BU Linguistics

BU Linguistics Official page of the Department of Linguistics at Boston University We also love to hear from our many alumni!

BU's Department of Linguistics enables students to study human language from a variety of perspectives and to consider the relationships between linguistics and other disciplines. We offer the undergraduate Linguistics major, minor, and joint majors combining Linguistics with a related field (e.g., African Languages, Computer Science, Philosophy, Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences); a dual degre

e (BA/MA); graduate degrees (MA, PhD); and a Graduate Certificate in Linguistics. Our programs of study introduce students to linguistic theory and analysis and offer a wide range of courses examining the biological, social, cultural, historical, and cognitive bases of language. BU linguists are actively involved in research (including scholarly conferences and publication) as well as community engagement. Areas of specialization include experimental approaches to phonetics and phonology; morphology, syntax, and semantics; fieldwork and language documentation; language acquisition in children and adults; bilingualism and multilingualism; and language variation and change. We also organize several language-related events throughout the year, including colloquia and the annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), the largest student-run conference on language development in the world. We are fortunate to have an excellent and dedicated faculty and a bright and enthusiastic group of students.

BU Linguistics at ACAL The University at Buffalo will host the 57th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 57) o...
05/15/2026

BU Linguistics at ACAL

The University at Buffalo will host the 57th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 57) on May 21–23, 2026! We are proud to have several department members and alumni presenting:

- Jackson Kellogg: Considering evidence for word stress via intonational peak alignment in Amharic
- Rebecca Dufie Bonney: Talking to Children in their L1 Matters: Lasting ATR Harmony in Akan Heritage Speakers
- Felix Kpogo: Bilingual Experience Shapes Coarticulation in Ga Complex-Simplex Stop Contrasts in Children
- Chloe Guttmann: Voice quality differences in [+ATR] and [−ATR] vowels in Asante Twi (poster)
- André Batchelder-Schwab: Tshila phoneme gaps and the case against clicks as clusters (poster)

For the full schedule, see: https://sites.google.com/view/acal57/program?authuser=0

In 2026, our department has had four PhD candidates pass their dissertation defenses! Andre Batchelder-Schwab: Topics in...
05/15/2026

In 2026, our department has had four PhD candidates pass their dissertation defenses!

Andre Batchelder-Schwab: Topics in African Whistled Languages
Liza Sulkin: Acoustic correlates of gender presentation and sexuality
Jupitara Ray: Phonetic plasticity in Indian English bilinguals: How L2 accommodation alters L1 production and perception
Jackson Kellogg: Prosodic prominence and phrasal intonation in Amharic

Congrats to Doctors Batchelder-Schwab, Sulkin, Ray, and Kellogg!!

Thank you to everyone who helped make the Boston Morphology Workshop (BMW) a success! The BU Linguistics department was ...
05/12/2026

Thank you to everyone who helped make the Boston Morphology Workshop (BMW) a success! The BU Linguistics department was honored to host.

05/12/2026

Kate Lindsey at CUNY Graduate Center

Last month, BU Professor Kate Lindsey presented at the CUNY Graduate Center with a colloquium called "Two Lies and a Truth: Uncovering the Facts about Chuvash Stress". Congrats!

Professor Coppock at Princeton - Rutgers Semantics workshopLast month, Professor Coppock was invited to the Princeton – ...
05/05/2026

Professor Coppock at Princeton - Rutgers Semantics workshop

Last month, Professor Coppock was invited to the Princeton – Rutgers Semantics workshop to provide comments on Hans Kamp’s paper!

SESSION 19:00-11:15Josh Dever(comments from Matthew Stone) LUNCHSESSION 212:30-2:45Dag Westerståhl(comments from Zoltán Szabó) SESSION 33:00-5:15John Hawthrone(comments from Paolo Santorio) SESSION 45:30–7:45Hans Kamp(comments from Elisabeth Coppock) DINNER

This Friday and Saturday, May 1-2, BU Linguistics will be hosting the Boston Morphology Workshop (the fourth in the seri...
04/28/2026

This Friday and Saturday, May 1-2, BU Linguistics will be hosting the Boston Morphology Workshop (the fourth in the series of Exo-Words workshops, which have previously been hosted at Penn State, Princeton, and UQAM). The schedule and other information can be found on the website: https://sites.google.com/view/bostonmorphologyworkshop/

The talks will be taking place in Room B01 of 24 Cummington Mall (Life Science and Engineering), but the poster session will be happening in the Linguistics department at 111 Cummington Mall on Friday at 11.15am-1pm (Rooms 139, 147A, and nearby spaces).

You can register with the following form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdEuB5YgrA9Ty-x8iSWUuYcnjSYKjQ5_GkVjswoXPbygkrURw/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Life Sciences and Engineering Building, Room B01, Boston University, 24 Cummington Mall, 02215 (Poster session on day 1 down the street at 111 Cummingtom Mall) Please address questions to [email protected]

04/27/2026

We are proud to announce that four of our students won Boston University Center for the Humanities awards!!

Undergraduate Student Awards recognize outstanding students majoring in a humanities or humanities-adjacent discipline:

The Robert E. Yellin Award was awarded to both Noah Darby and Maclain Rockett in our department!
https://www.bu.edu/humanities/opportunities/undergrads/student-awards/past-award-winners/

Graduate Student Awards recognize outstanding work in the humanities:

The Alice M. Brennan Humanities Award: Jackson Kellogg
The Edwin S. and Ruth M. White Prize: Liza Sulkin
https://www.bu.edu/humanities/opportunities/graduate-opportunities/student-awards/graduate-student-awards-past-winners/

Congratulations to all the recipients!

Graduate Student Awards recognize outstanding work in the humanities. Students are nominated to apply for these awards by their respective departments. 2025/2026 The Alice M. Brennan Humanities Award Kaylee Kelley History of Art & Architecture Jackson Kellogg Linguistics William Glover English Xianf...

Sungjun Kim at Emory Undergraduate Linguistics Conference (EULC7)One of our undergraduate students, a Junior majoring in...
04/27/2026

Sungjun Kim at Emory Undergraduate Linguistics Conference (EULC7)

One of our undergraduate students, a Junior majoring in Linguistics and Computer Science, was accepted to the Emory Undergraduate Linguistics Conference (EULC7)! https://linguistics.emory.edu/news/eulc.html

The conference took place virtually in April and Sungjun's talk was entitled "Hangeul as a Computational Medium". Congrats!

Emory University’s Program in Linguistics is hosting its seventh annual Emory Undergraduate Linguistics Conference (EULC7) virtually. We are inviting undergraduate students and recent B.A./B.S. graduates to submit abstracts from all subfields of linguistics.

Professor Kate Lindsey will be teaching Phonological Typology at ALT-2026 (16th International Conference of the Associat...
04/21/2026

Professor Kate Lindsey will be teaching Phonological Typology at ALT-2026 (16th International Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology) in Lyon. Registration is now open!

The 16th International Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology will be organized by the Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage (DDL), CNRS, and will be held at the Lumière University of Lyon, France, on 1-3 July 2026 with the generous support of our sponsors: Université Lumière Lyon 2, CN...

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