Students in this interdisciplinary course will engage in the scientific study of language with particular reference to the relationships among the languages, thoughts, and cultures of speech communities living all over the world, including within the United States, France, India, Canada, Spain, Japan and Peru, among others. Additional course topics include the process of human language acquisition, structures of human language, bilingualism and the ways in which race, class, gender, and other social characteristics may be displayed through the use of language.