Applied Linguistics Major

Applied Linguistics is an exciting discipline that investigates language with relevance to issues in the everyday world. Situated in discursive and interactional contexts, language is essential to all aspects of life from personal to social. Interdisciplinary in nature, Applied Linguistics sheds new light on the nature of language and language use.

The Applied Linguistics major involves both theory-research and practice. On the theory-research side, it provides students with the opportunity to investigate the links between language, culture, social organization, and learning. On the practical side, with its focus on service learning, it engages students in the community, schools, and work places of our geographic setting. The major encourages students to reflect on their lives with regard to language use from a variety of perspectives and experiences and to bring to bear the academic resources of their education on their reflections.

Graduates of the Applied Linguistics major who are interested in pursuing the theoretical side can do so by pursuing graduate programs in Applied Linguistics, Sociology, and various professional schools. Graduates who are more interested in the practical side will find the major to be particularly useful for community work, education, social services, state and local government, and immigrant and ethnic organizations. Experience in service learning, communicative skills in local languages, and understanding of issues related to language and its use in the society should enhance students’ resumes, as well as making them better and more helpful citizens of the multicultural state of California.

PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS

Students must have an overall grade-point average of 2.0 or better to enter the major. All preparation courses must be passed with an average grade of C or better and must be completed before enrolling in courses for the major. A 2.0 grade-point average in courses for the major is required.


For a checklist worksheet of the requirements for the Applied Linguistics major, click here.

PREPARATION FOR THE MAJOR

  1. Linguistics 20
  2. Applied Linguistics (APPLING) 10 or 10W
  3. Two courses from the following:
    APPLING 20 , APPLING 30 or 30W , APPLING 40 or 40W , Anthropology 33 , Psychology 10
  4. Completion of the equivalent of the sixth term of one foreign language.
    Students who complete an advanced language course are considered to have completed the equivalent of whatever courses are requisite to the advanced language course (e.g. if students complete Russian 101A, they have automatically satisfied the requirement of the sixth term of Russian)

THE MAJOR

Ten upper division courses as follows:

Core courses - Four courses, required of all students in the major

  • APPLING C153
  • APPLING C155
  • APPLING C157
  • APPLING M161W

Courses in Linguistics - One upper division linguistics course, required of all students in the major

  • Linguistics 103

Electives** - Five additional elective courses are required. Two electives must be Service Learning (SL) courses AND one of the two must be a Capstone (CP) course.

Anthropology 147                    *APPLING 195
Anthropology C144                  *APPLING 197
Anthropology M140                  *APPLING 198
APPLING 101 or 101W              *APPLING 199
APPLING 102W                          Japanese M120
APPLING C110                          APPLING C115B
APPLING C115A                        Korean CM120
APPLING C111                          Linguistics 114
APPLING C114                          Linguistics 130
APPLING C116                          Linguistics C140
APPLING C118A                        Linguistics M115
APPLING C118B                        Sociology CM125
APPLING C140                          Sociology M124A/B
APPLING C141                          Sociology 191Q
APPLING CM127 
APPLING CM128

Service Learning and Capstone Courses - SL and CP courses may not be taken during the freshman or sophomore year.

APPLING 112SL
APPLING 113SL
APPLING 117SL
APPLING 121SL (CP)
APPLING M165SL (CP)
APPLING M172SL (CP)
APPLING C175 (CP)

*No more than two courses from APPLING 195, 197, 198, and 199 may be applied toward the major. Students can take no more than 8 units of APPLING 198 and/or 199.

**Other courses not listed here may count towards the elective requirements. Please consult the Undergraduate Advisor for more information.

Course Descriptions

For detailed course descriptions, please consult the General Catalog.