of language revitalization and how to communicate with communities to meet their needs. Less focused on the technical aspects of linguistics, the course delves into the possibilities of language instruction and acquisition. For example, creating a parallel text children’s book in English and Cree. I recommend this course to anybody interested in language revitalization, especially if they wish to pursue it further.