Please see the Timetable Builder for the courses offered in the current session. To narrow your search, filter for "UTM - Linguistics" in the Department / Subject Area field (Step 2). For the full listing of all Linguistics courses, please see the Academic Calendar.
Linguistics Program Coordinator Contact: lin.pc.utm@utoronto.ca
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New course for the 2025-26 academic year!
LIN452H5 • Communicating English Language Linguistics
This course teaches students advanced skills for engaging with English language linguistics in public settings. Topics may include: how to talk to a general audience about linguistics; navigating common public myths about language; presentation skills to make complex topics accessible; incorporating linguistics in language courses; public outreach and interview skills in linguistics; designing research to answer public questions about English. In this capstone course, students will output innovative projects for educating the public about English language linguistics. This course includes an experiential learning component where students will get hands-on experience talking to various audiences about linguistics.
Topic course for the 2025-26 academic year!
LIN447H5 • Topics in Computational Linguistics
Computational Interactional Sociolinguistics
When we talk with other users on social media like Reddit, how do we express what kind of person we are? Do we want others to think of us as 'informers' – contributing useful new factual insight, 'contrarians' – always finding a counterargument, or 'entertainers' – making sure everyone is having fun? And how do we use language to position ourselves that way?
Interactional sociolinguistics is the subfield of linguistics that asks these kinds of questions, and the vast amounts of social media data available allow us unprecedented insight in the on-the-fly dynamics of presenting our social selves online. Computational approaches to studying these kinds of questions have gained in popularity over the past few years, and in this course you will learn all about them in a hands-on way. That is: we'll read recent papers, and work with Large Language Models and exploratory data analytic techniques to discover new insights. If you like to learn about human interaction, big and noisy data, Large Language Models, social media, and how they all interact, this course is for you.
Take a look at our JLP Courses!
Are you interested in the intersection of Psychology and Linguistics: learning about the cognitive processes underlying how we communicate with each other?
With JLP courses, you can:
- Fulfill program requirements for more than one program with the same course: JLP courses count toward both Psychology (Specialist/Major) or Exceptionality in Human Learning (Specialist) and Linguistics (Major/Minor) degree programs
- Acquire skills and foundational knowledge relevant to graduate study and careers in both Psychology and Linguistics
JLP285H5 • Language, Mind, & Brain
Language is often described as a quintessentially human trait. What is the mental machinery underlying this ability? In this course, you will explore questions such as: Do animals have language? How do children learn language? How do we understand and produce language in real time? How does bilingualism work? What can neuroscience tell us about language abilities? What is the relationship between language and thinking?
JLP315H5 • Language Development
By three years of age, children have mastered many of the complexities of human language. How do they do this so rapidly, and with such ease? In this course, you will examine language acquisition from a cognitive perspective. Topics include the acquisition of speech sounds, sentence structure, and conversational abilities, as well as patterns of development in special populations. You will also learn about childhood bilingualism and social aspects of language development. Hands-on experience analyzing recordings of children will be provided.
JLP383H5 • Adult Language Processing
Language is a key element in our social interactions, our ability to share information, and aspects of human culture. In this course you will engage in an advanced exploration of the cognitive machinery underlying language in adulthood. Key themes include: incremental interpretation and predictive processing; the relationship between language comprehension and production; and the nature of processing in bilinguals and speakers of less-studied languages. Practical activities address experimental methodology and aspects of data analysis.
JLP384H5 • Speech Communication
Imagine an animal species where one creature can generate thoughts in other creatures' minds simply by causing the air molecules around them to vibrate. Although this sounds exotic, it is what we as humans do every time we speak and listen. In this course, we explore the perception and production of spoken language from an interdisciplinary perspective. Sample topics include perceptual and cognitive aspects of speech communication, speech signal acoustics, audio-visual speech integration, speech sound articulation, artificial speech recognition, multilingualism, and contextual influences on speech communication. Through laboratory exercises, students will replicate classic experimental findings and gain hands-on experience with acoustic and behavioural data analysis.
JLP388H5 • Bilingualism and Multiple Language Acquisition
What are the linguistic and psychological implications of knowing more than one language? This course will explore topics such as the bilingual brain, the nature of bilingual language input, effects of age-of-acquisition and language similarity, the status of heritage languages, schooling in a second language (for example French Immersion programs), and research methodologies used in the study of bilingualism. Bilingual/multilingual corpora will be examined.
JLP481H5 • Topics in Developmental Psycholinguistics [to be offered in the future]
How do children's language comprehension and production abilities differ from adults? What can research on language acquisition tell us about why language looks the way it does? Developmental psycholinguists use experimental techniques to explore a range of topics in the area of child language comprehension and production. Drawing on cutting-edge interdisciplinary research, we will explore contemporary issues and debates in this area.
JLP483H5 • Topics in Adult Psycholinguistics [to be offered in the future]
What is the connection between comprehending, producing, and thinking about language? How do the properties of different languages influence the nature of language processing? How is processing affected by differences across individuals? Drawing on a variety of perspective and methodologies, we will explore contemporary issues and debates in these and other topics.