Erubey Lopez ’25
I’ve found a home within the Linguistics and Cognitive Science Department, where the focus on community and collaborative learning that linguistics faculty encourage has greatly supported my scholarly development.
Specifically, working with my thesis advisor, Chau Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Ernesto Gutierrez Topete, has been game changing. Ernesto, a Pomona grad himself, has been a transformative mentor for me. I worked closely with him to develop my thesis project, and I’m currently working with him on a project processing phonetic data that I collected in summer 2024. In him, I see a lot of who I want to be, which has been huge for me.
In the spring of my junior year, I was named a Humanities Studio Undergraduate Fellow, which funded summer research focused on a project related to the studio’s 2024-25 theme: Connections. In summer 2024, I traveled to Mérida, Yucatán, México (the same city where I studied abroad as a junior), and conducted linguistic field research on the Yucatán Spanish dialect. My project’s aim was to investigate language attitudes towards the usage of specific phonetic features in Yucatán Spanish that originate in the dialect from contact with Yucatec Maya, a language spoken by around 30% of Yucatán’s population. Contact with Maya has resulted in Yucatán Spanish developing perceptually salient phonetic and lexical distinctions to other Spanish dialects.
During the project, I conducted a study and completed sociolinguistic interviews with over 40 participants, in Spanish. I made many connections and was supported greatly both by Pomona and by the community in Yucatán, where I connected with university students, professors, and educators to realize the project.
A very special part of the linguistics major is the peer mentor program, where 10 linguistics students mentor and work closely with faculty to support students in the major. These mentors host sessions for homework help and community building. When I was an underclassman, my mentors were huge in making me feel welcome and successful in the major, and now that I’m a mentor, I'm thrilled to help folks out and chat about linguistics.
Xuehuai He ’25
Before Pomona, I had no idea what linguistics was, other than the fact that it is related to languages and its courses fulfill the Area 2 requirement. As a multilingual person, I thought I might as well take Intro Ling. That class almost completely changed my view of languages, and I loved the fact that it was extremely analytical and rigorous, yet so connected to the concrete world. As a result, I took a linguistics class every semester after that until, at some point in my sophomore year, I realized that I was not that far away from becoming a linguistics major. Hence, it is fair to say that how my linguistics major came about was purely driven by genuine interest!
My other main interest (and major) is theoretical mathematics, with which linguistics pairs well. Theoretical linguistics fields like syntax and phonology involve a lot of logical reasoning, theory framing, and pattern finding, just like mathematics (without the tedious calculations!). They also have a bit of hypothesizing and falsifying like many of the experimental sciences, but there is no expensive equipment required—all you need is the intuition that already exists in your brain! I also enjoy the social science and humanities side of linguistics, which I don't normally get in other STEM subjects, as languages are fundamentally intertwined with practically everything in society. The interdisciplinary nature of this subject means that you can always find something interesting to you in it.
The LGCS department at Pomona is really friendly and cool, filled with people who are extremely passionate about their fields. You would also encounter the most interesting double major or minor combinations ranging from English to biochemistry, as linguistics is such a diverse subject! From hour-long "nerd talks" during departmental events to thesis or advising meetings, I always feel inspired and supported by my peers and faculty in the linguistics community.