Description
The collection is maintained by the Modern Languages & Linguistics Library.
The Linguistics collection supports teaching and research in the Department of Linguistics and the Division of English as an International Language, through the doctoral level and beyond, in the science of spoken and written language and its various subfields (such as phonology, grammar, sociolinguistics, and dialectology). Some of the areas strongly represented are the philosophy and theory of language, historical and comparative linguistics, mathematical and computational linguistics, language acquisition, pragmatics, applied linguistics, and biligualism. This field is also of interest to faculty and students in the Departments of Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy, and Speech Communication as well as those in programs in the Romance, Germanic, Classical, and Slavic languages and literatures and Asian, African, and Latin American studies. The collection also draws on material purchased for those fields and titles on the teaching of languages acquired by the Education and Social Science Library.
The linguistics collection had its beginnings at the end of the 19th century and grew steadily until the 1950s to support the needs of a constellation of departments rather than a specific program. A turning point occurred in 1961 when the Program in Linguistics was approved; it achieved departmental status in 1965. Since that time collection development in linguistics has been intense. A number of important gift collections have been received, such as the library of Henry and Renee Kahane, and large purchases were made in connection with national linguistics institutes held on campus. The collection is estimated to be more than 200,000 volumes.
Version Date: May, 2007