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.

06/16/2026

One-year position in semantics!

Our department had a great time a few weeks ago at the 57th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 57) in Buffal...
06/10/2026

Our department had a great time a few weeks ago at the 57th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 57) in Buffalo!

BU Linguistics @ 13th Speech Prosody Speech Prosody 2026 was hosted by the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia an...
06/09/2026

BU Linguistics @ 13th Speech Prosody

Speech Prosody 2026 was hosted by the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and our department had quite the representation!

Recent PhD graduate Jackson Kellogg was tied for best paper with our former BU undergrad Kendall Lowe, now a PhD student at Michigan. They won out of 174 candidate papers!

If that's not enough, Chris Lee from our department won one of eight IPA Student Awards!

BU MA alum Yining Qu, now a PhD student at UCSB, presented a poster, “Discourse Context in the Perception of Mandarin Tone-Intonation Ambiguity”, which was an outgrowth of a final paper at BU in Fall 2023.

Other attendees included our recent PhD graduate Liza Sulkin who presented a successful talk, as well as BU Linguistics professor Jonathan Barnes!

We are so proud of all of our students and faculty!

BU linguistics alum Yuhao Dai, currently a PhD student at Georgetown, presented at SULA-TripleA on May 12-15 at the Univ...
06/08/2026

BU linguistics alum Yuhao Dai, currently a PhD student at Georgetown, presented at SULA-TripleA on May 12-15 at the University of British Columbia.

His poster was entitled "Two perfects in Lhasa Tibetan and the lack of cessation inferences of pa.ree". Here he is pictured with Lisa Matthewson!

Big congratulations to BU PhD Student Chris Lee for his award from the IPA association! 🥳
06/08/2026

Big congratulations to BU PhD Student Chris Lee for his award from the IPA association! 🥳

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

We also had one PhD candidate already defend in late 2025!
Nairan Wu: Topics in Khoe-Kwadi Syntax and Morphology, with Special References to Khoekhoe

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

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02215

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