Informatics Cognate: Linguistics

BA in Informatics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human languages; it is directly related to psychology, anthropology, and computer science, as well as more applied fields like second language acquisition or speech and hearing science. The focus for linguistic informatics students is on computational representations of syntax and semantics for processing natural language.

An informatics major with a linguistics cognate consists of 46 semester hours, 21 of them drawn primarily from Linguistics.

The four required courses (a total of 12 s.h.) provide an introduction to linguistics and linguistic analysis:

Students must also take at least 3 s.h. in language history (e.g., 103:131 or 103:139) or a course in an old language (classical Greek, Latin, Old English, Sanskrit).

The remaining 6 s.h. of coursework focuses on the interface between linguistics and computation:

Note: we expect the sets of suitable courses for this and other cognates to expand during the first few years of the major, especially as new informatics-related cognate courses are developed. Students are encouraged to work with an Informatics faculty advisor to determine and get approval for personalized cognate course sets.

Last modified: July 24, 2007