Linguistics Goes on Its First Study Abroad Program
While there is no doubt that the University of Minnesota has a wide range of fantastic learning abroad programs for its students, Dr. Morgan Staley noticed there was a lack of offerings specifically geared toward linguistics students.
An associate faculty member in the Institute of Linguistics, Staley hoped to give her students the same transformative experience she’d had when she went to study in Egypt almost two decades ago.
“I loved everything about [my study abroad program], and I wanted to introduce something to the curriculum that could both help linguistics students learn how to be a linguist out in the real world, and also have it accessible to non-linguist [majors], who maybe didn't even know what linguistics was, to get a feel for it.”
After more than a year of planning, Staley took the first cohort of students to Egypt in May 2025 for three weeks, as part of the new course LING 3702 - Decoding Egypt: From Ancient to Modern Language.
Out in Cairo: Doing Ethical Fieldwork
A major goal of this course is to teach the students how to conduct fieldwork. When designing the class, it was important for Staley to make the distinction between a language and a linguistics course. Students were not prepped to become fluent in Arabic and then go do fieldwork.
“I wanted them to know that you can be a linguist and not be a polyglot. You can be a linguist and only speak one language and still do field work,” says Staley.
The class dedicated a lot of time to understanding cultural differences, the logistical processes of collecting data and finding speakers, and, most importantly, the ethics underlying their work.
“We talked about, you know, how do we show respect for time? And, when does an interaction become more than something that is okay to ask somebody without paying them for their time, and what is the value of the expertise of a person's life?” says Staley on the kinds of things an ethical linguist fieldworker should be aware of.
Egypt is a unique place in the Middle East in the sense that its economy is, to a considerable extent, bolstered by tourism. As such, many Egyptians are bilingual and ready to engage with foreigners, which made it easier for students to hit the ground running.
“Egyptians are incredibly famous for being very outgoing, talkative, and kind. We refer to it in linguistics as positive politeness,” explains Staley.
The course includes three fieldwork projects—formal elicitation, sociolinguistics survey, and linguistic landscape documentation—each a methodology of linguistic fieldwork that lets students go to different outdoor areas to interview and speak to locals.
Staley recounts how they would all go to the market as a group, and then she would sort of “set them loose” to do their work.
“I'd say—Okay, I'll see you guys in two hours, go collect some data. I put a pin on my phone so you can always come find me, you know where my location is, but otherwise, good luck.”
Students really embraced this approach and enjoyed the opportunity to do direct hands-on work. “The highlight of the program was absolutely conducting my field work,” says Zoe Quevli, a student who went on the study abroad trip. “My partner and I spoke to people in the Khan El Khalili Bazaar about Egyptian humor. It was both extremely challenging and endless fun. My most memorable interactions of the trip went down in the Khan on our field work day.”
Navigating Egypt
As much as learning abroad programs are eye-opening, instructive, and fun, they are not without their challenges. Students have to juggle culture shocks, communication barriers, new geographies, and changing itineraries.
Staley felt it was important for students to look beyond the rose-tinted view of learning abroad.
“I didn't want to shield them from all of that, and I didn't want them to have some sort of manicured experience where they didn't see what it's like to do fieldwork, or to even live in a community that you're not familiar with.”
For Quevli, navigating the streets of Cairo proved to be an unexpected challenge. Not only is it a large, crowded metropolis, but there is a complex system of hand signals that pedestrians generally use when crossing the streets. “If you can cross the street in Cairo, you can do anything!” she jests.
Students got to visit some of the most revered World Heritage Sites, including the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx, and also venture outside of Cairo to take a multi-day trip to Upper Egypt. This included a four-day cruise down the Nile with stops at some of Egypt’s most sacred temples, including Luxor and Karnak.
A Fish Out of Water
While learning abroad offers a number of obvious benefits, the one that Staley thinks is underappreciated is the way it makes students resilient and helps them grow as individuals. Seeing students supporting one another, being flexible with plan changes, and creatively problem-solving fieldwork mishaps was the most rewarding for Staley.
Since this was the first iteration of the program, Staley extensively gathered feedback to make the program bigger and better. Currently, the plan is to offer the course every two years, with the next one planned for January 2027.
When asked what is the one main thing she wishes students to get out of this study abroad trip, Staley says it's surprisingly not the hieroglyphs or dialect variations or other linguistic knowledge.
“It’s the feeling of being a fish out of water in downtown Cairo and not knowing anything. It's the vulnerability and humility of admitting ‘I don't know what's going on, I don't know how to do anything here’,” says Staley. That raw experience is what she hopes students will take away, and the ability to appreciate and interact with a culture different than theirs.
“I think, you know, a college campus can be such a bubble. Being forced out of that bubble, and to have experiences that you would never have anywhere else—that's what I want them to remember.”
This story was written by Anushka Raychaudhuri, an undergraduate student in CLA.
