Mount Allison offers several linguistics courses that can be taken as part of your degree.
Like other inquiries which are central to human experience, language has long been the focus of intellectual examination. Speculation on the nature of language appears in the works of Plato, Aristotle and other Greek philosophers.
Although a number of disciplines, from literary studies to computer science, share the study of language with linguistics, the focus of linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguists are interested in how human language is organized in the human mind and in how the social structures of human communities shape language to their own purposes, reflecting themselves in language use.
Courses
The following courses will be offered during the 2023-24 academic year. For full course listings and course descriptions, visit the .
Fall 2024
LING 2001: Introduction to the Study of Language
A general-interest course intended to acquaint students in all fields with the structural, social and psychological forces that shape language, beginning with a consideration of the origins and nature of language and proceeding to an examination of languages as systems and the ways they structure meaning.
Winter 2025
LING 3011: Language and Society
This course introduces issues and methods in the field of sociolinguistics, the study of the interaction between language and the structure and functioning of society. It includes topics in language variation, the contact of languages, and issues in second-language acquisition, with an emphasis on Canadian contexts.