<p>Daugher and I may finally be getting somewhere with the college/major search. We came across the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology and that led us to the Univ. of Texas dept. of the same name. Looks like a good program. Searches indicate it may be one of the strongest Linguistic Anthropology programs in the U.S...</p>
<p>Anyone like to recommend another school? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>John.</p>
<p>The University of Chicago. I can’t say if it has specific strength in “Linguistic Anthropology”, but it has been very strong in Linguistics and in Anthropology. The related discipline of Sociology was invented there. They teach scads and scads of obscure foreign languages (60 or 80 languages if I recall correctly).</p>
<p>Some good schools (especially LACs) do not have Linguistics at all. One LAC that does is Swarthmore. Its consortium neighbor, Bryn Mawr, is supposed to have one of the strongest undergraduate programs in Anthro. Another consortium neighbor, UPenn, is very strong in Linguistics. So if you go to any of these Philadelphia-area consortium schools (Swat, Penn, BMC or Haverford) you probably could put an excellent program together.</p>
<p>Among large public universities, check out UC Berkeley. Or UCLA. Or Arizona.</p>
<p>Thanks tk,</p>
<p>I got no responses at all on the parents forum, and only yours here…</p>
<p>Tells me this is a very obscure and small field of study indeed.</p>
<p>John.</p>
<p>It’s as small and specialized as one chooses to make it.
Your choices broaden if you approach it as a problem of finding schools that are strong in the supporting, related fields (not “linguistic anthropology” per se).</p>
<p>You may find this link helpful:
<a href=“http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41indiv.html[/url]”>http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41indiv.html</a></p>
<p>The rankings are outdated (1995), focus on graduate departments, and do not cover LACs. But they should help you get started on a list by finding schools that are strong in BOTH linguistics and anthro.</p>
<p>UT Austin is indeed fantastic in linguistics. One of its professors won a MacArthur Fellowship (“genius grant”) for running the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory. </p>
<p>The Linguistic Society of America has great resources for students, including a directory of programs.</p>
<p>[LSA:</a> Resources](<a href=“http://www.lsadc.org/info/student-resources.cfm]LSA:”>http://www.lsadc.org/info/student-resources.cfm)
[LSA:</a> Directory](<a href=“http://www.lsadc.org/info/pubs-dirs-programs.cfm]LSA:”>http://www.lsadc.org/info/pubs-dirs-programs.cfm)</p>
<p>Reed, Pomona, Bucknell, and Swarthmore (as mentioned by tk) are the LACs most known for linguistics.</p>
<p>I believe MIT has a reputable linguistics dept[?]. A “scary-smart” girl from my son’'s school turned down a full ride at U of M for MIT, in part because of it’s linguistics program.</p>
<p>Archaeologist,</p>
<p>Thanks. That kind of work sounds like what she’s most interested in. </p>
<p>However I’m getting conflicting reports. Some are telling me that Linguistics is one thing, but linguistic anthropology is something altogether different since it usually resides in the anthropology dept.</p>
<p>Can you shed any light on that? At U.T., it is a major available within the anthropology dept.</p>
<p>John.</p>
<p>MIT’s Linguistics department is more than just reputable. In the NRC rankings I cited, it’s the number one Linguistics department in the country. MIT is the home of Noam Chomsky, the world’s most influential theoretical linguist for the past half century. For many years, Chomsky and his adherents completely dominated this field.</p>
<p>However, theoretical Linguistics is somewhat removed, I would think, from Linguistic Anthropology (if I understand what that term means). Before Chomsky (before the 1960s), American linguistics was a close cousin to anthropology. A typical American structural linguist might be going off doing field work in places like New Guinea. After Chomsky, linguistics became more closely allied to other fields, including philosophy, artificial intelligence, and cognitive psychology. </p>
<p>I don’t believe MIT has a strong anthro department. Harvard does.</p>
<p>
tk summed it up pretty well. Put simply, linguistics has been pulled in three broad directions. </p>
<p>1) One direction is the anthropological approach, which deals with the relationship between groups of people and their languages. The [Sapir-Wharf</a> hypothesis](<a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos) is an example of this approach. Another example is the study of the [url=<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah]Gullah[/url”>Gullah - Wikipedia]Gullah[/url</a>] people, whose relative isolation allowed them to preserve a very old form of language.</p>
<p>2) Another approach is making connections with the sciences, particularly linking language and cognitive science.</p>
<p>3) Perhaps the most common approach can best be described as “philology,” including a subfield called comparative linguistics. This involves the study (and possibly decipherment) of language systems, including syntax, semantics, pragmatics, etc. Put another way, this approach studies the structure of languages.</p>
<p>It seems your daughter is most interested in the first and third approaches. If so, I agree with tk that Chicago could appeal to her. It has an enormous amount of linguistic activity going on at the moment, including several major projects (Hittite dictionary, Demotic dictionary, Sumerian lexicon, etc.). UCLA, Duke, and Cornell also excel in this area. I’m sure other colleges do as well, but I’m not familiar enough with the field to point them out.</p>
<p>Arch, that makes perfect sense. I’ll run that by her and see what she says. If I had to guess, it would be more #1 than either of the other two… Ancient cultures fascinate her.</p>
<p>If I had to put money on it right now, I’d say she’ll end up working in a museum somewhere (loves them). But the chances are she will start out in the field and then find her niche, whatever that is…</p>
<p>I know I started in Forestry, then forest wildlife, then finally discovered birds were my thing. Takes some time and exposure.</p>
<p>John.</p>
<p>For grad school prep, from HEDS data, here are the top ten percentage PhD prep undergrad schools for anthropology (on both lists):</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr, Beloit, Grinnell, College of the Atlantic, Reed, Pomona, UChicago, Haverford, Goddard, Harvard</p>
<p>For linguistics:</p>
<p>St. John’s College, SF Conservatory of Music, Cal State U system, Swarthmore, Reed, Wilson, Grinnell, Goddard, Pomona, UHawaii Hilo.</p>
<p>The University of Chicago has good museums going for it.</p>
<p>First, there is the school’s own Oriental Institute (“an internationally recognized pioneer in the archaeology, philology, and history of early Near Eastern civilizations”):</p>
<p>[The</a> Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago](<a href=“http://oi.uchicago.edu/]The”>http://oi.uchicago.edu/)</p>
<p>The Oriental Institute was founded by archaeologist James Henry Breasted, possibly an historical inspiration for the Indiana Jones character. Just for fun, check out the following link explaining Indiana’s University of Chicago connection:</p>
<p>[University</a> of Chicago - Indiana Jones Wiki](<a href=“http://indianajones.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_Chicago]University”>University of Chicago | Indiana Jones Wiki | Fandom)</p>
<p>Also check out the Field Museum in the city of Chicago:</p>
<p>[The</a> Field Museum Information](<a href=“http://www.fieldmuseum.org/museum_info/default.htm]The”>http://www.fieldmuseum.org/museum_info/default.htm)</p>
<p>^^Love the Field!</p>
<p>Actually, we used to live in (southern) Illinois, and have been to the Field museum more than once (along with the Shedd Aquarium too)… Daughter liked them, but can’t really stand cold weather. She was one of the reasons we moved back to Texas. </p>
<p>I doubt even a first rate education could get her to Chicago when even Southern Illinois was too cold for her…</p>
<p>John.</p>
<p>Something to consider as well:</p>
<p>If your D is only looking at colleges that are famous for their offerings in anthropology and linguistics, she is going to be limiting herself to a narrow range of schools (of which my school is towards the top! Hooray!) But I think she is probably better off going from the bottom up than the top down-- in other words, think about the school first, programs later.</p>
<p>Many of the grad students I know at Chicago who are pursuing obscure fields did not major in that field as an undergraduate, but rather found a professor or two at their undergrad institution who was able to support and guide the students’ research and bachelors’ thesis. I don’t know if that pattern is widespread, but it certainly exists. I also know that a high school students’ interests are bound to change at least a little bit. </p>
<p>Your D should probably make sure that there are enough professors in the sociology, history, Classics, medieval studies, anthropology, religious studies, art history, etc. departments at the colleges that she’s interested in who are doing work she’s also interested in. I just think it would be a shame for her to choose a school like Chicago just for its academic offerings if a school like Smith, Wellesley, Middlebury, Kenyon, Oberlin, etc. is more her speed.</p>