<p>I'm applying to Penn this fall and I know the school's linguistics program is one of the strongest. Are there any Penn alumni or current students who know anything about it? Are there are other applicants looking into Penn linguistics, as well?</p>
<p>I'm more interested in the humanities side of the concentration - sociolingusitcs, historical linguistics, and anything connected to anthropology. Anyone who is a part of the department - and I'm not actually sure how big it is at Penn - what kind of background did you come from? By that, I mean what classes did you take and what inspired you to pursue linguistics?</p>
<p>Thanks so much! I look forward to hearing from someone soon.</p>
<p>I'm not a linguistics major, but I've taken two linguistic classes at Penn. If you're interested in sociolinguistics, there is no better place than Penn. William Labov, the founder of sociolinguistics, is a professor here. I actually took a class with him, Narrative Analysis, and I highly recommend it.</p>
<p>Thanks for responding to this. Yeah, I know about William Labov! I already had the impression that sociolinguistics was strongest at Penn, primarily because of him - but do you know whether the linguistics department is very big though? In general, linguistics is one of the more obscure majors, so I thought it might be worth knowing. </p>
<p>Since I haven't actually taken anything directly related to linguistics in high school (considering such classes don't exist at that level), what kinds of things did you learn in those two classes? I'm in my fifth year of Spanish and I'm in Theory of Knowledge as a senior (in addition to four other IB classes - Diploma candidate, ha), and I feel that these subjects have been my only true exposure to linguistics. I'm interested in it, but at the same time, I'm not entirely sure what the concentration encompasses. Any information you can send my way would be greatly appreciated!</p>