95 courses with the subject LING, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
LING 001Introduction to Language and Linguistics1
Introduction to the study and analysis of human language, including sound systems, lexical systems, the formation of phrases and sentences, and meaning, in a variety of languages and with respect to how languages change over time. Other topics that may be covered include first-language acquisition, sign languages, language and power, multilingualism and linguistic justice.
We consider gestures that members of speech communities use and signs that occur in sign languages. How do they differ… how are they similar… and why? We will read gesture studies and form an inventory of types of gestures. Then we will look at a recent proposal about the articulatory properties of gestures compared to those of signs. Students will form pairs to investigate gestures in a language other than English and signs in a sign language other than American Sign Language, always with one eye on the proposal we are evaluating and the other wandering wherever phenomena of interest lure us. No prior experience with a sign language is required. Social sciences. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Napoli.
LING 002AFirst-Year Seminar: Gender and Language (LCS)1
In this course we will examine the way that language makes gender, and gender makes language. This includes examinations of gender marking in the grammar of languages (such as grammatical gender, gendered nouns and pronouns, etc.); the way that linguistic performance can be influenced by gendered embodiment and create gendered performance; and how gender influences linguistic interactions and their interpretations. Writing 1 credit. Eligible for GSST.
LING 002BFirst-Year Seminar: Creoles in the Caribbean (LCS)1
Creole languages are new language varieties arising out of contact between European languages and non-European languages (from the regions of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean) during colonization. The primary focus will be on Anglophone Creoles of the Caribbean and the Caribbean coast of Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama and Honduras. In addition to examining structural features, we will examine the sociohistorical and linguistic circumstances leading to the formation of new language varieties as well as the colonial ideologies which shape the study of Creoles and their status in Creolophone societies. Other aspects to be explored include: Creoles and education, the commodification and spread of Creole languages (e.g. through Reggae), linguistic agency and resistance, the possible relationship between Creoles and African American English (AAE), whether Creoles are autonomous languages and if they constitute one language family. 1 credit. Eligible for LALS.
LING 003First-Year Seminar: Multilingualism and Language Contact1
· Are bilingual people more creative? · If you use more than one language at the same time, does it mean you are not fluent in those languages? · What’s the difference between bilingualism and multilingualism? Come explore these questions and other myths about multilingualism, from a linguistic point of view, to gain an understanding of what it means to be multilingual at the individual, community and societal level. You will also get a chance to edit Wikipedia pages as part of the Wikipedia Student Program and learn about multilingualism in various regions: Latin America, Canada, the United States etc. Social Science 1 credit. Eligible for GSST, LALS.
LING 004First-Year-Seminar: Indigenous Languages of the Americas1
At least 300 languages were spoken in North America before the first contact occurred with Europeans. Most of the surviving languages are on the verge of extinction. Students will learn about language patterns and characteristics of language families, including grammatical classification systems, animacy effects on sentence structure, verbs that incorporate other words, and evidentials. Topics include how languages in contact affect each other, issues of sociolinguistic identity, language endangerment and revitalization efforts, and matters of secrecy and cultural theft. Social sciences. 1 credit.
LING 004AFirst-Year Seminar: Discovering Language: A Scientific Approach1
Everyone speaks a language, often more than one. But how do languages actually work? As a class, we’ll work directly with a speaker of an unfamiliar language to figure out how it’s organized, while using it to shed light on Language more generally. We’ll practice collaborative linguistic fieldwork and language documentation, cover basic concepts in linguistic theory to help make sense of what we find, and counter some common linguistic myths. We’ll address a range of questions like: How different can languages be from one to another? How typical - or unusual - is English? How does a language become endangered, and what can be done about it? And what are our responsibilities as researchers towards the people we work with? Social sciences. 1 credit.
LING 004BFirst-Year Seminar: Internet Linguistics1
Despite claims to the contrary, it seems that the internet has not destroyed English. But how has the internet changed language use, and the study of linguistics? This course will be an exploration of the various forms that language takes online and other digital formats, such as texting. We will explore questions such as: Why do my parents insist on texting in full paragraphs? Is the internet good or bad for the future of indigenous and minority languages? Is there a difference in meaning between :), :-), ^_^,? What are the differences and similarities between face-to-face and online communication? We will look at a range of sources and methods for investigating language use online, and use some of these methods in our own investigations of internet language. Social sciences. 1 credit.
LING 005First-Year Seminar: How Children Learn Language1
This course explores how humans acquire a language from infancy to young childhood. We will examine how children come to acquire grammatical features, sound patterns, language structures, social language skills, and more. This course will also examine the role of cognitive development in language acquisition as well as theories of language acquisition. This course will investigate many sub-branches of linguistics, such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and more. Social sciences. 1 credit.
What do people mean when they say someone “has pronouns”? What grammatical constraints affect pronouns, and are they universal? How do pronouns change over time? Why do people take a longer time to learn new pronouns compared to new names or nouns? How are pronouns processed in the brain? All languages have pronouns, but their linguistic properties vary between languages, change over time, and vary within languages. In this class, we will explore the meaning, formation, history, and use of pronouns across languages by engaging with linguistic research and language data. This class is suitable for students with no previous study in linguistics; we will cover pronouns from the perspective of multiple subdisciplines, including syntax, semantics, morphology, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for GSST.
(Cross-listed as RUSS 008A ) This course counts for distribution in humanities under the Modern Languages and Literatures Russian rubric and in social sciences under the Linguistics rubric. 0.5 credit.
LING 009First Year Seminar: Voices of the Silk Road1
This course leads students to survey the languages and societies of the diverse peoples who have called the “Silk Road” region home up through the middle ages as understood from different perspectives within those societies. Rather than view cultures of this region as peripheral or the Silk Road as a mere transit corridor between empires, students will understand the region as a diverse cultural, economic, and scientific center in its own right that has had an enduring impact on world history. Supported by dictionaries, grammar descriptions, and English translations, we will learn about these societies in part by conducting close readings of authentic texts written by people who lived in this region, including love songs, bragging about archery skills, alimony letters, shopping lists, complaints to superiors, etc., in languages including Imperial Aramaic, Sogdian, Khotanese Saka, Tokharian, Classical Tibetan, Old Turkic, and Middle Mongol. Interactions with adjacent societies, such as Persia, India, and China, will also be featured prominently. The study of language change, dispersion, and exchange will be introduced by applying analytical tools to these languages, including reconstruction through systematic correspondences, isogloss maps, decipherment of unknown languages, palaeographic analysis of writing systems, morphological and phonological analysis, and comparison to currently spoken relatives. Topics such as vowel harmony, tonogenesis, and templatic and agglutinative morphology will be introduced. By interacting with texts and building these analytical skills, students will be able to appreciate and explore the interconnectivity of this region throughout history. Social sciences. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Washington.
Introduction to learning and understanding American Sign Language (ASL), and the cultural values and rules of behavior of the American Deaf community. Includes receptive and expressive readiness activities; sign vocabulary; grammatical structure; facial expressions (emotional & grammatical), body/spatial movement, gestures; receptive and expressive fingerspelling; and deaf culture do’s and don’ts. Specific concepts/topics include the number/letter/color/shape basics, identifying people, activities, transportation, cities, places, and family. Social sciences. 1 credit.
In ASL II, students expand their conversational range from talking about themselves to talking about other people, and about activities inside and outside the home along with time/calendar/sequencing concepts. Students also gain skill in reading and giving directions along with making requests as well as agreeing to requests with conditions. Other concepts include opinions, qualities, and pricing. Students develop polite conversation strategies to navigate Deaf space and to handle interruptions. Grammar topics include retelling and using role shifting in narratives, agreement verbs, and negations.
LING 011 Social sciences. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 013Classical Japanese Literature and Language Change
(Cross-listed as ENGL 014 ) This course counts for distribution in humanities under the English rubric and in social sciences under the linguistics rubric. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for MDST. Spring 2027. Williamson. Spring 2028 Williamson.
American Sign Language (ASL) 3 is an intermediate-level course designed for individuals who have a strong foundation in basic ASL grammar and vocabulary and want to further develop their skills in the language. In this course, students will continue to build upon their ASL skills by expanding their vocabulary and learning more complex grammar structures. The focus will be on expanding the students’ ability to engage in conversations with deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, as well as developing their ability to understand and interpret signed narratives.
LING 012 . Social Sciences. 1 credit. Department website: www.linguistics.edu Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 016AForensic Linguistics
(Cross-listed as RUSS 016A ) This half-credit course provides an overview of linguistic approaches to the study of law and language. It combines a theoretical discussion of selected issues with practical analysis of texts. Written texts will be analyzed for their stylistic features, spoken texts will point out the interaction between discourse participants. The course will report on the findings of the newly developing discipline of forensic linguistics. At the end of the course, students will be able to understand the role of the emerging discipline of forensic linguistics as well as understand the specificities of various genres of legal English. Humanities. .5 credit.
LING 018Linguistic Evolution of English: From Prehistory to Present1
This course will trace the evolution of English from its earliest Indo-European origins to its present-day dispersal around the globe. Students will investigate the languages, cultures and histories of the linguistic ancestors of English, and will examine how peculiarities of modern English find their origins in the unique and distinctive development of the language. Students will additionally gain familiarity with basic linguistic concepts in articulatory phonetics and phonology, as well as historical and comparative linguistics. This course has no formal prerequisites. 1 credit.
Students will gain a working knowledge of the structure of the Lenape Language. The course covers conversation, grammar, and usage, as well as discussion of the conceptual elements inherent in this Algonquian language. Topics will include elements of Lenape culture, songs in the language, and discussion of the current status of Lenape as an endangered language. Social sciences. 1 credit.
(Cross-listed as CPSC 065 ) This course is an introduction to the fundamental concepts in natural language processing, the study of human language from a computational perspective. The focus will be on creating statistical algorithms used in the analysis and production of language. Topics to be covered include parsing, morphological analysis, text classification, speech recognition, and machine translation. No prior linguistics experience is necessary. Group 3 course.
CPSC 035 or the equivalent. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for COGS Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 022Introduction to Japanese Linguistics1
(Cross-listed as JPNS 022 ) This course introduces various aspects of Japanese linguistics, such as Japanese phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics. Through obtaining theoretical insights on the structural organization of the Japanese language and examining linguistic data, the course aims to broaden students’ knowledge of the structural aspects of the language and to cultivate their ability to analyze linguistic facets of Japanese communicative culture. In class, we will go over the main concepts and data analyses from weekly readings and discuss relevant data, questions, and counter-examples, while going over study questions and exercises. Students are encouraged to share their own experiences and compare the Japanese linguistic structures and communicative practices with those of English and other languages. Students who take this class will develop their understanding of the differing layers of the Japanese language by solving concrete linguistic problems, enhance their ability to learn new grammatical structures in the Japanese language by analyzing them linguistically, and receive guidance in producing an objective linguistic analysis of a facet of the Japanese language. Readings and discussion will be in English.
Completion of JPNS 00 1 or permission of the instructor. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: https://swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 023Language in Contemporary Japanese Society and Media.1
(Cross-listed as JPNS 023 ) This course counts for distribution in humanities under the Japanese rubric. Social sciences. 1 credit Eligible for ASIA
(Cross-listed as CLST 024 ) This course counts for distribution in humanities under the classics rubric and in social sciences under the linguistics rubric. Social sciences 1 credit.
LING 025Sociolinguistics: Language, Culture, and Society (LCS)1
(Cross-listed as SOAN 040B ) How do language, culture and society fit together? How is language shaped by the world we live in and does it shape it? This course introduces students to language as a social practice with an emphasis on how spoken languages are used in everyday interactions. Come learn about: Language and power, Language, social structures and inequality, Language and the nation-state, Multilingualism and code-switching, Language as a social practice, Language variation, Quantitative and qualitative approaches to language in society. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for BLST, ESCH. Fall 2026. Sevgi. Spring 2027. Sevgi.
LING 026Sociolinguistics of Creole Languages (LCS)1
(Cross-listed as SOAN 026 ) A survey course on so-called Creole languages which arose out of contact between European languages and, in the circum-Caribbean, West African languages during the period of colonization. Come learn about the sociohistorical and linguistic circumstances that led to new languages and the racialized colonial ideologies which shape the study of Creoles and their status in Creolophone societies. Special focus on Creoles in Jamaica and Central America and the study of Hawaiian Creole in the early Creole Studies. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for AFST at BMC and HAV, BLST, ESCH, GLBL, LALS
(Cross-listed as ASIA 027 JPNS 027 ) This course introduces the writing systems of East Asia, focusing specifically on those of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. The course covers such topics as historical background and developments, adaptation of the Chinese script in regional varieties of Chinese and in the Korean and Japanese languages, popular and scholarly myths about the scripts, issues of literacy, and non-Sinitic script use in East Asia. The course is taught in English and prior knowledge of an East Asian language is not required. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA.
(Cross-listed as CPLT 029 ) We look at sign language literature, comparing to spoken language literature with respect to: storytelling methods, definitions of rhyme, notions of closure, role of paralinguistic features, relationship of storyteller to audience, and role of stories in their communities. We examine linguistic creativity in storytelling, humor, poetry, and taboo language across modalities. Social Sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for CPLT, LING
LING 030English in Post-Colonial Africa & the African Diaspora1
(Cross-listed with Black Studies and GLBL-paired) This course explores the importance of the English language in Post-colonial Africa. By deeply examining the historical, socio-political, and cultural contexts that have influenced the evolution and adaptation of the English language, students will acquire insights into the linguistic diversity found in post-colonial Africa and its practical implications. The course will explore the relationship between English and indigenous languages, focusing on their continuing influence in education, governance, literature, and identity formation. We will also look at the linguistic structure of African American English and explore connections to the languages of African and English-based creoles such as Gullah, spoken in the Caribbean and the South Carolina coast. Social sciences. 1 credit.
(Cross-listed as CHIN 033 ) This course counts for distribution in humanities under the chinese rubric and in social sciences under the linguistics rubric. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. MDST. Fall 2027 STAFF.
LING 035Indigenous Languages of the Americas (LCS)1
This course is an introduction to researching the indigenous languages of North America. We investigate techniques for figuring out how languages work. We will see ways in which the grammars of these languages are significantly different from Indo-European languages and ways in which they are very similar. We will study techniques of identifying language families and the effects of language contact. We also look at efforts to revitalize languages in communities and examine intercultural interactions between language communities and language researchers.
Any LING course or permission of the instructor. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ESCH. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 036Languages of the World1
This course is an introduction to the field of Linguistic Typology - a branch of linguistics that is concerned with investigating the variation that exists in naturally occurring human languages. Students will be introduced to some of the topics that are of interest in this field, including, but not limited to: word orders, agglutination, case alignment, sound systems, phonologies, and more. 1 credit.
How are languages learned? What cognitive and social factors contribute to development in first, second, and additional languages? How can immersion and study abroad be used most effectively by students? This course is an introduction to theories and methods in investigating the process and achievement of using new language. We will explore common myths about second language acquisiton and how improvisational skills are gained in new systems of culture, vocabulary, and grammar. We will also examine how age, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and other social factors mediate language development. Students will learn how to examine their own experiences through methods in participant observation and autoethnography, and gain an understanding of how researchers contribute to textbook development and instructional approaches such as communicative language teaching. Social sciences. 1 credit.
(Cross-listed as PHIL 040 ) This course is an introduction to the field of natural language semantics, a branch of linguistics concerned with meaning. We will aim to understand how the meaning of complex expressions arises through the meaning of their parts and the way these parts are combined in the syntax. Our approach to understanding these combinatorial phenomena will be rooted in truth-conditional, model-theoretic semantics, following Gottlob Frege’s insights. Frege conjectured that semantic composition involves a ‘saturation’ of an ‘unsaturated’ meaning component and modeled this ‘saturation’ using mathematical functions. Frege’s treatment of semantic composition as functional application will serve as our guiding principle, and for this, we will learn some descriptive tools, including set theory, propositional and predicate logic, lambda-calculus, and type theory. We will explore how these formal tools apply (and do not apply) to natural languages and discuss how we can achieve a more comprehensive understanding of meaning. This course counts for distribution in humanities under the philosophy rubric and in social sciences under the linguistics rubric. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for COGS. Fall 2026. Sağ. Spring 2027. Owusu.
In our daily usage of languages, what a sentence conveys can be much richer than its literal meaning. For example, from the sentence Ede had too much coffee and couldn’t fall asleep last night, we can draw not only a conjunction of two propositions (the literal meaning), but also a causality relation between these two propositions (the non-literal meaning) -having too much coffee made Ede unable to fall asleep last night. The non-literal aspect of meaning can either make communication more efficient, or cause bumps or potholes. This course is about Pragmatics, the subfield of Linguistics devoted to understanding the non-literal aspect of meaning, such as how the utterance context and conversational maxims affect the meaning of an utterance, and what an utterance attributes to the context. In this course, we will focus on the relationship between semantics and pragmatics and will explore a range of theoretical and experimental studies in pragmatics. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for COGS.
LING 042Voices of the Silk Road: Languages, Societies, and Cultural Exchange in Central Asia1
This course leads students to survey the languages and societies of the diverse peoples who have inhabited the “Silk Road” region-an area of Eurasia spanning the Pacific to the Middle East-focusing on cultural exchange and transformation in the region between the 2nd and 14th centuries as understood from different perspectives within those societies. Rather than view cultures of this region as peripheral or the Silk Road as a mere transit corridor between empires, the goal of the course is to enable students to understand the region as a cultural, economic, and scientific center in its own right whose linguistic and artistic diversity has had an enduring impact in world history and on current events. The course will provide breadth and depth of understanding for these societies by incorporating a series of case studies. We will introduce students to various types of analysis of original sources, including paleographic analysis of writing systems, linguistic analysis of authentic texts in various languages, and close readings of texts supported by English translations. Approaches to the study of linguistic dispersion and exchange will be investigated through analysis of the languages of this region. By interacting with texts and building analytical skills in these areas, students will be able to appreciate and explore the interconnectivity of this region throughout history. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA, GLBL-paired, MDST. Access the class schedule to search for sections.
This course looks at word formation and the meaningful ways in which different words in the lexicon are related to one another in the world’s languages.
LING 045 . Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for COGS Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 043HHonors Attachment: Morphology and the Lexicon1
This attachment allows students interested in advanced Morphology the opportunity to go deeper into the material.
This attachment must be taken concurrently with LING 043. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Department website: Linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 044Linguistic Discrimination1
This course examines the intersections of language and social identity, and the ways these intersections serve as potential sites for both expression and social conflict. Why are some linguistic differences stigmatized, while others are barely noticed? Focusing on-but not limited to-varieties of English spoken in the US, we will explore issues concerning regional, socially- and ethnically-linked dialects; ideologies about language and language variation; attitudes toward linguistic diversity; hate speech and political correctness; and language-based discrimination in public and private contexts. Along the way we will examine what is known about language as a linguistic and social phenomenon, including the ways language is used to construct and reflect social identities and social group boundaries. Social Sciences. 1 credit.
Phonetics explores the full range of sounds (and their signed counterparts) produced by humans for use in language and the gestural, acoustic, and auditory properties that characterize those sounds. Phonology investigates how those sounds are represented, organized, and combined in languages, and the properties and cognitive mechanisms that guide their use. This course uses data from languages around the world and focuses on recognizing patterns in the data and developing analyses to account for them within a given theoretical framework. Students will learn to transcribe speech from familiar and unfamiliar languages, read spectrograms, and understand how speech sounds are produced in the vocal tract. For their final project, students will gather original data to describe the sound system of a language of their choice. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for COGS. Fall 2026. Gasser. Spring 2027. Washington.
The study of language and culture from an evolutionary perspective. We will think about how linguistic and cultural traits evolve, and how changes can be “undone” with to reconstruct the past. This course applies computational methods originally developed for evolutionary biology to language and culture.
(Cross-listed as ENVS 034) Environmental linguistics is an emerging field at the intersection of linguistics and natural sciences. It recognizes the mutual relationship between cultural and ecological diversity, documenting linguistic structures and verbal practices by which speakers conceptualize, encode, and transmit knowledge about the natural world. Natural phenomena-as Indigenous experts explain-cannot be understood apart from the languages that encode them, and vice versa. Language diversity is thus the key to safeguarding biodiversity and a balanced human relationship with nature. Environmental linguistics works to decolonize linguistics as our field evolves to prioritize knowledge co-production over data extraction.
A course in Linguistics or permission of the instructor for special cases. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ENVS. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 050Syntax (W)1
The main objective of this course is to familiarize students with the scientific study of syntactic structure in human language as part of the broader enterprise of the study of the human language faculty. Students learn the rudiments of syntactic analysis and argumentation within the Principles & Parameters/Minimalist framework in generative syntactic theory. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit. Eligible for COGS Fall 2026. Donovan. Spring 2027. Donovan.
This course is an introduction to the study of linguistic change. Various models of language change are explored to seek to understand how and why languages change. Students will work directly with raw linguistic material from a wide range of languages to find patterns, argue for analyses, and figure out how the past shapes the linguistic present. Changes at all levels of the grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, lexicon) will be analysed, and various factors that can contribute to linguistic change will be explored. We will learn how it is possible to reconstruct linguistic systems that we have no direct record of, and will consider what it means for languages to diverge and converge. Major themes of the course include the comparative method and the relationship between sociolinguistics and historical linguistics. The topics of language shift; language marginalisation and endangerment; language maintenance, revitalisation, and reclamation; and language planning will also be addressed. Assigned work and projects will develop the skills to conduct historical linguistics research through electronic and library resources.
LING 001 or LING 045 or permission of the instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Washington. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 052HHnrsAttch: Historical/Compar Linguistics
This attachment allows students interested in advanced Historical and Comparative Linguistics the opportunity to go deeper into the material. Students will do additional readings and engage with the work through additional written responses, discussion leading, and the like. Honors attachment available for students wishing to use the course as an Honors seminar and must be taken concurrently with LING 052 Historical Comparative Linguistics. See details in Honors in Linguistics for more information. Fall 2026. Washington.
LING 054How Children Talk to Each Other: Oral and Written Language1
(Cross-listed as EDUC 054 ) We examine children’s dialogue and its rendering in children’s literature, focusing on the voices of minority children within an American setting. Each student will pick an age group to study. There will be regular fiction-writing assignments as well as primary research assignments with children. This course is for linguists, writers of children’s fiction, and anyone else interested in child development or reading skills. It is a course in which we learn through doing. This is a 1 credit, ungraded course. Social sciences. Writing course. 1 credit.
LING 055Bimodal-bilingual videobooks for deaf children1
We will discuss the language needs of deaf children as they pertain to daily life and cognitive health. Then we will focus on language as a foundation for developing literacy skills, where promoting shared reading between hearing adults and deaf children is our major goal. We will work with deaf organizations around the world to produce bimodal-bilingual videobooks that will be offered free on the RISE website ( risevideobooks.org ). The course will be organized like an independent study, but with weekly meetings. Social sciences. 1 credit. Spring 2027. Napoli.
(Cross-listed as CLST 057 ) This course counts for distribution in humanities under the Classics rubric and in Social Sciences under the Linguistics rubric. 1 credit.
Navajo is an Athabaskan language spoken more commonly than any other Native American language in the United States. This course is an examination of the major phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic structures of Navajo. The morphology of this language is legendary. This course also considers the history of the language and its cultural context.
LING 050 and LING 045 or LING 052 or permission of the instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ESCH. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 061HHonors Attachment: Structure of Navajo1
Prerequisite: This attachment must be taken concurrently with LING 061. Social Sciences. 1 credit.
This attachment must be taken concurrently with LING 061. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Department website: Linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 063Supporting Literacy Among Deaf Children1
(Cross-listed at THEA 033 ) In this course, we will consider ways to promote literacy among young deaf children, including introducing them to sign language literature and the visual vernacular and encouraging shared reading activities with their care-takers. This course is jointly offered at Gallaudet University . The GALLY students will re-envision beloved picture books in a way that reflects deaf culture and video-record themselves telling those stories. The SWAT students will give (remote) feedback on those videos and then produce the revised versions in the form of YouTube videos and ebooks for the RISE Ebook project website. These bimodal-bilingual stories will be designed so that adults can share them with deaf children regardless of their knowledge of a sign language (or lack thereof).
A background in linguistics, theater, film, early childhood development, or education would be helpful.
Corequisite
Students taking the course remotely must have access to an Apple computer or iPad with iBooksAuthor and must have access to film-editing programs. Students also need to have a rudimentary knowledge of a sign language (such as ASL) or concurrently take an attachment in ASL language. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for INTP, GLBL - Core Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
Turkish, a member of the Altaic family of languages, has a lot of potential to inform research in morpho-syntax and semantics. It has a plethora of intriguing empirical phenomena, such as nominalized clausal complementation, differential object marking, agreement, incorporation, scope rigidity, recursive argument introduction and suppression operations, impersonal passivization, evidentiality, and scrambling, among others. This course aims to familiarize you with some of these phenomena within the framework of generative linguistics that helps us appreciate their significance from a cross-linguistic perspective. We will discuss various aspects of Turkish syntax and semantics to understand if the existing linguistic theories can account for the properties of Turkish. In cases where these theories fall short of accounting for Turkish facts, we will attempt to extend or modify them. The course will be formally oriented. By the end of the semester, you will be able to understand key syntactic and semantic properties of Turkish and create and modify formal representations of these properties.
LING 040 and LING 050 or with instructor permission. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. Department website: Linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 065HHonors Attachment: Structure of Turkish1
This attachment must be taken concurrently with LING 065. Social Sciences. 1 credit.
Thai is the national language of Thailand, and a language in the Kra-Dai language family. In this course we will embark on a deep dive into the linguistic study of Thai, including components of its phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and sociolinguistics. Topics of special focus may include (but are not limited to) its intricate system of pronominal reference, how Thai came to be a tonal language, and how the Thai writing system acts as a kind of ‘fossil record’ for studying its history. We will compare aspects of Thai to related languages in its family, such as Lao, Shan, Tai Khamti, and more. We will also zoom out to mainland Southeast Asia as a linguistic convergence area, the geographic and cultural crossroads within which Thai has both influenced and been influenced by many neighboring languages and cultures. The aim of the course is to expand the skills you have gained in other linguistics courses by applying them to all parts of the Thai language. You will have some freedom to explore the areas of the language that most interest you. You will also have the chance to interact with Thai speakers as you build your skills of linguistic analysis and reasoning, and as we get up to our elbows in both primary data and the existing linguistics literature about Thai.
Any two of LING 001, LING 025, LING 040, LING 043, LING 045, LING 050, or permission of the instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 067Structure of Wamesa1
Wamesa is a member of the under-studied South Halmahera-West New Guinea subgroup of the Austronesian language family, with roughly 5000 speakers in West Papua, Indonesia. It has a number of typologically rare morphological and syntactic features, such as infixation and Noun-Adj-Det-Num word order. This course will investigate the major phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures of the language using both primary data and published sources. We will also look at the history of the language and its cultural/political context.
LING 045 plus either LING 001 or LING 050 . Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ESCH. ASIA. Spring 2027. Gasser. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 068Structure of Kyrgyz1
Kyrgyz is a Turkic language which is spoken throughout the Tien-Shan mountains and surrounding areas of Central Asia and has been influenced by Mongolian, Persian, Arabic, and Russian. Students will examine all main areas of Kyrgyz grammar, with a focus on the major phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures of the language. Some of the topics we’ll look at in depth include vowel harmony, sonority effects across syllable boundaries, morphological and syntactic strategies for using one part of speech as another, and intricate systems for marking tense, aspect, mood, voice, and evidentiality. We’ll also talk about historical and contemporary social and cultural topics of relevance to Kyrgyz, including the postcolonial context in Central Asia. Assignments and class activities will involve hands-on exploration of primary and secondary printed and digital materials and interaction with Kyrgyz speakers, with the aim of building students’ skills in linguistic analysis and reasoning, as well as their understanding of the range of perspectives involved in linguistic study of a language and the community it’s used in. There will also be opportunities to explore other modern and historical Turkic languages.
Any two of LING 001, LING 045, LING 050, LING 052, or permission of the instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ESCH, ASIA. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 069Structure of Akan1
Akan is a dialect cluster within the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo language family, spoken in parts of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. It is an important source of data for theories of syntax and semantics, with grammatical phenomena, including postnominal articles, demonstrative systems, bare nominal interpretation, serial verb constructions, and interactions between information structure and reference, that challenge and enrich formal models of language. This course introduces these phenomena within a generative framework, using Akan as a testing ground for theoretical analysis. The course is data-driven and formally oriented: students will work directly with Akan data, engage with theoretical arguments, and develop formal representations of key grammatical structures.
LING 040 and LING 050 Social Sciences 1 credit Department website: Linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 069HHnrsAttch: Structure of Akan
This attachment allows students interested in LING 069 the opportunity to go deeper into the material. Honors attachment available for students wishing to use the course as an Honors seminar and must be taken concurrently with LING 069 , Structure of Akan. See details in Honors in Linguistics for more information.
(Cross-listed as LITR 070R , RUSS 070 , ENGL 070T ) This course counts for distribution in humanities under the literature and russian rubric and in social sciences under the linguistics rubric. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for INTP Fall 2026. Forrester.
(Cross-listed as CPSC 013 ) This course explores the possibilities for creating computational resources for languages for which vast collections of text don’t exist. Students will choose a language lacking in computational resources and develop tools for it. The focus will be on creating nuanced symbolic representations of the language that can be employed by computers, to the benefit of both language researchers who wish to test grammatical models, and language communities which lack the social capital to benefit from corporately developed resources. Topics covered include input methods and spell-checking, morphological analysis and disambiguation, syntactic parsing, building corpora, and rule-based machine translation, with an emphasis on anti-colonial methodologies and free/open-source technologies. Anyone with experience in either analysis of linguistic structures or programming is welcome.
LING 001 (or equivalent) or CPSC 021 (or equivalent), or permission of the instructor. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA, COGS, ESCH, GLBL-core. Spring 2027. Washington. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
This course surveys computational and quantitative approaches to the study of human language. We will cover methods for modeling and understanding data in a variety of subfields of linguistics. Students will acquire skills to process linguistic data and implement simple algorithms for key tasks in language analysis. Topics to be covered include aspects of Natural Language Processing, regular expressions, finite state automata, quantitative historical linguistics, quantitative phonetics, data visualization, etc. No prior programming experience is required. Social sciences. 1 credit.
In this course, students work directly with a speaker of an unfamiliar language to gather data and analyze the structures of that language. Students develop inference techniques for eliciting, understanding, analyzing, and presenting complex linguistic data. We discuss and enact best practices for working collaboratively with speech communities, including ethical training in Human Subjects research. Students also gain practical experience using state-of-the-art digital recording, annotation, and archiving for scientific purposes. A different (typically non-European) language will be investigated each time the course is taught.
Familiarity with IPA transcription and any two of: LING 001 , LING 025 , LING 040 , LING 043 , LING 045 , LING 050 , or permission of the instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for COGS, ESCH. Spring 2027. Gasser. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 075HHonors Attachment: Field Methods1
This attachment must be taken concurrently with LING 075. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ASIA, COGS, ESCH.
This course builds on introductory syntax courses by delving more deeply into familiar topics through primary readings and by exploring new areas that are not typically covered in introductory syntax. Possible topics include raising and control, applicatives, voice alternations, ergativity, and non-configurational languages; advanced topics in A-bar syntax will be covered, such as islands, the left periphery, wh- in situ, and relative clauses. Broader additional topics may include: experimental syntax, microsyntactic variation, working with data from grammars of less-studied languages, topics in the syntax-semantics interface, and contributions from work outside the Minimalist/GB/P&P framework.
LING 050 Social sciences. Writing Course. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 081Semantics II1
This course begins with the formal foundations of semantics and then switches to a seminar style of instruction for an examination of classical and recent articles in the field.
LING 040 Social Sciences 1 credit Spring 2027. Sağ. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 082Sociolinguistics II (LCS)1
(Cross-listed as SOAN 041 ). The course delves into major sociolinguistic theories as well as methods of conducting sociolinguistic research including both qualitative and quantitative methods. Students will learn about data collection and online sources of data, data research management, research ethics and data analysis. Assignments will consist of homeworks, presentations and active participation in class discussions all of which will culminate in an original research project. Some topics include how language varies over time and place, the outcomes of linguistic contact, perceptions about language use, language in education, and experimental sociolinguistics.
LING 025/SOAN 040B or permission of the instructor if you have taken LING 001 and ANTH 001 or SOCI 001 or ED 053. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ESCH, BLST, GLBL core. Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 082HHonors Attachment: Sociolinguistics II1
This attachment allows students interested in advanced sociolinguistics methods the opportunity to go deeper into the material. Students will do additional readings on methods and current topics in sociolinguistics, additional written responses and leading discussions.
This attachment must be taken concurrently with LING 082. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Department website: Linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 083Decolonization and Inclusion in Linguistics (LCS)1
As Charity Hudely, Mallinson and Bucholtz (2024) assert, “Sentiment is not enough to challenge longstanding ideologies, to disrupt structural inequities, and to ensure full inclusion and participation: Transformative change requires hard work.” This course is based around the brand new volumes Decolonizing Linguistics and Inclusion in Linguistics (Charity Hudley, Mallinson & Bucholtz, eds.). Using these texts we critically examine the field of Linguistics from the perspective of knowledge production and social justice and what this means for our practice as linguists. Topics include the colonial foundations of linguistics, what linguistics is today, and a series of case studies drawn from the course texts. This course focuses on reading and discussion, with guest lectures. We will create our own action plans, based on our own positionalities, for taking this work forward. Assignments will consist of regular reading responses, engagement with guest speakers, and a scaffolded final project on a topic of the student’s choice, selected in consultation with course instructors.
This course is a sequel to LING 045 - Phonetics and Phonology. It is designed to provide further training in formal phonology, in terms of both data analysis and the fundamentals of phonological theory. Students will look deeply at a range of approaches to phonology, including both classic and later derivational versions of Optimality Theory, Articulatory Phonology, two-level and Cognitive Phonology, Harmonic Serialism, and Subregular Phonology. We will examine how these frameworks have been used to understand phenomena such as stress, tone, sonority, reduplication, and vowel harmony, among others. We will explore these topics through critical reading of major articles from the linguistic literature as a way of understanding the details of the theories discussed, their strengths and weaknesses, and the rich cross-linguistic patterns that underlie them.
LING 045 Social sciences. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 085HHonors Attachment: Phonology II1
This attachment allows students interested in advanced phonological theory the opportunity to go deeper into the material. Students will do additional readings on a variety of approaches to issues in phonology and their applications to patterns in attested languages, and engage with the work through additional written responses, discussion leading, and the like. Honors attachment available for students wishing to use the course as an Honors seminar and must be taken concurrently with LING 085 Phonology II. See details of Honors in Linguistics for more information.
LING 045 Social Sciences. 1 credit. Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 090Advanced Research Methods in Linguistics1
This course covers the history, methodology, and notable debates in linguistics. Course readings include important primary works on topics throughout the history of linguistics, from early philology, to generative linguistics, to experimental and cognitive approaches. This course is intended for juniors and other advanced linguistics majors in preparation for conducting significant linguistics research, such as a senior thesis.
Any two of LING 001 , LING 025 , LING 040 , LING 045 , and LING 050 , or permission of the instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Spring 2027. Sağ. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 091Corporality in Storytelling1
(Cross-listed as INTP 091 and THEA 091 ) We will examine silent narrative in films, in stage plays, in mime, in stand-up comedy, in sign language visual vernacular, and in dance. We will have three foci: the narrator’s entire body as it takes on roles in the story - so complete embodiment of characters; the narrator’s limbs as articulators of communication; and the narrator’s facial gestures as articulators of communication. We will be examining the limitations of each of these foci on conveying factual (that is, truth-conditional) information versus affective information. Open to INTP seniors and juniors, and other juniors and seniors by approval of instructors. Humanities. 1 credit. Eligible for INTP.
All course majors in linguistics and linguistics/language must write their senior thesis in this seminar. Only seniors are admitted. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Fall 2026. Donovan. Harrison.
LING 105Children’s Fiction Books: How to Deliver the Information
We form a writer cirlce and create our own stories/books for children. In doing so, we will consider the role of words and the role of illustrations in children’s picture books, early readers, and first chapter books, examining how multiple modalities contribute, while not being redundant. We compare our findings to the role of words in novels – printed, in braille, and audio. Our work includes study of wordless picture books, video-recorded poetry/stories in a sign language with and without text, audio books created for blind children, and audio-tactile books created for blind children. This course is for writers/creators of children’s fiction, as well as linguists, psychologists, and education specialists interested in modality. Social Sciences. 1 credit. CR/NC ungraded Eligible for ENGL with departmental approval. Fall 2027 Napoli.
A basic building block of linguistic meaning is communication about time. In this course, we will look at variations in tense and aspect in the world’s languages. Building on the formal systems taught in Semantics (LING 040/PHIL 040), we will investigate, describe, and model (i) the effects of tense on verbs, nouns, and other predicates; (ii) grammatical aspect; and (iii) cross-linguistic variation in the interpretation of embedded tenses. We will also discuss seemingly “tenseless” languages, as well as the use of tense and aspect in time-travel-based science fiction. Students will conduct independent research projects on the tense systems of non-English languages.
LING 040/PHIL 040. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for COGS. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: Linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
How do linguistic features and behaviors contribute to the complex social construction of gender, by individuals or at a community level? This course will cover a range of topics relating to gender and linguistics, including the morphosyntax of grammatical gender, speech act theory, sociophonetic variation as a part of gender presentation, cross-linguistic comparisons of gender marking on pronouns, and more. Several subdisciplines of linguistics will be covered, including phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics, and sociolinguistics.
LING 001 , LING 025 , LING 040 , LING 043 , LING 045 or LING 050 or by instructor permission. Social Sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ESCH. GSST. Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 112RRaciolinguistics and decoloniality: Towards a linguistics for a just world
LING 115Linguistic Typology and Constructed Languages1
Humans have long been driven to duplicate and manipulate the properties of natural language to create new languages for the purposes of enhancing works of fiction, for aiding human communication, or even for pure intellectual curiosity. In this course, students will explore this drive through development of their own constructed languages, guided by rigorous study of the typology of patterns observed in real human languages. Topics to be covered include phoneme inventories, phonological rules, morphological classification, syntactic structure, language change over time, dialectal variation, and writing systems. Students will also apply their knowledge of linguistic typology to critically assess the design of existing constructed languages such as Esperanto and Klingon.
LING 001 or LING 045 or permission of instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 116Language and Meaning2
(Cross-listed as PHIL 116 ) This seminar counts for distribution in HU under the philosophy rubric and in SS under the LING rubric. Social sciences. 2 credits. Eligible for COGS
(Cross-listed as ) In this seminar, we address some traditional issues of concern to both linguistics and anthropology, framed in the context of the ongoing, precipitous decline in human linguistic diversity. With the disappearance of languages, cultural knowledge (including entire technologies such as ethnopharmacology) is often lost, leading to a decrease in humans’ ability to manage the natural environment. Language endangerment thus proves relevant to questions of the language/ecology interface, ethnoecology, and cultural survival. The seminar also addresses the ethics of fieldwork and dissemination of traditional knowledge in the Internet age.
One course in linguistics or anthropology or permission of the instructor. Social sciences. 1 credit. Eligible for ENVS Catalog chapter: Linguistics Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/linguistics Access the class schedule to search for sections.
LING 134Psycholinguistics Seminar1
(Cross-listed as PSYC 134 ) Social sciences. 1 credit.
Syntax is the study of sentence structure; Morphology is the study of word structure. In Navajo, verb structure and sentence structure are closely interrelated, so we often study them together. This course is a verb-driven analysis of sentence structure. We will undertake the project of describing (in English and Navajo) the structure of simple and complex Navajo sentences. This class has an evening Zoom session with Navajo doctoral students and an in person meeting with Swarthmore students once a week. The evening session is being offered as a course at Navajo Technical University in their doctoral program in Diné Culture and Language Sustainability. Some of the discussion will be in Navajo, but the classes will mostly be in English. The in-person meetings will cover background material on Navajo grammar, dictionary use, and reading Navajo.
