Language Sciences Minor

Language is arguably the feature that distinguishes humans from all other living things. Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and the term “language sciences” encapsulates more broadly how this empirical approach to understanding language structure and usage is carried out in a variety of disciplines – like Speech Language Pathology, Education and Second Language Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Neuroscience. Our minor also focuses on the social function of language, and how pronunciations, sentence structures, and interaction styles vary across social groups. Across our classes, we prioritize hands-on experience conducting research related to language.

Requirements

The 18-credit hour minor in Language Sciences includes 9 hours of core courses and 6 hours of elective courses selected from a list, as well as a 3-hour language sciences capstone.

Who is it for?

The Language Sciences minor will benefit students following a variety of career paths, including:

Human Development majors and Disability Studies minors

• speech language pathology/audiology

Computer Science majors

• natural language processing/speech synthesis

Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures majors and International Studies majors

• translating/interpreting

Psychology, Sociology, Statistics, History, and Data Analytics majors

• research linguistics/data analysis

English majors and Pre-education majors

• teaching

Business majors and Communication majors

• communication consulting

Geography majors and GIS minors

• language mapping engineering

Psychology majors and Neuroscience majors

• cognitive research science

Industrial and Systems Engineering majors

• acoustical engineering

Electrical Engineering majors and Mechanical Engineering majors

• artificial intelligence/speech recognition engineering

See what our students are saying

Photo Gallery

This minor is hosted by the Department of English in collaboration with numerous departments across Virginia Tech.