BA in English - Language and Linguistics in Reno United States | University of Nevada, Reno

The English Department's Language and Linguistics program equips students with expertise in the systematic examination of language's diverse aspects. This degree path readies graduates for advanced studies in linguistics, world languages, or medieval scholarship, as well as professions requiring deep linguistic knowledge, including legal fields, teaching, speech therapy, or tech industries. Our curriculum covers foundational linguistics, speech sounds and patterns, sentence structure, social language studies, gender and language, English's evolution and ancient forms, plus medieval texts like Beowulf and Chaucer's works. Learners enhance their composition and critical reading abilities while choosing supplementary literature or creative writing classes. Linguistics students often pair their studies with Anthropology, Computer Science, or language minors, while Literature/Writing majors may pursue Linguistics or TESOL minors. Note: No single course can count toward both major and minor requirements.
Graduates will achieve these competencies:

Exhibit (across all coursework) through articulate writing and discussion comprehension of linguistics' fundamental domains: speech sounds, sound systems, word formation, sentence structure, meaning systems, language use, language change, and societal language variations.
Illustrate through symbolic notation and written explanations the complex relationships between speech production and sound patterns in English and other language types' phonetic and phonological frameworks.
Display through diagramming, rule systems, transformational models, and written work a thorough comprehension of syntax theories and their application across subject-verb-object, subject-object-verb, and verb-subject-object language structures.
Articulate verbally and in writing how cultural and historical developments shaped English, while employing linguistic methodologies to document sound, structure, form, and writing system transformations throughout English's historical phases.