The Linguistics minor (Bachelor or Arts, Bachelor of Science, or Bachelor of Science in Education, non-certifiable) offers students the opportunity to add a specialization in language to their major. Language makes possible all we do: science, politics, literature, religion, history, education, and culture in general. Understanding the linguistic component of various disciplines will help students better pursue their careers, especially in education, child development, psychology, communications, communication sciences, English and other languages, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy.

Furthermore, understanding how languages work and how people use them will help students become educated, responsible citizens. The study of linguistics addresses such current social issues as language death, bilingual education, deaf education, ethnic dialects, and "English Only" laws, as well as multi-cultural and multi-lingual issues within the US and around the world.

The Linguistics program is interdisciplinary and brings together faculty and courses from various colleges, departments and programs throughout the university, including English, Anthropology, Sociology, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Modern and Classical Languages.

All Linguistic minors are required to take a core course and twelve hours of electives, selected from courses in several disciplines. Students in a Bachelors of Arts program are already required to take four semesters of a foreign language; students in BS or BS-Ed programs must also take at least two semesters of a foreign language. Only one course (except for foreign language or American Sign Language courses) taken for the minor may also count towards general education or the students’ major, and a maximum of twelve hours (except for foreign language or American Sign Language courses) may be taken from a single discipline.

Students must take one of the following core courses:

• ANT 280: Linguistic Anthropology
• ENG 296: Introduction to Linguistics.

Students must then take four of the following electives:

• ANT 380: Language and Culture*
• CSD 210: Phonetics
• CSD 312: Normal Language Acquisition
• ENG 390: Modern English Grammar
• ENG 491: History of the English Language
• ENG 494: Dialects of American English
• ENG 590: Grammatical Analysis
• ENG 592: Sociolinguistics for Language Teaching
• ENG 593: Studies in Linguistics*
• FRN 313: French Language Awareness

* Variable contents course; up to 9 hours may be applied to the minor when the topic changes.

** When applicable.

Other courses may also count as electives for the minor with approval.

Students in BS or BS Ed programs must also take at least six hours of a foreign language, or American Sign Language. A student may take 3 hours each of 2 different languages.