Using constructed languages to introduce and teach linguistics

Abstract Introductory linguistics courses are a common component of general education curricula at many institutions of higher education, reaching tens of thousands of students with diverse backgrounds and interests. Such courses provide a great opportunity for linguists to convey the field’s message and its values to a wider audience. We propose that it is possible to increase the public outreach of such courses by engaging not only the students in the course, but also the campus community at large. In this paper, we report on using constructed languages (conlangs) as a tool to help students understand course materials via active learning as well as present linguistic research to the wider community of college campuses.