Anne Charity Hudley, a professor in UCSB’s Linguistics Department, discusses the use of linguistics to inform the intersections of race, social class, sexuality, and gender identification.

The Department of Linguistics is on the cutting edge of a field that seeks explanations for language as a fundamental human activity, by way of studying how languages are used by their speakers. We are considered an international leader in developing ideas and methods that are moving the field of linguistics into a new era.

Our faculty is known for its focus on linguistic diversity and its active fieldwork with speakers of a variety of languages, particularly those of the Americas, East Asia, the Himalayas, the Caucasus, and Austronesia. There is also a special interest in varieties of English.

We offer undergraduate students small classes, personal attention, and opportunities for interdisciplinary studies, such as psycholinguistics, linguistic anthropology, endangered languages, and the history of specific languages. An area of special emphasis within the undergraduate linguistics program is sociocultural linguistics, or how language creates cultural meanings and practices and how it is used to display speakers’ membership in various social categories.

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The Center for Taiwan Studies is Back with a Dynamic Fall Line-up
The Center for Taiwan Studies is Back with a Dynamic Fall Line-up

The Center for Taiwan Studies has come back to campus in full force this year, with a roster of speaker events that stress the ties between Taiwan studies and other departments, and also enhance the artistic component of its lectures to bring Taiwan studies alive beyond textbooks. In one week alone, the department was abuzz with a total of three lectures, in both the center’s Workshop series and Sounds, Screens and Stages series.

Of Memes, Linguistics and Creative Computing
Of Memes, Linguistics and Creative Computing

Thanks to UC Santa Barbara’s Creative Computing Initiative, graduate student Kevin Whitesides incorporated hands-on multimedia projects in his Linguistics course Memes: When Language and Culture Go Viral . Donor Ross Dowd ‘94, has provided funds for Humanities and Fine Arts instructors and students to apply computer technology and digital tools to their areas of study.

On Language and Identity: Finding My Place at UCSB
On Language and Identity: Finding My Place at UCSB

UC Santa Barbara sociology major Olivia Roberts reflects on her discovery of the Linguistics Department and how the culture of language applies to her experience as an out-of-state college student.

Researching African American English for Young Speakers
Researching African American English for Young Speakers

Visiting linguistics professor Tracy Conner recently spoke at the UCSB Linguistics Department’s biweekly colloquium about her impactful research on syntactical patterns of African American English (AAE). Further study of these patterns could benefit educators and prevent young AAE speakers from wrongful speech disorder diagnoses.

A Closer Look at Linguistics: Speech Therapy and Beyond
A Closer Look at Linguistics: Speech Therapy and Beyond

While Olivia Saunders isn’t majoring in Linguistics, her major in Communication has provoked many questions from others about whether she wants to pursue speech therapy. That led her on a search to learn more about Linguistics, the major that is most closely linked to speech therapy. She found that its career options and students’ pursuits go much further, as she explains in this article.

Focus on Faculty: Arts and Humanities Scholars Speak Out
Focus on Faculty: Arts and Humanities Scholars Speak Out

In a series of video interviews, Humanities and Fine Arts professors share thoughts on the merits of their fields and their most rewarding experiences as teachers and researchers.

National Recognition for UCSB Linguistics
National Recognition for UCSB Linguistics

Linguistics professor Marianne Mithun was recently elected as the 95th President of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), the latest in a string of high profile UC Santa Barbara Linguistics achievements on the national level. As president, she will lead the meetings of the society, serve as the chair of the Executive Committee and appoint honorary members and non-elective committees. Meanwhile, linguistics professor Anne Charity Hudley received the LSA’s Linguistics, Language and Public award.

BLOG: Extra English Offers a Path to Success
BLOG: Extra English Offers a Path to Success

Chinese student Zhitao Kou describes how UC Santa Barbara eased his transition into American university life with programs for international students and step-up Linguistics department classes run by the English for Multilingual Students.

“ Each of us needed to write and present on current affairs such as presidential election, American social classes, American ethnicities and so on. Compared to other easy freshman courses, these classes are quite challenging,” writes Kou, who also benefited from one-on-one contact with professors.

Emily Bender: Computers Change the Game in the Field of Linguistics
Emily Bender: Computers Change the Game in the Field of Linguistics

The introduction of computers in the linguistics field have made it easier for researchers to verify their research and data. “It allows linguistic researchers to off-load the tedious part of verifying analyses to a computer,” said linguistics scholar Emily Bender in a recent talk at UC Santa Barbara.

Bender currently teaches at the University of Washington. Her main area of research is multilingual grammar engineering, computational semantics and the relationship between linguistics and computational linguistics.

FOCUS ON FACULTY: Anne H. Charity Hudley
FOCUS ON FACULTY: Anne H. Charity Hudley

UC Santa Barbara’s hire Anne H. Charity Hudley believes linguistics is a discipline that offers insight into one of the most intriguing aspects of human knowledge and behavior: how we use language.

ALUMNI ALL-STARS: Chloe Brotherton
ALUMNI ALL-STARS: Chloe Brotherton

Insults can be used to empower people rather than demean them, says Chloe Brotherton, who won the 2017 Undergraduate Research Slam with her presentation “A ‘Bitch’ by Any Other Name: Reclaiming Gendered Insult Terms.” Brotherton, who graduated from UC Santa Barbara in Linguistics, is now a graduate student at UC Davis.