Student Spotlight

The WWU Linguistics faculty are so enthusiastic about the questions we pose as students — I was always encouraged to explore my own interests through assignments and extracurricular projects. The support and mentorship I felt from the Department’s chair, faculty, and manager were vital, and I went after more opportunities than I even knew were available to me. I found a love for linguistic communications, using my linguistic training to communicate ideas and attitudes about language in environments beyond academia. Professors guided my cultivation of this interest and helped me learn that linguistics is a field where anyone’s tools and passions can fit in, because language encircles us all. The proficiencies and growth I’ve gained at Western have already begun to open exciting doors, and I’m so excited to see what will follow!

Jess Costanza

2020-2021 Department of Linguistics Outstanding Graduating Senior

My classes in the Department of Linguistics have given me a stronger understanding of what appeals to me about language and how I can continue to investigate it. More than anything, this became clear through my work applying linguistic principles to the second language classroom. I hope to use the teaching, research, and scholarship experience that the linguistics major afforded me to keep developing my knowledge of human language.

Brahm vanWoerden

2021 Presidential Scholar of the Humanities Division of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences