Linguistics

Department Overview

A210 Padelford

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which is one of the most characteristic human attributes. In contrast to other language-related disciplines, linguistics is concerned with describing the rule-governed structures of languages, determining the extent to which these structures are universal or language-particular, positing constraints on possible linguistic structures, and explaining why there is only a fairly narrow range of possible human languages.

Undergraduate Program

Adviser
A215 Padelford, Box 354340
(206) 685-4846
lingadv@uw.edu

The Department of Linguistics offers the following programs of study:

• The Bachelor of Arts degree with options in general linguistics and Romance linguistics
• A minor in linguistics
• A minor in American sign language

Bachelor of Arts

General Linguistics

Suggested First- and Second-Year College Courses: LING 400 or other introductory course in linguistics. One year of a foreign language that belongs to a different family from the student's native language.

Department Admission Requirements

1. Completion of at least the third quarter, or equivalent, of a foreign language, with a minimum grade of 2.0
2. Completion of at least one writing (W) course and two quantitative and symbolic reasoning (QSR) courses, with a minimum grade of 2.0 in each course and a cumulative GPA of 2.50 in the three courses
3. The department accepts students who meet the minimum requirements stated above, but recognizes that a GPA of 2.50 or higher is indicative of the motivation and academic skills needed for a reasonable probability of success in the program.

Major Requirements

80 credits, as follows:

1. LING 400 or other introductory course in linguistics
2. LING 450, LING 451, LING 461, LING 462
3. At least one of LING 432, LING 442, or LING 481
4. At least one year of each of two languages, one of which must belong to a language family different than the student's native language, with a minimum grade of 2.0 in the third quarter of each language
5. 20 additional credits of departmentally approved courses in linguistics.

Romance Linguistics

Suggested First- and Second-Year Courses: Two college years of study in a Romance language; LING 400 or other introductory course in linguistics

Department Admission Requirements

1. Completion of at least one year of college work in a single Romance language
2. Completion of at least one writing (W) course and two quantitative and symbolic reasoning (QSR) courses, with a minimum grade of 2.0 in each course and a cumulative GPA of 2.50 in the three courses
3. The department accepts students who meet the minimum requirements stated above, but recognizes that a GPA of 2.50 or higher is indicative of the motivation and academic skills needed for a reasonable probability of success in the program.

Major Requirements

Minimum 62 credits, as follows:

1. LING 400 or another introductory course in linguistics
2. LING 450, LING 451, LING 461, and LING 462
3. Highly recommended: ROLING 402
4. 15 credits at the 300 level or higher of one Romance language
5. ROLING 490
6. 20 additional credits of departmentally approved courses in linguistics, with at least one course for which a research paper on a Romance language is written

Minors

Linguistics -- Minor Requirements: 32 credits to include LING 400 or another introductory course in linguistics; three courses from LING 432, LING 442, LING 450, LING 451, LING 461, LING 462, or LING 481; 12 additional credits from a list of departmentally approved courses in linguistics, 6 of which must be in upper-division courses

American Sign Language -- Minor Requirements: 33-35 credits as follows:

1. Second-year American Sign Language (15 credits): ASL 201; ASL 202; ASL 203
2. Culture and History (3 credits): ASL 305
3. Theory and Structure (8-10 credits): LING 400 or LING 461; either ASL 343 or LING 403
4. Approved 300- 400-level electives (minimum 7 credits). See adviser for approved list.
5. Minimum 2.00 cumulative GPA for all courses applied to the minor
6. Minimum 18 credits from outside student's major requirements

Student Outcomes and Opportunities

• Learning Objectives and Expected Outcomes: The study of linguistics emphasizes formal reasoning and critical thinking skills. Linguists' skill sets include the ability to analyze sound, word, and sentence structures of individual languages; the ability to understand and account for how languages change in certain patterns; the ability to understand how social factors can affect language, how people learn their first or second languages; and the ability to find out and appreciate how apparently vastly different languages can be governed by the same set of rules. Linguistics is a valuable component of liberal education and vocationally can have applications wherever language itself becomes a matter of practical concern. Graduates have a good foundation for pursuing further training and careers in teaching languages, in areas of rehabilitative medicine such as audiology or speech therapy, in special education, in work with native peoples or with immigrant groups, in lexicographic work, in interpretation and translation, in work in computer science and artificial intelligence, or in academic disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, literature and language studies, where the contribution of linguistics is recognized. An undergraduate degree in linguistics from the UW also serves as preparation for graduate work in linguistics or language-related fields such as speech and hearing science or language teaching.
• Instructional and Research Facilities: The Language Learning Center located in Denny Hall provides audio and video services facilitating language learning. It also has a computer lab providing instructional software for linguistics and varieties of languages. Departmental facilities include a phonetics lab for students conducting phonetic experiments and doing digital acoustic analyses, a linguistics library that supplements the linguistics collection of the UW libraries and provides a quite study place, and a computer lab for research in computational linguistics.
• Honors Options Available: With College Honors (Completion of both Honors Core Curriculum and Honors requirements in the major). With Honors (Completion of Departmental Honors requirements). See adviser for requirements.
• Research, Internships, and Service Learning: None offered
• Department Scholarships: None offered
• Student Organizations/Associations: The Linguistics Undergraduate Association (LingUA)

Graduate Program

Graduate Program Coordinator
A210B Padelford, Box 354340
(206) 543-2046
phoneme@uw.edu

The Department of Linguistics offers a program of study for graduate students leading to the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. The program is administered by the departmental faculty. The major interest of the core faculty lies in syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology, sociolinguistics, computational linguistics, and in theoretical aspects of second-language acquisition. Students may specialize in general or in Romance linguistics.

Some course work is also available in various cooperating departments. Among those fields represented outside the department are psycholinguistics, philosophy of language, speech synthesis, and the structure and history of a number of individual languages and language families.

Admission Requirements: At least one previous course in linguistics is highly recommended, as is proficiency in one language other than the student's native language. For a specialization in Romance, substantial upper-division coursework in a Romance language or equivalent is required. Two to three letters of recommendation (MA) or three letters of recommendation (PhD) and Graduate Record Examination scores are required for all applicants. Doctoral degree applicants should send the department a copy of their master's thesis or a paper of high quality, or both.

Master of Arts

Admission Requirements

At least one previous course in linguistics is highly recommended, as is proficiency in one language other than the student's native language. For a specialization in Romance, substantial upper-division coursework in a Romance language or equivalent is required. Two to three letters of recommendation and Graduate Record Examination scores are required for all applicants.

Degree Requirements

1. General Linguistics Option:: Minimum 48 credits
   1. Two courses each in syntax and phonetics/phonology
   2. One course in semantics and one course in sociolinguistics
   3. Three additional courses at the 500 level. At least two of these must be 500-level courses for which papers or projects are required.
2. Romance Linguistics Option:: Minimum 47 credits
   1. Three courses in syntax and phonetics/phonology.
   2. ROLING 402, ROLING 551, LATIN 300
   3. Six additional linguistics-related courses at the 400 or 500 level. One of these must be a 400-level FRLING or SPLING class and at least two of these must be 500-level classes for which papers or projects are required.
3. No course fulfilling any of the above requirements can be taken for the 2-credit (no paper) option.
4. Demonstrated ability to read the linguistic literature in a language other than English. (For the Romance option, the demonstrated ability must be in a Romance language.) This can be satisfied at any time during the program by arrangement with the Graduate Program Coordinator.
5. An MA exam in any areas in which the GPA for the required coursework in that area is below 3.30.
6. Choice of a faculty mentor by the second quarter; formation of a supervisory committee by the fifth quarter.
7. A short MA thesis (30 to 50 pages), which will typically be an expansion of a term paper. Students must register for 9 credits of LING 700.
8. All requirements must be completed within the equivalent of six full-time quarters.

Master of Arts in Computational Linguistics

Admission Requirements

1. The ability to program, including knowledge of data structures and algorithms (equivalent to CSE 373); broad familiarity with C++ and Java; expertise in C++ or Java; and Perl and/or Python.
2. A college-level introductory course in linguistics or equivalent
3. Introduction to statistics and probability (equivalent to STAT 391)
4. Some knowledge of languages other than English is strongly encouraged.
5. A one- or two-page Statement of Purpose.
6. Two or three letters of recommendation, preferably from people familiar with the applicant's academic work.
7. A sample of the applicant's academic work (required for applicants who have completed their previous degree within the past two years. Other applicants who wish to send samples of academic work are encouraged to do so). Types of samples include coding projects (together with write-ups), theses and term papers.
8. One complete set of official transcripts.
9. International applicants must meet UW English language proficiency requirements. For more information, please refer to Memo 8: Graduate School English Language Proficiency Requirements.

Degree Requirements

43 credits, as follows:

1. Required Courses: LING 450 (5), LING 566 (3)
2. One additional 400- or 500-level course in phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, or pragmatics
3. Computational Linguistics Courses: LING 570 (4), LING 571 (4), LING 572 (4), LING 573 (4)
4. One systems/applications course
5. One elective in computational linguistics and one elective in computational linguistics or a related area
6. At least 9 credits at the 500 or 600 level.
7. At least 10 credits at the 700 level (master's thesis)

Doctor of Philosophy

In addition to the general Linguistics PhD program, options are offered in Romance Linguistics and Computational Linguistics. Variations in requirements are shown below.

Admission Requirements

Three letters of recommendation and Graduate Record Examination scores are required for all applicants. Applicants should send the department a copy of their master's thesis or a paper of high quality, or both.

Direct admission to the PhD program is considered on an individual basis for applicants holding a degree from a comparable MA thesis program in linguistics or a closely related field. Some such applicants may be granted admission directly into the PhD program, with the stipulation that they make up one or more MA-level deficiencies.

Degree Requirements

1. 30 additional credits of course work. A minimum of five 500-level courses with a paper requirement must be completed before the general examination, 9 credits of which must follow the MA A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 is required for graduate course work. A minimum of 90 credits of coursework is required for the PhD.
2. During the course of the entire MA-PhD program, the student must have completed at least three courses each in syntax and phonetics/phonology and at least two courses in semantics, and have taken a total of five 500-level classes for which papers or projects are required. There is also a major and minor requirement as follows: Major—six courses in the student's primary area of specialization; Minor—four courses in a second area (the major and minor together should form a coherent research area). The student's Supervisory Committee is the final judge of what courses might qualify to meet these requirements. However, (a) courses fulfilling these requirements do not necessarily have to be offered from within the Department of Linguistics; (b) non-language instruction courses in a language area can fulfill the major or minor requirement; and (c) no course fulfilling any of the above requirements can be taken for the 2-credit (no paper) option. Computational Linguistics option: Same as above, except: two syntax courses rather than three; two phonetics/phonology courses rather than three; one semantics course rather than two; one sociolinguistics course added; three computational linguistics courses added.
3. 27 credits of LING 800
4. Language Requirement:
   1. General Linguistics option: A breadth language requirement as follows: (i) for native speakers of an Indo-European language, a year of a non-Indo-European language; (ii) for native speakers of a non-Indo-European language, a year of a language that is not English or in the same sub-family as their language. The student has the right to petition the Supervisory Committee to allow a language excluded in (i) or (ii) above.
   2. Romance Linguistics option: The completion of LATIN 301, as well as the demonstrated ability to read the linguistic literature in a Romance language
   3. Computational Linguistics option: Demonstrated ability to read the linguistic literature in a language other than English. This can be satisfied at any time during the program by arrangement with the Graduate Program Coordinator.
5. Two linguistic papers delivered at a colloquium or conference. Each is evaluated by a member of the student's PhD committee with expertise in the area of the paper. The evaluation may be either of the oral presentation or of the paper in written form. The student should request evaluation by a faculty member for any paper to be considered for this requirement.
6. By the end of the first quarter after admission to the PhD program, the student constitutes a PhD committee, in accord with Graduate School requirements. As part of this process, the student works out with the committee members (by email or in person) a strategy for degree completion. The student's PhD committee administers a general examination, which involves two parts:
   1. Two general papers in different areas. At least one of the papers must be in grammatical theory.
   2. An oral examination, in which the candidate is questioned on the two papers. The oral examination may not be scheduled until the committee has read the two papers and approved them as passing. The oral examination must be completed within the equivalent of 12 full-time quarters (excluding summer) after entrance into the MA program.
7. Within six months of the oral examination, the student presents a formal dissertation proposal to the subset of PhD committee members who constitute the reading committee along with a proposed calendar for completion of the dissertation.
8. A final exam on the dissertation attended by the candidate's Supervisory Committee and open to others interested.