Faculty members on Wednesday approved a new minor in linguistics that the School of Arts and Sciences will start to offer next fall.
Ray Jackendoff, a distinguished linguist and Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy, said that the minor, to be hosted by the Department of Philosophy, is an amalgamation of current course offerings.
"There has been, for now about three years, a collection of courses in theoretical linguistics, and there has been a lot of interest from students in the linguistics courses, so we felt it might be useful to collect what we had into a grouping of courses and give students an opportunity to get a bit of depth," Jackendoff said.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Ariel Goldberg noted that the number of linguistics offerings has grown at Tufts over the past several years, in conjunction with rising student demand.
Goldberg, who specializes in the cognitive processes of language, worked with Jackendoff to develop the minor. They will serve as co−directors of the minor program.
Jackendoff said the minor was created in response to sustained interest over the years in linguistics courses.
"Over 40 people take Introduction to Linguistics every year, and there has been a fairly steady enrollment in other theoretical linguistics courses," Jackendoff said. "The minor gives people an opportunity or a reason to take more of them."
Students pursuing the minor are first required to take three theoretical linguistic courses, according to Jackendoff.
He explained that approximately 20 selected philosophy, psychology, child development, romance languages, classics and English courses will be crosslisted as linguistics courses to count toward the minor. Students must choose three additional electives from this list of courses to complete the minor.
"Could be historical linguistics, or child language development, or psycholinguistics, or philosophy of language — a variety of things," Jackendoff said.
Goldberg said the courses counting toward the minor are typically offered every year and focus primarily on the scientific study of language. The interdisciplinary minor will allow students to pursue their own interests within the field.
"Language is the object of study, either exploring how the mind produces language or the historical development of language over time," Goldberg said.
Jackendoff reiterated that there would be a great degree of flexibility in the minor. "It's pretty much whatever they want," he said. "If this were a major it would have more structure. [With] a minor, we're trying to give people some idea of the range of things you can study that have to do with language."
One requirement for linguistics minors, however, will be that their foreign language and culture requirements be fulfilled entirely through foreign language classes, whether through six semesters of one language or three semesters of two languages each, according to Jackendoff.
Senior Laina Rosebrock, who is majoring in cognitive and brain sciences, applauded the new program.
"I started to get interested in linguistics even in high school, and so when I came here the cognitive and brain sciences major was the only thing that really encompassed linguistics, so I think it's really cool that they're making this minor," Rosebrock said.
Rosebrock said the linguistics courses she has attended have been engaging.
"For the most part they've been really well attended and people get really into the discussions," she said. "Most of the people that are in the [psychology] major are really interested in the language side of it."
Sophomore Christopher Stoj said that the new minor was a pleasant surprise.
"I'm taking several linguistics classes because I'm interested in it; I didn't expect that [to] be recognized by a major or a minor," Stoj said. "I do appreciate that there's a label for the amount of study that I put into linguistics."
He expressed his hope that the school would go further and establish an official linguistics major program.
"It's sort of a shame that I may take more linguistics courses than the minor requires," Stoj said. "It's certainly a very promising department at Tufts; the faculty are excellent … It's very connected to other departments."
He cited the new Psycholinguistics and Linguistics Lab that Goldberg established as a significant development in linguistics at Tufts.
"It's an indication of Tufts' investment in the linguistics program, which is definitely going to grow in upcoming years," Stoj said.
Rosebrock, who works in the lab, echoed this sentiment, saying it adds on to existing research being done in psychology labs.
Jackendoff said that information about the minor will be posted on the philosophy department's Web site in the coming weeks.
