Teaching linguistics to non-linguistics majors

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Nancy S. Levin

Abstract

A large number of undergraduate linguistics courses at American universities are populated by students in other fields whose sole reason for enrolling is to fulfill a requirement for their respective programs. These non-majors are not likely to pursue linguistic analysis or argumentation for its own sake. There may, in fact, be only one or two students out of several classes who become sufficiently serious about linguistics to complete a degree in it. When the instructor directs the course chiefly at such individuals, the others find the material dry and overly technical, and are not likely to take further linguistics courses on an elective basis. In these times in which the survival of programs and offerings increasingly depends on healthy full-time enrollment figures, linguists can ill afford to alienate students with courses that are uncompromisingly theoretical.

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