Adéla Hall and Adam Schwartz are the co-creators and co-leads of the minor in linguistics offered in the School of Language, Culture and Society, which launched in fall term 2025. Hall is a senior instructor 1 and Schwartz is an associate professor.
What exactly is linguistics?
Adéla Hall: Linguistics is the scientific study of language – how it works, how it changes and how people use it in real life. It asks deceptively simple questions such as, “Why does one language need an entire sentence to express an idea while another can do it in a single word?” At its heart, linguistics teaches us to recognize patterns and ask questions about something we use constantly but rarely examine: our own communication. Linguists tend to be analytical and curious, endlessly fascinated by the hidden structures behind everyday conversation and the social forces that shape how we speak or sign.
Why might students seek out this program?
AH: A linguistics minor gives students tools to see what’s usually invisible: the structure behind our language, the patterns behind variation, the social worlds that language creates. Linguistics naturally opens interdisciplinary doors, and students come to us for different reasons. Some want to deepen their understanding of language structure. Others are interested in language evolution, or in how language varies across communities. Many are drawn to practical applications such as teaching or understanding how language shapes their cultural heritage. We’ve also seen increasing interest from computer science students who want a clearer understanding of the human side of speech recognition and natural language processing. Linguistics pairs well with almost any major and leads to work where language matters — from speech-language pathology and data analysis to public health messaging, emergency communication and improving technologies that rely on human language. Honestly, it applies to almost anything that involves humans trying to make sense of each other. And with the rapid growth of AI, linguistic expertise is more urgent than ever, not only academically, but in terms of ethical responsibility and multilingual representation.
What was the process of bringing a linguistics minor to OSU?
AH: The idea emerged during the pandemic — an interesting time to be building anything, especially something that depends on collaboration. We built on (professor emerita) Joan Gross’s earlier scholarship in SLCS, but it was student demand that pushed us forward. As we piloted new classes, their enthusiasm gave us the momentum to expand. From the beginning, we envisioned a program that could thrive across World Languages and Cultures, Anthropology and Indigenous Studies, and more broadly within the College of Liberal Arts. We convened an ongoing dialogue group of linguistics-adjacent colleagues and initiated a new collaboration between SLCS, the School of Writing, Literature and Film and the College of Education, integrating those conversations into the structure of the minor we were building.
How do you plan to grow the new program?
AH: We currently have five declared minors in our first year, which is a good start for a brand-new program. As we continue developing the program, we see exciting opportunities for curricular expansion and new interdisciplinary partnerships. We plan to develop additional 300-level coursework and to maintain and grow our Linguistics Speaker Series. We just completed its second season in winter 2026, in collaboration with the Anthropology Lecture Series, with talks on Indigenous languages, language revitalization and applied linguistics. The series has become an important way to connect students with applied and community-based linguistic work. We’re also beginning to see Honors College students explore linguistics topics for their thesis which is especially exciting.
What might surprise people about this minor?
AH: Probably its versatility. Think of almost any form of human knowledge or interaction — language is at its center. Another surprise is how empowering it can be. When students learn how languages actually work, they begin to understand how meaning is shaped, how identities are negotiated and how communities sustain themselves. There are so many “aha” moments, when students realize that dialects have structure, that children actively create grammar patterns, or that creativity can inform second-language learning. Those realizations shift perspectives.
What stands out to you as the most high-impact facet of the linguistics minor?
AH: For me, the most high-impact aspect is the way it changes perception. Students often enter thinking language is simply something they use, or that they’ll learn rules about how to “do language correctly.” Our goal is for them to leave realizing that language is something they can analyze, question and shape — that they are part of it. That shift from passive user to active, critical observer is powerful. When we understand how languages work, we understand each other better. And that awareness can change not just how we speak, but how we listen.
Adam Schwartz: Linguistics just gives so much to the students. But perhaps more importantly — and if we do a good enough job as instructors — it is a toolkit that invites students to empower themselves, their families, their communities. I insist that students have been linguists their whole life, or at least as long as they’ve had the capacity to think reflectively about language. Linguistics offers that proof that how you speak, how you communicate and therefore who you are is valid!
