Sungchul

Right now I'm choosing between Georgetown and Brown. Honestly, I'm leaning towards Brown, but the only thing that's keeping me is my infatuation with Gtown's Faculty of Languages and Linguistics. At ADOCH or TWW, I wasn't able to find any linguistics or language majors (honestly I didn't try too hard), but when I went Gtown it seemed like every other student was a language major.

Does anyone know of any student that takes more than one language and comes out fluent in any of them? What's Brown reputation for languages and linguistics? Has anyone ever tried making a major like Romance or Iberian Studies?

Even if I don't get any responses, I'll still probably be a member of Brown 2012, but it'll be nice to have some assurance! Anything to help my decision card get to RI at least a couple days earlier is appreciated. Thank you!

modestmelody

I know quite a few people who do language as a huge component of their studies. One of my best friends here does Comparative Lit and takes it pretty seriously-- has completely all of Latin, the Old English and Middle English classes, and has become fluent in German. He did have Latin before coming to Brown, but still started at the 30 level (first semester second year of language).

We have an awesome Cognitive Science department and they have quite a bit of cognitive linguistics courses. Here is our Linguistic Concentration, to get an idea of what it entails:
Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences: Concentration in Linguistics

CBK

doopmeister1

I mean, linguistics is not a huge department here, but it is very fulfilling. My roommate takes a lot of linguistics courses and finds that the professors are generally pretty good. His current professor is a leader in the anti-Chomsky movement for and explanation of syntax. Also, the language programs are generally a lot of fun, though a lot of work. A lot of my friends are fans of taking a beginning language course and then dropping the language, just because they like intro classes. There are lots of options and they are almost always well taught.

icebox4

my friend is a Math-Linguistics major. very interesting combination, and it makes good sense after he explained it.

mgcsinc

As doopmeister mentioned, there's a very small but dedicated faculty in theoretical linguistics, and you'll love it especially if you find Chomsky to be unfulfilling. In the interest of full disclosure, Georgetown has a considerably larger language faculty, but they seem much more stuck in the mainstream (and this is a field where the mainstream is enough to make anyone with half a brain want to barf).

If you're more interested in the languages part of linguistics, I don't know as much about our language offerings.