Okay linguistics, YOU WIN

[cosmic_celery]

Okay, so, I was browsing through the UCSD (University of California San Diego) linguistics department's website earlier today. I wanted to see what the lower level requirements were and yadda yadda prerequisites yadda yadda. By the way, it says I need two years foreign language and they're on the quarter system...so how many semesters is that? Two? Four? I have no idea.

Anyway, I clicked on the "Reading Groups" section of the site and found this:

The Experimental Syntax Reading Group meets every other Friday at 11 am to discuss methods of collecting syntactic data in an objective and precise manner.

Now, I don't know if I'd actually be interested in joining that sort of group. What I do know is that for some reason that is the sexiest sentence ever.



Clearly I have some sort of problem.

Comments

[black-rider.livejournal.com]

Is UCSD really only asking for one language for admission to their linguistics program? Last time I looked I think UCLA wanted two years of two different languages, one of which had to be of a non-romance variety...

I gave up on linguistics when I realized the only atypical language I had any interest in studying is practically moribund, and, you know, therefore rather difficult to study...

[cosmic-celery.livejournal.com]

No, it's two. I was just looking at the lower level requirements.

[black-rider.livejournal.com]

Gotcha. Also, I think high school years translate roughly to college semesters, but it varies so much it's hard to say...

[dragonessa24.livejournal.com]

You only have a problem if you try to deny the attraction of linguistics. Muahaha.

I don't actually know what that sentence there entails, but that's probably because I stay as much away from the study of syntax as possible. Grammar bores me, lol. I rather look at how words are made up and their meanings than at how sentences are structured.

[deadsies.livejournal.com]

...Idk, I agree that it's sexy. :X

[faience.livejournal.com]

You and I clearly have different definitions of sexy, but I don't think they're that far off. This may be the wrong forum to talk about this as a "problem."

Thoouugghhhh I may have, some years ago, decided against graduate school due to language requirements. (Art History, they tend to require two languages in your subject area.) I would have needed to learn French. And probably German. And definitely Italian. As if I'm not scatterbrained enough with a language and a half rattling around my head.

[sweet-panda.livejournal.com]

Ooooh.. Syntactic. *faps*

[studyofrunning.livejournal.com]

Two years of a language on quarters is six classes. A year-long series of any subject will be a fall, winter, and spring class in it, each having the last as a prerequisite. If you fail one you have to wait a year. (Math being the biggest exception, since lots of people fail it and lots of majors require it.) Summer quarter never counts for anything, since most students don't even attend summer quarter and those that do often have to pay more tuition with less financial aid. UCSD being in California, all the rich kids might throw that off a bit, but I'm still betting you'll take six classes.

My university considered two years of a language in highschool equivalent to one year in college (university or otherwise), either of which met the minimum language requirement to graduate. American sign language counted as a foreign language; fluency in one learned in the real world did not. I think Washington State law had a lot to do with all of that, though.

The Experimental Syntax Reading Group meets every other Friday at 11 am to discuss methods of collecting syntactic data in an objective and precise manner.

I didn't understand a word of that.

[cosmic-celery.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That definitely helps.

Not that it readily applies to me, but the UC schools do have oral and written exams in place that test for fluency in language. If anyone passes the exam, it eliminates some of the required courses.