NYU’s Language & Mind major is an inter-disciplinary approach to understanding the human mind by studying language. At the core of Cognitive Science, this endeavor has emerged as a preeminent research frontier, forging links across the humanities, the social sciences and the hard sciences. Reflecting the strongly inter-disciplinary character of this frontier, NYU’s Language & Mind study program is strongly integrative, drawing courses from three departments: Linguistics, Psychology and Philosophy. Human language is at the center of the Language & Mind study program, but the major is broader than Linguistics; the program also incorporates Psychological experimentation techniques and Philosophical inquiry. The aim is to give students the necessary background for exploration of new perspectives for both language and the human mind.
There are ten required courses selected from an interdisciplinary cross-section of Linguistics, Psychology, and Philosophy. Beyond the defining course of this major, called “Language and Mind”, students take three courses in Linguistics (selected from a set of ten Linguistics courses), one in Philosophy (selected from a set of three Philosophy courses), four in Psychology (selected from a set of nine Psychology courses), and an additional course from one of the three departments.
The Honors track encourages ambitious research that aims to reflect the frontier nature of the major and supports work at the interface between established disciplines. The Honors research is carried out under the advising of two faculty members from different departments.