Summary Details
| Query: |
Summary: Small linguistics programs
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| Author: | David Wharton | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Not Applicable
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| Summary: |
Dear Linguists, In November I posted the following query: >The linguistics program at my university will be >undergoing review this year, and I'd like to solicit >comments from other linguists on how to make small, >interdisciplinary linguistics programs thrive. > >Like many universities (I suppose), ours does not have a >linguistics department, but we do offer a linguistics >major and minor; our linguistics program is currently >administered by faculty and staff from various departments >such as English, Romance Languages, and Anthropology. > >What I'd like to know is to what extent similar programs >at other colleges and universities have been successful at >attracting majors, maintaining a vital presence in the >intellectual life of their colleges and universities, and >-- perhaps most importantly -- garnering the good will and >largess of university administrators. If your program has >accomplished any or all of these goals, how did you do it? >That is, what works best? Conversely, what *doesn't* work, >and what kinds of things should such programs avoid? > >In particular, I'd like to know the fate of linguistics at >colleges and universities that do not have either a >linguistics department or a linguistics major/minor, but >which allow students to study linguistics as one of those >"make-your-own-major" majors which are common in the >United States. I'd like to thank everyone who responded, and apologize both for taking so long to post the summary, and for not answering each respondent individually. Your responses were most helpful and informative, and I'm grateful to each of you. Here are the responses: >From Pius Ten Hacken <tenhacken@ubaclu.unibas.ch>: "In Basel (Switzerland) we have a small programme of general linguistics, but I am not sure whether it is of interest to you, because the university situation is probably very different from the one in the USA. It is based on the combination of courses offered at various institutes as part of their own discipline, supplemented by a few special courses. You might want to have a look at our web-page http://www.unibas.ch/asw. I am afraid everything is in German, but if this is a problem and you are interested I would be pleased to answer specific questions." >From Rebecca S. Wheeler <rswheeler@cc.weber.edu>: "For a couple of reasons, I was quite interested in your posting to LINGUIST regarding the fate of linguistics in various types of small departments. First, I've recently been appointed to the LSA Undergraduate Program Advisory Committee and so I'm "officially" concerned with these questions. Second, and related to the first, I see myself as representing the interests of small programs such as you describe in my work on the LSA committee. "I teach at Weber State University, Department of English. There is no linguistics major and no linguistics minor here. The requirements and offerings of the department are so far, fairly traditional: an intro to language (this is really intro ling), history of the language, and English Grammar (structure). These offerings reflect the training/inclinations of the two linguists who have been here for more than a decade. "You asked about the following: 'In particular, I'd like to know the fate of linguistics at colleges and universities that do not have either a linguistics department or a linguistics major/minor, but which allow students to study linguistics as one of those "make-your-own-major" majors which are common in the United States.' "While Weber State's version of 'make your own major' is a Bachelor of Integrated studies, I have never heard of any student structuring a BIS degree with an emphasis on language.... [snip] "I've started working to make changes. We've now got a course on TOPICS IN LANGUAGE STUDY. And I'm offering that seminar with the following title/focus this spring: From slang, hill-speak, and sign, To humor, media and political design: Exploring English in America. This is a seminar which will run off a collection I'm currently publishing The Workings of Language: From prescriptions to perspectives. In the future, I would want to use John McWhorter's new book, The Word on the street: Fact and fable about American English. Its purpose is a close reflection of my purpose working in an undergraduate English department, without a ling. major -- to identify and respond to the common myths and prejudices that people hold about language in our society. That is, I believe that a department of English to help students learn among other things, what language is and isn't. Thus, I would hope that an English graduate would not fall prey to the prescriptive fallacies rampant in our country ("the language is going to the dogs." "southerners are just lazy, unable to get English right." "people butcher grammar -- look at the way they say ' between you and I..', etc). They would understand that often these fissures that some call "bad grammar" actually indicate language in the process of change. [snip] "I'll be developing computerized presentations on these issues, and taking my act out of the department, into the University more broadly, (into teacher education classes) and on, into the community -- the local secondary schools, and into civic and church groups. "I am betting that this approach will indeed "garner... the good will and largess of university administrators" because it is anchored in the university, society, and community. I paste in the LINGUIST call for papers which describes my project proposal for the two books I've just edited, Language Alive in the Classroom, and The workings of language: from prescriptions to perspectives. The proposal lays out the departmental motivation for my approach. http://linguistlist.org/issues/8/8-254.html#1 "That one call for papers resulted in the two volumes I've described. So ignore the table of contents, as it has been modified, and the title, which was draft. The project description is what is relevant to the question you've asked. "What not to do? Technical linguistics does not work with average state school undergraduates (our students have an average combined SAT score of 1000). The abstraction is too abstruse for them, and doesn't forward any of their life aims." >From Terry Potter <gt1704@exmail.usma.army.mil>: "Here at the US Military Academy, West Point, we do not have a linguistics minor or major. We (I) do teach a language and linguistics course that is required for all language majors. We teach 7 languages with a major possible in 5 or a combination of the 7." >From shelly harrison <shelly@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>: "we're a programme with 2.5 academic staff and a 0.4 secretary, so i empathize with your situation, but can offer little by way of constructive advice. students say they find big departments impersonal, but in reality, in my experience at least, they don't take small ones seriously. the only major league is the big league! "we've worked hard to make our intro course 'user-friendly', putting our most popular teacher there (though why a given student finds jones more simpatico/a than smith continues to be a puzzle to me), having course notes and, more recently web materials, available, and so forth. the theory, at least, is that you can garner a larger audience by reputation, and that retention rates are constant, so you want to start off with the biggest pool possible. (i often murmer to myself that we're better off being small, since quality, in terms of student numbers, is not constant over quantity!) some programs i know of have managed to do sweetheart deals with speech therapy or foreign languages, though we've had little success here with that strategy. the admin has made us all lean and mean, and suspicious of the motives of our colleagues. "about the only other advice i can offer you, and this is practical and based on very bad experience -- if the dean says jump, you say how high. it's no guarantee that they won't shaft you, but they sure as hell will if you don't!" >From Joseph Tomei <jtomei@kumagaku.ac.jp>: "Though I can only personally speak from the experience of being a student in an interdisciplinary linguistics program, you may be interested in a collection of articles that my Greek professor, Mark Clark, at the University of Southern Mississippi, put together concerning the maintenance of interdisciplinary programs in large universities. I can't find my copy, but it was co-edited by him. If I can locate it, I will send the title on to you. "Unfortunately (as you probably well aware) it's rather depressing reading because the articles generally detail the struggles of keeping a program together in the face of bureaucratic indifference or hostility." >From Carl Mills <Carl.Mills@UC.edu>: "At the University of Cincinnati we have a linguistics program very much like yours. I do not know hold old the program is: it was here before I came in 1975. Faculty in the linguistics program come from a variety of disciplines in the College of Arts and Sciences, with English and Anthropology constituting the "center" of the program. English has 2 full-time linguists. A third English professor teaches and conducts research in linguistics, Celtic languages, Arthurian literature, and folklore. In addition, a fourth faculty member, who is normally Director of Freshman English but who is currently Acting Head of the English Department, has an M.A. in linguistics and normally teaches one linguistics course per year. Outside A&S, and therefore outside the linguistics program, there are several persons with some linguistics training and interest, mostly in the College of Education: Educational Foundations, Special Education (Deaf Ed), and the ESL program (which for reasons peculiar to the history of this university is in Education). "The linguistics program has a major and awards the B.A.. Typically, the linguistics program enrolls about a dozen majors, which for a university with 35,000 students is not huge, but it has remained rather stable over the years. As for "maintaining a vital presence in the intellectual life of their colleges and universities," the question presupposes that this university *has* *an* intellectual life. There is plenty of intellectual life here, but the university has a "tradition of strong collegiate autonomy," (read: "the university is quite Balkanized"). The "vital presence" of the linguistics program has waxed and waned over the decades, with it currently being in a state of near-eclipse. The strength and weakness of this presence has depended chiefly on the efforts and personality of the program director. [snip] "Aside from the general fragmentation and isolation of intellectual life at this university, some characteristics of linguistics as a discipline have also tended to further and retard the presence of the linguistics program. The program offers no graduate degrees. But the university Graduate School offers "make-your-own-M.A.s and Ph.D's" in Interdisciplinary Studies. Scarcity, but not a complete lack, of graduate financial aid for Interdisciplinary Studies has kept enrollment in graduate linguistics degrees via this program rather low, but occasionally we graduate one. Within the English Department, we have an M.A. program in English Linguistics, which enrolls from 1 to 4 students at any given time. Students from this highly successful program have gone on to employment, graduate school, and law school. In recent years, M.A.s in English Linguistics have gone on toward the Ed.D. in the ESL program in the College of Education. Linguists from English serve on nearly all the doctoral committees in the ESL program. The M.A. in English Linguistics and the close cooperation with doctoral programs in the ESL program have provided linguists in English with a surrogate graduate program--especially in recent years as programs and students in the English Department's graduate programs have slid increasingly into post-modern drivel. However, focusing on the M.A. in English Linguistics and the ESL doctorate has tended to divert linguists in the English Department from the undergraduate A&S linguistics program. "As for "the good will and largess of university administrators," there is none. The strongest selling point of the linguistics program has always been that--since it draws its faculty from other, existing departments--the linguistics program has no budget and costs no money. Unfortunately, in the long run this contributes to the program's lack of visibility. "On the whole our linguistics program has been quite successful. We are proud of our graduates' successes. "However, the very nature of small interdisciplinary linguistics programs contains the seeds of their own stunting, if not ultimate disintegration. In such a program, linguists owe dual allegiance--to the science of linguistics and simultaneously to their host departments. Under the best of circumstances, it is difficult not to get drawn into departmental concerns which are usually quite remote from linguistics. And if one does not participate in one's departmental life, one is apt to suffer more than mere individual career losses. One is apt to wake up and find one's linguistics courses cancelled. Departmental administrators tend to regard linguistics as just another speciality--like Romantic lit or the 18th Century. When a course in Phonology draws 5 students (not bad for a linguistics core course at a university without a department) and Freshman Comp courses are going unstaffed, departmental administrators tend to cancel the small linguistics course and shift the faculty member to Comp. Furthermore, the modes and venues for the presentation of research in linguistics are unfamiliar to Full Professors in English (or Spanish or anthro). Work that would automatically score high marks toward promotion and tenure can get slighted in department, especially those in the humanities (sic). "So my advice for any small interdisciplinary linguistics program is to cultivate the Provost and become a Linguistics Department--ASAP." >From Marianna Di Paolo <m.dipaolo@m.cc.utah.edu>: "As the Director of our Linguistics Program for the last six years, I have often thought that the LSA should address the very issues you are asking about. I have spoken to many other people from Linguistics Programs in various stages of organization who have questions similar to yours. I've even considered volunteering to chair an interest group for the LSA. "Anyway, it looks like our Program will become a department at the beginning the next academic year. (We expect to receive the written approval in the next few weeks.) I would be happy to send you a copy of our department proposal if you think it might be useful to you." >From Richard Henry <henryrm@potsdam.edu>: "I, too, am interested in how we might make a small linguistics program thrive. We have _just_ instituted an interdisciplinary minor in Language and Linguistics, with core courses in Philosophy, Anthropology and Linguistics (linguistics being part of a department of English, Writing, and Communication) and have expanded our offerings within the English department. I believe the program can be found at http://www.potsdam.edu/ENGL/ ...?" I also received a great deal of helpful advice from Stanley Dubinsky at the University of South Carolina, whose linguistics program home page can be found at http://www.cla.sc.edu/LING/index.html Again, many thanks to all who responded. By the way, our linguistics program has survived -- but just barely. The advice I received will be very useful. - -------------------- vDavid Wharton wharton@uncg.edu Department of Classical Studies The University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC tel. 336 334 5214 fax 336 334 5158 |
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| LL Issue: | 10.144 | |
| Date Posted: | 30-Jan-1999 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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