Cognate Courses

Linguistics is highly interdisciplinary and departments other than Linguistics sometimes offer courses that have substantial linguistic content. Some of these courses are designated as cognate courses and are approved as electives for the linguistics major, subject to a 12-credit limit on special courses, which include cognates. (See Major Requirements for details.)

A table of approved cognate courses is given below. The table is usually updated within the first two weeks of each term. Approval is for specific course sections in specific terms. Approval in one term does not guarantee approval in later terms. For topics courses, the contents vary from section to section; be sure to check whether the particular section of interest is approved.

Students may request to have courses reviewed for inclusion. The criteria for approval are the same as for Transfer Credit and Study Abroad.

Cognate courses should not be confused with cross-listed courses or meet-togethers. When a course is cross-listed, it is offered under multiple course numbers; for example, LING 447 "Psychology of Language" is also offered as PSYCH 445. If a cross-listed course has a LING course number, it counts as a Linguistics course, even if the student enrolls in it under the non-LING course number.

A meet-together arises when a professor teaches two courses simultaneously, possibly with some differences in requirements depending on which course number a student enrolls under. Unlike a cross-listed course, a meet-together does not count as a Linguistics course if the student enrolls under the non-LING course number. But the student may request that it be approved as a cognate, or may retroactively change the course number under which she/he enrolled.

More details about cognate courses are available on our Non-Linguistics Courses for Linguistics major credit page.

Details on advising appointments are available on our Advising page.