Linguistics

Major and Minor

In Linguistics you can self-design an interdisciplinary major and carry out a research project that may be interdisciplinary.

Some recent examples:

Eric Schluessel '04 (Linguistics and Chinese), Mei Li Siaw '04 (English/Interdisciplinary Linguistics Minor) | Eli Trowbridge '05 (Linguistics and Hispanic Studies) | Heather Dedecko '05 (Slavic Studies) | Kirsti Fitzgerald '04 (German, Interdisciplinary Linguistics project)

Eric Schluessel '04 (major in Linguistics and Chinese) conducted research on the Monguor language of the China-Mongol borderlands, studied historical and linguistic contacts of Tibetan and Mongur communities and languages, and specifically the manifestations of the language contact in lexical borrowings in the field of kinship terminology.

The goal of my research this term is to form a cohesive and accurate picture of the Monguor language of northwestern China in contact with other languages. Monguor will be taken as an example of how marginal languages are treated under the law and in civil society in modern China. I study the language and the people who speak and have spoken it, which will require research into their history. Research will be done into how the language has changed, particularly over the past century, but also in relation to the Classical Mongolian to which it is most closely related. The central questions are: First, is Monguor changing more now that it did before the fall of imperial China? Why or why not?

Eric has just defended his M.A. thesis on Monguor phonology at the Linguistics Department of the University of London.

Mei Li Siaw '04 (English major, PICA Linguistics project) researched acculturation of Tamil Indians in Malaysian society through the spectrum of societal diglossia, bilingual education of various ethnic groups and dominant official language policy

My paper discusses a situation of "artificial" language conflict in the context of multiethnic, multilingual Malaysia. In particular, it traces the history and survival of a linguistic minority within a hostile political and socio-economic environment, and in the absence of positive identity reinforcement. The Tamil-speaking Indian community in Malaysia has a history dating back to the end of the nineteenth century, with the bulk of today's population tracing their ancestors' arrival in (then) Malaya to the early twentieth century. Today they make up less than 7 percent of the country's total population, but the prevailing pattern of political organization in the country is an indicator of how ethnic Indians have been an essential component of Malaysia's multiethnic society from before the time of the country's independence.

The following observations, research, thoughts and opinions were sparked off by the writer's own experience in tutoring Indian schoolchildren from a low-income Malaysian suburb. That encounter made clear, in no uncertain terms, the degree of neglect that Tamil-medium education and the Indian poor in, general, are facing, have been facing for years. The twelve- and thirteen-year-olds I helped tutor lacked confidence even in writing down their own names. Baffled by this instance of utter failure on the part of the Malaysian public school system, I decided to shape my junior year internship and independent study around the examination of what factors have brought the community to this situation, and of what is needed for them to find their way out of it.

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Eli Trowbridge '05 (major in Linguistics and Hispanic Studies, also a Winthrop Scholar) studied bilingualism and code-switching, and specifically social and psycholinguistic factors effecting English-Spanish code-switching among Connecticut College Hispanic students

Code-switching is an important linguistic phenomenon that can give insight into the mental lexicon and second language acquisition. A better understanding of the mental lexicon will result in more efficient foreign language teaching methodology. By studying the speech of bilingual speakers, researchers will become aware of how these speakers manage their two languages; such knowledge may then be used to formulate a teaching method that takes into account how two languages are stored and related in the mind of a speaker.  

Several methods have arisen in response to pursuit of native competence in a foreign language. The natural approach and the direct method are two examples. Few, however, have attempted to examine in what ways two languages may be stored differently in the mind. No two languages are conceptually the same. How is this reflected in the storage gridwork of two different languages?

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Heather Dedecko '05 (Slavic Studies major, Individual Study project in Linguistics) examined language policies of the state of Yugoslavia over the period of the 20th century and their reflection in today's attitudes to ethnic cohabitation and Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian languages. She has also studied the impact of censorship and communist propaganda on shaping the official language policies.

Over the semester, I read several hundred pages dedicated to the former Yugoslavia, I spend hours online both in my room, and in the library, to consistently find the one book I have already bought. Still, I seclude myself in the library. Unfortunately, these books are all about how Yugoslavia fell apart after Tito's death, which isn't really what interests me. I read articles on the history of the Croatian language, on language and nationalism, hoping to find something, even though all my searches on "language policy in former Yugoslavia", and "censorship in Yugoslavia" continue to turn up no results.

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Kirsti Fitzgerald " 04 (German major, Interdisciplinary Linguistics project) produced an impressive study of American attitudes toward mastery of foreign languages and bilingualism. She examined the issues of immigrant acculturation in America through a historical perspective, examined major legal documents governing immigrant acculturation and attempted to answer the question of how history informs today’s hesitant support for foreign language study. She also conducted interviews and questionnaires at Conn and analyzed students’ goals of liberal arts education to the extent that they ignore or include the study of a foreign language.

At the beginning of the semester, I met with my advisor, Professor Eva Eckert, and discussed with her ideas for what I could do as an independent study project. I wasn’t exactly sure of what I wanted to do, but I did know that I wanted to pull together some of my interests in foreign languages, internationalism, and education. We met each week to discuss and wonder about many various topics related to these areas. I realized that I wanted to know more about how foreign languages have played a role in this country throughout its history. What kinds of attitudes have Americans held about immigrating foreigners and the languages they brought with them? What influenced these attitudes? Did these attitudes change throughout time? How did the attitudes of early Americans shape the attitudes towards foreign language shape the attitudes people hold today? All of these questions impelled me to do some research. My findings can be found in Part I of this project, which is my paper titled, “Language in America: A Historical Look.

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