Linguistic Studies

Director and Professor of psychology: Dave Balota Linguistics Coordinator: Brett Hyde Program Secretary: Kimberly Mount

Home Page: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/%7Eling/

Language is involved in almost any human endeavor, and there are as many ways of studying language as there are ways of studying human behavior and culture. Linguistic studies is an interdisciplinary program with faculty coming from a number of different departments, including psychology, anthropology, neurology and neurological surgery, education, philosophy, speech and hearing, computer sciences, Romance Languages and Literatures, Asian and Near Eastern languages and literatures, law and English. Faculty address such areas as terminology and methods for describing how humans use sounds (phonetics and phonology) to convey meaning (semantics) by building multiple layers of structure (morphology, syntax and discourse); how languages function in context (language in culture and society); how languages change and form families (historical and comparative linguistics); and how languages are acquired (second language acquisition).

Sociocultural studies of language and mind are a special emphasis with education faculty, and there are faculty members with related interests in anthropology, philosophy, social thought and analysis, and the law school. Formal or cognitive approaches are pursued by faculty in several departments, including psychology, philosophy and computer science. Speech production and perception are approached from a psycholinguistic perspective in the psychology department.

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

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Knock-knock Researchers find older folks don't get the joke July 11, 2007 -- It's no laughing matter that older adults have a tougher time understanding basic jokes than do younger adults. It's partially due to a cognitive decline associated with age, according to Washington University in St. Louis researchers Wingyun Mak, a graduate student in psychology in Arts & Sciences, and Brian Carpenter, Ph.D., Washington University associate professor of psychology.

Learning at a deeper level Discovering why study groups are more effective July 17, 2006 -- Study groups help students more easily grasp the material from their classes. Studying in groups helps students learn more effectively. More than 20 years of academic research has consistently demonstrated that fact. But what exactly is it about studying with other people that makes it so effective? Through painstaking research, an expert in creativity and everyday conversation at Washington University in St. Louis has identified two patterns of group dynamics that show why group study is optimal. The research is published in the June 2005 Linguistics and Education journal.

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