Students and professors express enthusiasm for new linguistics major

Princeton will now offer a Linguistics major in lieu of the current Independent Major option, allowing the Class of 2028 and beyond to declare a major in linguistics. The proposal was formally approved at the faculty meeting on Monday, Feb. 2.

Prior to this change, students interested in linguistics could apply to the Independent Major in Linguistics Program. Unlike other independent majors, which require students to develop their own program, the linguistics program had an established, standardized curriculum.

The linguistics program has been running its independent major under a standardized curriculum for eight years, according to Laura Kalin, associate professor of linguistics and associate director of the Program in Linguistics. Since Kalin came to Princeton in 2016, she has been working towards turning the Independent Major in Linguistics into a formal major.

“Princeton takes very seriously changes to its undergraduate curriculum, so everything is very carefully thought out and planned. They give everything time to work all the bugs out and to see if there is really enough student interest in this to justify this change,” Kalin told The Daily Princetonian.

The Program in Linguistics was housed under the Council of the Humanities but moved to the Social Sciences Academic Division in the fall, which gave it the freedom to independently hire faculty and manage its financial chartstring. The Linguistics major will be the only major at the University that is housed by a program instead of a department, school, or institute.

Professors and students are hopeful about establishing new independent work courses, being able to internally administer the program, and increasing the program’s visibility.

One of the biggest drawbacks for students considering the linguistics program was the legitimacy of their degree.

“From an international perspective, people are quite worried about the employability of an independent major in linguistics, as opposed to just a linguistics major,” said Caitlin Hodge ’27, a linguistics independent major and international student from New Zealand.

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Currently, there is only one senior with an independent major in linguistics. The linguistics program is still awaiting confirmation that the current senior will be able to switch to the official Linguistics major, but Kalin said she believes the five juniors majoring in linguistics will likely be able to have “Linguistics” on their diploma.

“We’re excited to not have ‘Independent’ on our diploma and have ‘Linguistics,’” linguistics independent major Ellie Noland ’27 told the ‘Prince.’

“This vote only just happened, and there’s just an amount of stuff that we have had to do to actually fully launch, so there are a lot of things to figure out,” Kalin said. “It’s a little tricky, and we trust the University to figure this out in the best way possible, and we advocate for what our students want to the best extent possible.”

When declaring an independent major in Linguistics, students had to complete an application process, which involved meeting with the director of undergraduate studies for linguistics and submitting a list of courses they planned to count toward the major.

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“The application itself is not very tedious, but going out of your way to inquire for details about the application and to commit yourself to that process so early on … it has a high activation energy,” prospective linguistics major Angela Hou ’28 told the ‘Prince.’

“The main thing is, most people don’t know linguistics is an option … Maybe they took LIN 201 back in freshman year. But most people don’t even know what linguistics is, much less whether they would like it,” Noland said.

Because the program has been established for some time, Kalin says that the major’s curriculum works “really well” and will not change for both current and prospective majors. She also says she hopes to preserve the close-knit culture of the program.

“We get together for good meals. All the students know about the independent research that all the other students are doing, and all the faculty know about all the students … It feels like a family to us, and we very much want to keep that experience going, even though we become, hopefully, a little bit of a bigger community,” Kalin said.

Given the rise of artificial intelligence and large language models, many students — particularly math and computer science students — have started exploring linguistics classes, according to Kalin, which helped sustain and increase interest in the program over the years.

In the past, the lack of an established major has proved to be a deterrent to both current and prospective Princeton students interested in linguistics.

“When I originally came into Princeton, I wanted to major in linguistics and study linguistics, because that’s my passion. It’s the thing that I love the most in life. But there was no official major here… [so] I settled on computer science, intending to use language or use technology to facilitate work with language,” Hou said.

“One of the reasons I almost didn’t apply to Princeton was because [linguistics] wasn’t real, but I’m glad I did, because it’s a great program. I’m now very happy that we’re going to be legit,” Noland said.

Students and professors hope more undergraduates will be encouraged to declare a major in linguistics.

“New language is getting invented all the time,” Hodge said. “I feel like [linguistics] is something really worth studying, and so I hope more people are able to major in it.”

Elizabeth Hu is a staff News writer, assistant head Copy editor, associate Data editor, and staff Podcast producer from Houston. She can be reached at eh9203[at]princeton.edu.

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.