About UO Linguistics

Welcome to the website of the Deartment of Linguistics at the University of Oregon! The field of linguistics is the study of the patterns found in specific languages, with the ultimate goal of explaining why those patterns take the form that they do across all languages. Here at Oregon, we specialize in finding unexpected patterns, both from fieldwork with relatively unknown languages, and from experimental or discourse research, usually done with better-known languages. Our department as a whole firmly believes that the patterns of language can ultimately be explained with reference to either cognitive functions of communication or to universals in the evolution of grammar, with the patterns of evolution themselves driven mostly by the cognitive functions of communication.

The Department of Linguistics was first constituted in 1978, but Linguistics at Oregon began in earnest in 1981, when Colette Craig, Derry Malsch, and Russ Tomlin recruited T. Givón to head the fledgling department. Scott DeLancey was hired soon thereafter, then Doris Payne, and the core of a solid functionalist approach to linguistics was established. Givón's classic volumes,Syntax: A Functional/Typological Approach, became the blueprint for the foundational training that all graduate students received.

At present, the Department continues with this field and empirical tradition of research and training. Tomlin, DeLancey, and Payne, plus Givón and Schachter (as emeriti) are still vital parts of the department, but are joined by Eric Pederson (cognitive linguistics and field work in South Asia), Cynthia Vakareliyska (Slavic linguistics, aphasia), Susan Guion (second language acquisition, phonetics/phonology), Spike Gildea (fieldwork in South America, historical syntax), and Melissa Redford (cognitive psychology, phonetics/phonology). Please consult the individual webpages of each of the faculty for more details of their interests and recent work.

Together, we form a community with a common core of beliefs about the nature of language and linguistics: we maintain a concern that our methods of collecting data be empirically sound and that they extend across many languages, a belief that valid explanations for the patterns we find in our data be based on independently validated cognitive processes, and a commitment to an interdisciplinary emphasis on the place of human language in its wider natural context. Although we share this common core, as individuals we offer many different strands of research that illuminate that core differently. I invite you to explore this website for illustration of some of what we do here, and to contact us more directly with questions, comments, or opportunities to interact with you and your ideas about language and linguistics.

Hope to hear from you!

Eric Pederson
Head, Department of Linguistics

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