2012-2013 Undergraduate & Graduate Catalog
Applied Linguistics - Program Description
For additional information about opportunities your college offers, please refer to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences section in this catalog.
Website: www.gvsu.edu/english
The applied linguistics minor is designed to provide systematic study of and principled approaches to issues in which language is implicated, including language teaching, language learning, and language use. Relying on foundational linguistic concepts and an understanding of the structural properties of language as elaborated in phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, the minor engages issues and seeks resolution to language-related problems in the world. Courses in the minor consider such topics as learning and teaching of languages, social and regional language variation, literacy, language policy, language disorders, and language history, to name a few. The applied linguistics minor serves as an excellent disciplinary complement to such fields as African/African American studies, anthropology, classics, communications, computing and information systems, English, education, modern languages, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, and writing.
Career Opportunities
The discipline of applied linguistics has application to careers in a wide variety of fields, including computer science, foreign and second language teaching, speech-language pathology and intervention, forensic analysis, literacy and educational assessment, language planning and policy, and publishing and advertising. Applied linguists, for example, teach second and foreign languages, compile dictionaries, resolve communication problems among pilots who must use a common nonnative language, work with legislators in countries to develop language policies, and assist with criminal and legal investigations.
The following program is available: