Student Perspective
“When you’re [in Jordan], you’re constantly pushing yourself, constantly extending yourself in new situations, extending yourself to communicate. I learned to trust the progress I had made. … I can communicate using this language more than I thought I could.”
Sela Dombrower ’24, Student
Linguistics
Boulder, Colorado
Lawrence University junior Annika Schmidt excels in her academic pursuits: cello and linguistics. She was recently named the co-winner of the annual Concerto Competition for the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra.
Lawrence University sophomore Eitan Price, a linguistics major, attended the Linguistics Society of America’s (LSA) Summer Institute, an “intellectual summer camp” that annually gathers top professionals and students in linguistics studies.
Junior Sela Dombrower used her growing Arabic skills to get the most out of her study abroad experience in Jordan. She studied in Amman for five months, writing blog posts of her experience.
Live linguistic diversity abroad
The world is your classroom with opportunities to study in countries around the world.
Drink It All In
Gather with your peers and professors for a Linguistics Tea or Ice Cream Social, and join the annual Linguistics Weekend at Björklunden to hear the seniors present their research on topics that could include computational linguistics, applied linguistics, natural language processing, language structure, or language acquisition.
Language Study
Students who major in linguistics gain language experience by completing the first-year sequence in two languages or pursuing advanced study of a language on campus or in one of Lawrence’s study abroad programs.
The Chandler Senior Experience
Complete your Senior Experience in a senior seminar in which you identify a research question on a topic of interest, critically review relevant literature, engage with linguistic data, and develop a well-conceived research proposal. Then, showcase your work by presenting it to students and faculty in the Linguistics program. If you have a second major, pursue a topic that integrates both fields (e.g., computational linguistics, large language models, artificial intelligence).
Recent Senior Experiences include:
- Native and non-native perceptions of pre-velar /æ/-raising in Wisconsin English
- English-Spanish Code-switching in Bilingual Blogs: Patterns among native English speakers living abroad
- What Did You Call That? An Examination of English Names Transliterated into Chinese
Explore Linguistics Outcomes
Linguistics prepares you to better understand human behavior which prepares you to succeed in any field, from business to law to arts or medicine.