Student Opportunities

RESEARCH

The Macalester Linguistics Department offers a myriad of opportunities for students to get involved in research projects. Faculty members often recruit research assistants to help with their research, providing an opportunity to learn real research skills that don’t fit into a classroom setting. A great way to get involved is to build connections with professors in the department, and learn about their work. Beyond research assistantships, students also work with faculty as collaborators. In this setting, a professor will advise a student, or group of students, as they attempt to answer their own original research question. Past students have co-authored journal publications with faculty, and presented at national conferences.

See what Mac students and faculty are working on now…

CAPSTONES

At Macalester, every student is required to complete a substantial project, called their Capstone. In Linguistics, the Capstone consists of an independent research project. This project is carried out as part of a seminar course, wherein both the advising faculty member and other students can help brainstorm ideas, refine methodology, and interpret results. Through completing the Capstone, Linguistics majors gain experience with performing a literature review, responsibly eliciting or sourcing language data, and presenting results in a variety of modalities.

Previous capstone research has explored a wide variety of topics. Students have elicited language data on campus to investigate second dialect acquisition in English and auxiliary verbs in Shona. Others have leveraged online databases to probe phonetic differences between musical genres and the overuse of the definite article “the” in the speech of children. No matter the topic, the capstone project gives students the opportunity to apply the skills they have learned through their coursework to a topic that excites them. 

Check out a few Capstone projects…

HONORS

An honors thesis is a year-long research project, conducted by students who have demonstrated academic excellence. These projects provide an opportunity for students to practice performing truly independent research, and to dive deeper into a topic or subfield of their own choosing. Previous projects have covered a wide range of topics, from historical morphology to computational phonetics, and students often cross over into other fields of interest, such as political science, cognitive psychology, and women’s and gender studies. Past Linguistics honors theses are linked below.

Get inspired by Mac Linguistics scholars…

COMMUNITY

Step into the cozy Ling Lounge for a cup of tea and you’re likely to hear people debating which language has the most consonants or the longest alphabet. Students may be at the white board sketching out the structure of a newly-learned dialect. Join the conversation at a lunchtime presentation or Wednesday social event.