Lubbock Christian University (LCU) will begin offering a new Bachelor of Linguistics degree beginning in the fall of 2022, bringing numerous career opportunities to current and incoming students.
“Linguistics is the scientific study of language structure and language use,” explains Dr. Olga Pahom, Associate Dean of Honors and Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Cultural Studies. “Since language is a fundamental part of being human and is central to nearly all human activities, it has applications to most disciplines and fields of study. For example, linguistics helps us develop technologies that perform speech recognition (such as Siri), conduct forensic analyses (such as authorship identification), teach effective second language courses that promote acquisition, translate the Bible into the remaining 2,000 languages that do not have a Bible, and equip professionals in all fields with intercultural competence for a global marketplace.”
The linguistics major at LCU will offer seven distinct tracks: Pre-Speech Pathology, Bible Translation, Spanish Language and Culture, Language and Technology, English as a Second Language, Forensic Linguistics, and World Languages. The university has offered a linguistics minor for several years, and that program will continue to prepare students of various majors for successful work in multicultural and multilingual settings.
“Graduates of our linguistics program have gone on to pursue advanced graduate studies in linguistics and successful careers in language-related fields, including speech-language pathology and journalism,” added Dr. Pahom.
Recent graduate Calvin Dement (’21) is pursuing an M.A. in Linguistics/ESL at University of North Texas, and his classmate Jaicee Sutton (’21) is pursuing a degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders/Speech Language Pathology at Emerson College. Other alumni, like 2020 graduate Brittany Michaleson, a reporter for Lubbock news station KCBD, have been using their linguistics minors in the professional field. Kristen (Slate) Fleckenstein (’11) has even completed a Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Texas at Arlington and is currently Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Coastal Carolina University.
Several students have shown interest in the new program.
“When I began this semester, I had registered for two linguistics classes with the intent of pursuing a Minor in Linguistics. Even by the end of the first week, those two classes were my favorites,” shared Kahlan Reeves, a freshman from Fort Worth and one of the first LCU students to sign up for the new degree plan. “As I have continued to learn about linguistics and everything encompassed by that term, I gain even more appreciation for the complexity of language. The decision to pursue this linguistics major was one of the easiest decisions I have ever made, because I am so captivated by everything I have already learned and will continue to learn in the coming years.”
The new Linguistics degree is one of several new programs being added in the fall of 2022, alongside the 61 current undergraduate degrees and programs.
Learn more about Linguistics at LCU.