Linguistics Major, B.A.

About This Program

As an MSU Denver Linguistics student, you will learn about language and its significance in society. What sounds do humans use to construct the world’s languages? What kinds of words do we use? How do words and parts of words come together to structure language, create meaning, influence people, build identities and societies? Housed in the Department of English, MSU Denver is one of only two schools in Colorado that offers a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics.

Benefits of Earning Your Degree at MSU Denver

MSU Denver and the Department of English provide myriad opportunities to acquire relevant career skills and experience through study abroad, MSU Denver’s Undergraduate Research Conference, internships as well as the following:

• Linguistics Club
• Writing Center Internships
• MSU Roadrunner Review: The Creative Writing Journal for MSU Denver
• Metrosphere Arts and Literary Magazine

Facilities and Resources

Study on the Auraria Campus, a diverse complex that houses three colleges and universities including MSU Denver. Located just walking distance from downtown Denver, MSU Denver offers easy access to internships sites, the Colorado State Capitol, museums, theatres and concert venues.

Career Opportunities for Our Graduates

An MSU Denver bachelor’s degree in Linguistics is excellent preparation for a wide variety of fields that require strong analytical and communication skills. Contact the Classroom to Career Hub (C2Hub) for more detailed information.

Here are a few Linguistics career pathways:

• Linguist
• Voice-recognition/voice simulation software developer
• Journalist
• Law enforcement/forensic linguist
• Interpreter/translator
• Marketing professional
• Public relations executive
• Intelligence analyst
• Lawyer
• Archivist
• Fundraiser
• Human resources specialist
• Lexicographer

Featured Faculty

Marina L. Gorlach

Professor Marina L. Gorlach teaches many general Linguistics courses and is the author of “Phrasal Constructions and Resultativeness in English: A Sign-Oriented Analysis.” She is proficient in Russian, Latin, Hebrew, French and Ukrainian.

Andrew J. Pantos

Associate Professor Andrew J. Pantos teaches a wide variety of Linguistics courses and has authored a number of scholarly articles focusing on language attitudes, sociophonetics and experimental methods in sociolinguistics. Dr. Pantos is a sociolinguist and former attorney with research interests primarily in language variation (both production and perception), forensic linguistics and issues of language, gender and sexuality.

Samuel Beer

Assistant Professor of Linguistics at MSU Denver. His research focuses on how linguistic data is created and used, with an emphasis on descriptive linguistic field methods and language archives and remobilization. His own fieldwork has taken place in the Nyangi and Soo communities of northeastern Uganda, in which he has described the structures and histories of two severely threatened languages.

Alumni at Work

MSU Denver Linguistics program graduates have been hired by the following organizations:

• The highly competitive JET program to teach English in Japan
• The U.S. military in intelligence/translation
• MSU Denver

MSU Denver Linguistics alumni have been accepted for graduate study at various institutions including:

• University of Pittsburgh
• University of London
• University of Alberta
• Freiburg University
• Monterrey Institute
• University of Arizona
• University of Wyoming
• University of Colorado Boulder
• Hofstra University