By: Emily Dontsos

As of September 2006, linguistics and psychology, two disciplines from the opposite sides of campus that both seek to understand the human mind and experience, will come together to form McMaster's newest interdisciplinary program: Linguistic Cognitive Science.

Housed in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, the program will combine courses and concepts from both humanities and science, exposing students to a broad range of knowledge and practical skills through distinctive areas of concentration.

Cognitive science is the scientific study of the mind and its processes, including emotion, thought, creativity, memory and language. Linguistics, the scientific study of language in all its forms, including natural language development, organization and use, is often considered to be central to the understanding of cognitive science. The inherently interdisciplinary nature of each field has provided the ideal circumstances for the creation of the Linguistic Cognitive Science Program.

Unique in Canada for its advanced level of integration, the program will allow students to tailor their education by offering specialized courses four areas: cognitive science, speech and language pathology preparation, language and social life; and teaching English as a second language. Alex Sévigny, one of the program's founders, is particularly excited about the opportunities for graduate study that each area of concentration will afford to its students. "Each area blends both the arts and sciences, so every student who graduates will not only have a background in language as a cognitive neural system, but also as a social and cultural system," he says.

The idea for the new program first materialized two and a half years ago when Sévigny, a French and communication studies professor with a cognitive linguistics specialization, and Karin Humphreys of the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, realized that while McMaster possessed a rich populace of researchers in the areas of languages and cognition, no program was available to explore the complex relationship that exists between the two fields. The proposal for such a program led to the formation of a committee of professors from the Departments of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, Modern Languages and Linguistics, French, and Philosophy. The committee developed a plan and curriculum for the new program, which was approved as a collaborative venture between the various departments. What really makes the program stand out, however, is the special training that will be given to students in the concentrations of speech and language pathology preparation(SLP) and teaching English as a second language(TESL). The SLP concentration has been developed in conjunction with local speech and language pathologists, and will include a three-unit practicum for each student that will be taught by practicing pathologists.

The courses being offered in this stream will also ensure that students obtain the necessary prerequisites for any Masters of Science degree in Speech and Language Pathology in Canada. The TESL stream also contains a practical component, and will allow students to become officially certified to teach English as a second language.

Sévigny and Humphreys are currently working on a proposal for a $1.2 million government grant which, if awarded, would go towards the construction of a research environment catering specifically to the Linguistic Cognitive Science program. The lab would draw researchers from diverse associated fields throughout McMaster, and would allow Humanities students to participate in the study of cognitive science on their own terms instead of having to borrow lab time from other programs on campus.

Humphreys is particularly excited by the potential this lab raises for collaboration between researchers in humanities, science, and health sciences. "For centuries, scholars in the humanities have led the way for us all in working to define the central questions about the human mind and experience. Science, on the other hand, can bring new and useful techniques and methodologies for addressing these crucial questions."

For Sévigny, the introduction of the program recognizes the growing need, both socially and academically, to understand the complex relationship between the physiology of the human brain and the ways in which it is influenced by and responds to cultural stimuli. With the baby boomer generation aging, Sévigny comments, the need for experts in the area of linguistic cognitive science is steadily increasing as it becomes more evident that new therapies can be developed to help restore speech with a deeper knowledge of the interaction between the brain and culture.

"Memory, pain, trauma and language will involve new therapies, and those therapies will have ethical questions attached to them," says Sévigny. "Cognitive science is going to restore the universal questions that are raised in the humanities - notions of truth, notions of intrinsic human nature. This field deals with everything from aesthetics to ethics, and it is going to bring the sciences and the humanities back together."