Linguistics and Cognitive Science

Associate Professor Mary Paster, department chair

Professors Atlas, Burke
Associate Professor Paster
Assistant Professors Diercks, Harris
Lecturer Landman

The curriculum of the Linguistics and Cognitive Science Department offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of language and mind. The major features core courses in linguistics and cognitive science followed by a choice of two tracks: one emphasizing linguistics and the other cognitive science.

Linguistics as a discipline focuses on the scientific study of human language – its theoretical, descriptive, social and behavioral bases. It also serves as a privileged window into human cognition. As such, our evolving understanding of language has had, and continues to have, a profound influence on fields as diverse as philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, literature, music and computer science.

Cognitive science is concerned with a unified approach to the human mind and the nature of intelligent behavior: language, meaning, knowledge, thinking, perceiving, remembering, emotion, consciousness and other mental phenomena. Central issues in the discipline include the structure, acquisition, use and internal representation of language; the interpretation of sensory experience; the development of formal and informal reasoning skills; the nature of self and consciousness; and the neural basis of cognition.

The Linguistics and Cognitive Science curriculum is a cooperative intercollegiate program; linguistics and cognitive science classes taught at the other Claremont Colleges count as Pomona courses in the completion of the major.

• Linguistics and Cognitive Science Major
   
• Cognitive Science Minor
   
• Linguistics Minor
   
• Linguistics and Cognitive Science Courses
   

Read more about our learning objectives:
www.pomona.edu/administration/academic-dean/learning-objectives