Linguistics

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

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

Bachelor of Arts

General Linguistics

Department Admission Requirements

1. Completion of at least the third quarter, or equivalent, of a foreign language.
2. Completion of at least one writing (W) course and two quantitative and symbolic reasoning (Q/SR) 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

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 different language family than the student's native language
5. 20 additional credits of departmentally approved courses in linguistics.

Romance 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 the reasonable probability of success in the program.

Major Requirements

1. LING 400 or another introductory course in linguistics
2. LING 450, LING 451, LING 461, and LING 462
3. ROLING 402
4. 15 credits at the 300 level or higher of one Romance language; ROLING 490; 20 additional credits of departmentally approved courses in linguistics.

Minor

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. With Distinction. See adviser for details.
• 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@u.washington.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 (M.A.) or three letters of recommendation (Ph.D.) 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

1. General Linguistics Option:
   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:
   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 M.A. exam in any areas in which the grade point average for the required course work 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 M.A. 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.

Doctor of Philosophy

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

Requirements for the Ph.D. degree are the following (which include requirements for an M.A. degree):

1. 30 additional credits of course work. A minimum of five 500-level courses with a paper requirement must be completed before the General Exam, 9 credits of which must follow the M.A. A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 is required for graduate course work. A minimum of 90 credits of coursework is required for the Ph.D.
2. During the course of the entire M.A.-Ph.D. 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 will be the final judge of what courses might qualify to meet these requirements. However, it is worth nothing that (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.
3. 27 credits of LING 800.
4. Language Requirement:
   1. General Linguistics option: A breadth language requirement as follows: (a) for native speakers of an Indo-European language, a year of a non-Indo-European language; (b) 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 (a) or (b) 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.
5. Two linguistic papers delivered at a colloquium or conference. Each will be evaluated by a member of the student's Ph.D. 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 Ph.D. program, the student will constitute a Ph.D. committee, in accord with Graduate School requirements. As part of this process, the student will work out with the committee members (by email or in person) a strategy for degree completion. The student's Ph.D. committee will administer a General Examination, which involves 2 parts:
1. Two generals 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 M.A. program.
7. Within six months of the oral examination, the student will present a formal dissertation proposal to the subset of Ph.D. 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.