Upcoming and Current Courses

Fall 2026

COMM 6780: Roles, Relationships, and Identities

Instructor: Prof. Kristella Montiegel

Time: Tues 3:30-6:00pm

Personal relationships shape how we see ourselves and how we move through the world. But relationships are not just something we have, they are something we do. In everyday conversations, workplace encounters, online exchanges, and public interactions, people actively create, maintain, and sometimes challenge their roles and identities through communication. In this course, we will explore how relationships and social roles (such as partner, friend, parent, coworker, teacher, etc.) are expressed and negotiated through discursive and interactional means. Using examples from recorded conversations, interviews, and observations in both everyday and institutional settings, we will examine how people convey closeness, authority, dis/agreement, and solidarity through their language use, communicative styles, and participation in social interactions. By the end of the course, students will have a deeper understanding of how their own roles, relationships, and identities are intertwined with their communication in everyday life.

EDUC 8630: Bilingual and Biliterate Development in Children

Instructor: Prof. Millie Gort

Time: Mon 2:35-5:05pm

This advanced doctoral seminar (open to students in all disciplines) introduces doctoral students to key theories and empirical research on bilingual and biliterate development in school age children (preK-12). Participants will explore sociolinguistic, sociocultural, and psycholinguistic perspectives of the language and literacy development of children growing up with two or more languages, and critically examine how varying educational contexts and policies impact the schooling experiences of bilingual learners from early childhood to late adolescence. 

LING 5630: TESOL Principles and Practices

Instructor: Prof. Raichle Farrelly

Time: Tues 3:30-6:00pm

Linguistics 5630 provides an introduction to the Principles and Practices of the TESOL field. The course provides students who are prospective, new, and/or experienced teachers of additional languages with a current overview of the field of TESOL and opportunities to build and expand pedagogical knowledge for language teaching and learning. While the course is aimed primarily at the teaching and learning of English, the course is applicable to the teaching and learning of any languages. 

We explore instructional strategies and materials for teaching various language skills while exploring important educational trends for global and local contexts. We discuss justice-oriented frameworks within the TESOL field, such as social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, translanguaging, and culturally sustaining pedagogies.

LING 5700: Conversation Analysis & Interactional Linguistics

Instructor: Prof. Chase Raymond

Time: Thurs 3:30-6:00pm

(Note: Please contact Dr. Raymond directly if you need to enroll in a higher course number to received PhD credit in your department)

 Provides an introduction to the theories and methods of Conversation Analysis (CA) and Interactional Linguistics (IL), which aim to uncover the procedural infrastructure of language use in social interaction. The course emphasizes hands-on experience in analyzing naturally-occurring interactional data. Topics may include: turn-taking, sequence and preference organization, repair, reference, epistemics, and identity.