African Language Families
Creator: Mark Dingemanse
Department of Linguistics
The University of Iowa Department of Linguistics offers programs leading to the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics. The theoretical core of the programs is in phonology and syntax. The M.A. degree provides a broad education in linguistics which serves as a base for further study in linguistics or related disciplines. If a student chooses the TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) focus, in conjunction with the M.A., then the degree prepares students for a career in teaching English to nonnative speakers overseas and at colleges and universities in the United States. The Ph.D. degree is primarily a research degree with a basis in phonology and syntax and with the opportunity for students to develop an area of research specialization.
The Department of Linguistics has particular strengths in phonology, syntax, and second language acquisition (SLA).
Second Language Acquisition (SLA) PhD Program
The Ph.D. in SLA is an interdisciplinary degree offered by FLARE (Foreign Language Acquisition Research and Education). Students interested in the Ph.D. must have completed the M.A. in an appropriate field (e.g., Linguistics, Foreign Language Education, TESOL/ESL) or have equivalent academic experience. Students may pursue their interdisciplinary interests in courses offered by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Departments of Asian Languages and Literature, French and Italian, German, Linguistics, Rhetoric, Spanish and Portuguese, and Speech Pathology and Audiology, and the College of Education Department of Psychological and Quantitative Foundations, and Teaching and Learning. There are more than 20 associated faculty members in these and other departments with whom students may study.
Featured Databases
- Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) This link opens in a new windowContains non-evaluative abstracts of articles from approximately 1,500 serials published worldwide. [Not compatible with Internet Explorer 9]
- MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO Version) This link opens in a new windowThe MLA International Bibliography is a subject index for books, articles and websites published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. It is produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), an organization dedicated to the study and teaching of language and literature. The electronic version of the Bibliography dates back to 1925 and contains over 2 million citations from more than 4,400 periodicals (including peer-reviewed e-journals) and 1,000 book publishers.
- Social Sciences Citation Index or SSCI This link opens in a new windowSSCI is a multidisciplinary index to the journal literature of the social sciences, 1898 - present. Includes some full text. Part of the ISI Web of Knowledge database.
- Scopus This link opens in a new window[Help Searching Scopus]Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research.
- ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global (PQDT Global) This link opens in a new windowProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global is the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, spanning from 1743 to the present day and offering full text for graduate works added since 1997, along with selected full text for works written prior to 1997. [Not compatible with Internet Explorer 9]
- Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new windowRECOMMEND USING CHROME; As a compilation of the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Anthropological Index and Harvard University's Anthropological Literature databases, Anthropology Plus is the world’s most comprehensive index covering the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and related interdisciplinary research. This database offers worldwide indexing of journals from the early 19th century to today, providing extensive indexing of journal articles, reports, and commentaries.
- ERIC (EBSCOhost version) This link opens in a new windowERIC focuses on journal and non-journal education-related topics. ERIC subject descriptors are listed in the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors, available at the public service desks in the Hardin Library for the Health Sciencesand the Main Library as well as electronically through EBSCOhost or CSA. Full-text of ERIC documents from 1993 to the present is available from the ERIC website free.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new windowThe APA PsycINFO database from the American Psychological Association (APA) covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines including medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, and other areas. PsycINFO's peer-reviewed coverage is worldwide, and includes references and abstracts to 2,400 journals in more than 30 languages, and book chapters and books in the English language. Coverage spans 1600s – present and includes over 5 million peer-reviewed records.
- Annual Reviews This link opens in a new windowAnnual Reviews is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide the worldwide scientific
community with a useful and intelligent synthesis of the primary research literature for a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. - Springer E-Book Collection This link opens in a new windowSpringerLink offers an integrated full-text database for thousands of e-books, protocols, eReferences, and book series published by Springer since 2005.
- Linguistics Data Consortium (LDC) This link opens in a new windowThe Linguistic Data Consortium is an open consortium of universities, companies and government research laboratories. It creates, collects and distributes speech and text databases, lexicons, and other resources for research and development purposes. The UI Main Library holds all corpora published since 2002; contact bibliographer for assistance.
- English Corpora This link opens in a new windowALL FIRST TIME USERS MUST REGISTER WITH ENGLISH CORPORA, AND THEN SPECIFY “UNIVERSITY OF IOWA” IN THEIR ACCOUNT INFORMATION. Please direct any questions to the Education & Psychology Librarian at kelly-hangauer@uiowa.edu. The English Corpora include some of the most widely-used online corpora. This resource allows users to find out how native speakers speak and write; find frequency of words, phrases, and collocates; look at language variation and change; gain insight into culture; and design authentic language teaching materials and resources.
Reference Materials
- Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics This link opens in a new windowIncludes over 1,100 entries written by an international team of scholars from over 40 countries, and covers 27 key areas of the field, including Language Learning and Teaching, Bilingual and Multilingual Education, Assessment and Testing, Corpus Linguistics, Conversation Analysis, Discourse, Cognitive Second Language Acquisition, Language Policy and Planning, Literacy, and Technology and Language.
- Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics This link opens in a new windowComprehensively covers all aspects of Arabic languages and linguistics. It is interdisciplinary in scope and represents different schools and approaches to be as objective and versatile as possible.
- Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics This link opens in a new windowThe Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics Online offers a systematic and comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the history and study of the Hebrew language from its earliest attested form to the present day. With over 850 entries and approximately 400 contributing scholars, it is the authoritative reference work for students and researchers in the fields of Hebrew linguistics, general linguistics, Biblical studies, Hebrew and Jewish literature, and related fields.
- Handbook of Pragmatics Online This link opens in a new windowCovers Linguistic Pragmatics, characterized by its continuous worldwide development into an extremely productive, innovative and intriguing research area within language studies.
- International Encyclopedia of Linguistics This link opens in a new windowThe Encyclopedia encompasses the full range of topics in linguistics, including such areas as historical, comparative, formal, mathematical, functional, philosophical, and sociolinguistics. Special attention is given to interrelations within these branches of the field and to relations of linguistics with other disciplines.
- Oxford Bibliographies Online This link opens in a new windowCombining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, Oxford Bibliographies Online guides researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects.
Subscribed modules: African Studies, American Literature, Anthropology, Art History, Atlantic History, Buddhism, Classics, Communications, Hinduism, Islamic Studies, Linguistics, Management, Medieval Studies, Music, Philosophy, Renaissance and Reform, Victorian Literature - Oxford Handbooks : Linguistics This link opens in a new windowOHO Linguistics brings together the world's leading scholars to write review essays that evaluate the current thinking on a field or topic, and make an original argument about the future direction of the debate.
- Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and LinguisticsThe Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics (EAGLL) is a unique work that brings together the latest research from across a range of disciplines which contribute to our knowledge of Ancient Greek. It is an indispensable research tool for scholars and students of Greek, of linguistics, and of other Indo-European languages, as well as of Biblical literature
- World Atlas of Language Structures OnlineThe World Atlas of Language Structures is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It is maintained by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and by the Max Planck Digital Library. The atlas provides information on the location, linguistic affiliation and basic typological features of a great number of the world's languages. It interacts with Google Maps, and the content is published under a Creative Commons license.
- Ethnologue.comA place where you can conveniently find many resources to help you with your research of the world's languages. The Ethnologue database has been an active research project for more than fifty years. It is probably the most comprehensive listing of information about the currently known languages of the world. Thousands of linguists and other researchers all over the world rely on and have contributed to the Ethnologue database.
- Linguist ListThe aim of the list is to provide a forum where academic linguists can discuss linguistic issues and exchange linguistic information. Includes homepages of Conferences and Institutes, computer support information and language resources such as dictionaries plus much more.
Contact for Linguistics
Credit for Guide
The content of this guide was originally created by Edward Miner.
Shelf Browsing: P1-1091
The Library of Congress classification scheme, used by the University of Iowa Libraries to catalog its materials, has designated the letter P to cover the languages and literatures of the world. As a sub-class, P is used to organize general linguistics materials. You can use this to browse in the bookstacks for materials of interest in broad subject categories and topics.
Library of Congress Subclass P
P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics
P1-85 General
P87-96 Communication. Mass media
P94.7 Interpersonal communication
P95-95.6 Oral communication. Speech
P98-98.5 Computational linguistics. Natural language processing
P99-99.4 Semiotics. Signs and symbols
P99.5-99.6 Nonverbal communication
P101-410 Language. Linguistic theory. Comparative grammar
P118-118.75 Language acquisition
P121-149 Science of language (Linguistics)
P201-299 Comparative grammar
P301-301.5 Style. Composition. Rhetoric
P302-302.87 Discourse analysis
P306-310 Translating and interpreting
P321-324.5 Etymology
P325-325.5 Semantics
P326-326.5 Lexicology
P327-327.5 Lexicography
P375-381 Linguistic geography
P501-769 Indo-European (Indo-Germanic) philology
P901-1091 Extinct ancient or medieval languages
To determine call number ranges for specific languages and language families, you can consult the following detailed list of the P classification.