NOTICE: Our MA in Linguistics will be changed to an MS and we will no longer be accepting any new admissions to the MA starting Fall 2024.

The MA in Linguistics is a STEM-designated program, offering students broad training in all core areas of the discipline. Our MA program prepare students for challenging careers in a variety of industries, including government, education, law, language documentation, description and language archiving, and natural language processing. Our MA programs also serve as an excellent foundation for doctoral studies in linguistics and other language-related fields such as speech pathology, deaf education, audiology, computational linguistics, or the teaching of English as a second language.

Degree Requirements*
The MA in Linguistics degree is a 36-hour program. All course work and other requirements to be credited toward the MA in Linguistics must be completed within 5 years of beginning the program.

Course requirements include:
12 hours of core courses
24 hours of foundation courses

Students who elect to write a thesis will take 6 hours of thesis LING 5950 in lieu of 6 elective hours.


Core Courses - 12 hours

*LING 5040 - Principles in Linguistics - Needed prerequisite if your degree does not have a background in Linguistics
LING 5070 - Research Design in Linguistics
LING 5300 - Phonology I
LING 5310 - Syntax I
LING 5530 - Semantics and Pragmatics I


Foundation Courses - 24 hours

The eight foundation courses should be decided in consultation with the graduate advisor.

Check out this year's annual webinar with information on our program from our faculty here:
Graduate Studies in Linguistics Webinar - Spring 2023 - YouTube