Exploring Linguistic Inquiries

Linguistics seeks to formally model what these systems are and can be (including their sounds or signs, words, syntax, and semantics) and to discover how these systems interact with reasoning, social behavior and many other aspects of the human experience.

Linguists also ask: How and why do languages change over time? How do languages vary and in what ways are they similar? How are they acquired by children? How are languages stored and processed in adults? How are languages and dialects used for the expression of social identity? How can linguists help preserve the world’s variety of languages in the face of continued loss of many of the worlds’ languages?

Offerings of the Linguistics Program

The Brown Program in Linguistics offers courses in the principles of language structure and is committed to allowing students to apply this knowledge to the many facets of language as a human social, cultural and cognitive system. Brown Linguistics faculty and students study such topics in a wide range of languages from across the globe and using a wide range of empirical methodologies. Particular strengths of our program include the study of language variation (within a language, across languages, and within society), and the study of meaning, communication, mind, and the role of information in the ways languages are structured.