Assistant Professor
Language and Computers
In this occasional series, we ask Arts and Sciences instructors to discuss how they engage students in the great questions of our time.
Q. How would you describe this course?
A. My goal is to make students feel comfortable regardless of their history with technology.
This course is an introduction to computer programming, particularly in Python, within the context of processing and analyzing language and linguistic data. Students learn how to write programs and identify linguistic patterns using Python. We start small, with students learning to digitally process individual words before moving on to more significant texts and other linguistic data collections.
This can be in different domains, such as written or spoken language. We also learn to write programs that respond to human input, comparable to the very early building blocks for programs like ChatGPT and other popular artificial intelligence (AI) programs. Essentially, we’re learning how to teach computers human language and how to analyze it to answer various research questions.
Q. What makes this course appealing to students?
A. Students recognize that computer programming is a valuable and marketable skill once they graduate. Programming has a wide application for answering research questions in Applied Linguistics.
For example, students examine the differences between written and spoken language and investigate how native speakers use language compared to non-native speakers. Both concepts can impact or inform how we teach languages in the classroom.
Students are also interested in the course because the Tech industry requires programmers and linguists. That can be especially valuable for the job market.
I have a mix of undergraduate and graduate students in this course. It’s cool to have this mix of students at different levels and see how their perspectives and approaches to tasks and assignments influence each other.
Q. How can students take this course into the workforce?
A. The skills in this course will help set students apart from the competition. Many industries see the value in having a trained linguist and a foundation of programming skills, which will give students a leg up.
The tech industry and the education industry both see these benefits. Both graduate and undergraduate students interested in second language teaching can develop course material by analyzing large language datasets with programming. These programming skills can also benefit graduate students in their research.
Q. What got you interested in this subject?
A. My research focus and interests have always been in computer-assisted language learning. In some of my published research, I talk about how video games can help learn languages when a learner plays a game in a second language.
As for programming specifically, I had also always wanted to learn to program but needed to figure out where to start. I took a Python programming course during my first year as a Ph.D. student at Northern Arizona University, and since then, I have used Python in just about every research project I have worked on.
Q. What is the most unusual or interesting assignment you give your students in class?
A. Toward the end of the course, students will develop a program that crawls the internet. It will comb through different websites and help students compile language data. This assignment is fun because it allows students to explore language variation in an area that interests them.
In the past, students have gathered data from popular social media platforms like Reddit and analyzed how language use varies across topics. The data answers the research questions that students have.
You can also examine how different people or groups use various linguistic features. Other students have even looked at dialogue from movies, television, and video games.
It’s always interesting to see what students come up with, the research questions they pose, and the answers they find.
– Interview by Emma Barrett (B.A., English, ’25). Photo by Raven Schley.