# Welcome to Linguistics! ### Dr. Will Styler and Alycia Randol --- ### So, you're gonna be a linguist? --- ### "Oh, you're a linguist? Cool!" ## "How many languages do you speak?" <!-- .element: class="fragment" --> --- Many linguists speak more than one language, but... ### There's way more to Linguistics than knowing languages <!-- .element: class="fragment" --> --- ### Linguists study Language * We're interested in how 'Language' works for humans - ... and we study it by looking at Spanish, or Laotian, or Russian, or Kumeyaay * Learning languages can be a part of that, but it's not the whole! --- ### We're interested in Capital L 'Language' - ... even as we're studying individual languages --- ... but we have a problem ... --- ## Language is amazingly complex --- ### "The duck quacked gleefully at his bae." <img class="r-stretch" src="img/bird_mallard.jpg" alt="$txt"> --- ### "The duck quacked gleefully at his bae." - How did I make that sequence of sounds and how did you recognize it? - Why is there a [t] at the end of quack rather than a [d]? - What does that last sound mean anyways? - Who quacked at whom? When? How do we know? - What was gleeful? - Is the duck single? Happy? - What's a 'bae' anyways? Can a duck have a bae? --- ### Language is complex * ## Linguistics has to be complex too --- ### We'll look at all the complexities - Our program deals with many of the major questions we have about language! --- ### Main Linguistic Subfields - "How does talking work?" - Phonetics - "How do sounds change when we combine them?" - Phonology - "How do we build words?" - Morphology - "How do we combine words into sentences?" - Syntax - "What does it all mean?" - Semantics and Pragmatics - Plus language acquisition, social factors in language, language in the brain and more! --- # What do linguists do? --- ### Theoretical Linguistics - How can we describe *how people communicate using language*? - How can we describe *the things people don't do* when using language? - What are the *most accurate models* to help us understand language? - What are the models which *best mirror our own cognition*? - How does language change over time? --- ### Linguistic Typology - How do languages *generally* accomplish communicative goals? - Are there patterns across the world? - What kinds of things are languages more and less likely to do? - Are there *universal* tendencies in language? --- ### Experimental work in Linguistics! - Studying speech and articulation using sound and physical measurements - Studying speech and sentence processing using eyetracking - Studying language in the brain using EEG, FMRI, and more! - Studying all sorts of elements of language using behavioral experiments --- ### Language Documentation <img class="r-stretch big" src="lotwimg/americadiversitymap.png" alt="$txt"> --- ### Language Documentation <img class="r-stretch" src="img/arrival_heptapod.jpg" alt="$txt"> --- ### Computational Linguistics - How do we make computers understand human language? - How do we use computers to process linguistic data? - How can we interact with computers using human language? - What can insights from language data provide for the world? --- ### Linguistic Data Science - How can we process, understand, and summarize language data? - How can we integrate natural language responses into other datastreams? - What can we learn about the people giving us data, from the language they use? --- ### Forensic Linguistics - How can we make strong claims about authorship? - What can we understand about a person from their language alone - Can we use voice and language to identify people? - How similar is 'similar' in language? --- ### Advertising and Branding <img class="r-stretch big" src="img/swiffer.jpg" alt="$txt"> --- ### Lexicography - What words are used in English? - What do they mean? - Where did they come from? --- ### ... and many, many more tasks! - Check out the [Linguistics Career Launch YouTube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNJRxM5T1SAtgT6Bhcext2Q) --- ### What questions do you have about language? --- ### What questions do you have about the field? --- ### What questions do you have about our major and program?