THE HUMANITIES

Linguistics, not surprisingly, is often overlooked. Too bad--you can combine the subject with any other field the Department approves and come up with a fascinating concentration.

There is no pure linguistics, because it is not a self-contained field. Though language is its province, it spills over into psychology and sociology. Appropriately, concentrators typically combine Linguistics with Social Relations.

Linguistics itself is the study of a lot of languages most people have never heard of, that are central to the development of some civilization. In a sense, the field stands about midway between mathematics and anthropology. The linguist studies the structure of a language with technics approaching mathematical precision; yet he also tries to relate languages' development, to human affairs.

Harvard's Department emphasizes real specific languages, as opposed to M.I.T.'s computerized pioneering work in building mathematical models for grammar. But students in both schools can cross-register and benefit from each other's strengths.

In principle, being able to speak a language is irrelevant to linguistics. (There is a standard joke that linguistic scholars at international conferences always have to act through interpretors.) But in practice, verbal ability proves very helpful--as concentrators who combine Linguistics with a modern language have found.

All undergraduates in this honors field take one-third of their courses in Linguistics: one-third in their other field; and the final third in related areas. Tutorial fills in the gaps.

Since the number of concentrators (24) approximates the number of faculty members related to linguistics, the chances for close student-faculty contact are excellent. Quite a number of students join the field late, but the attrition rate is also high; about half don't finish, but of those that did last year, two got magna and one a summa.

If you're interested in the relationship of language to the nature of man--and the practical application of this knowledge to speech pathology or literary analysis--you'll be happy in Linguistics.