This is a four-course (12 hour) graduate certificate program in Computational Linguistics. Computational Linguistics (CL) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) – often viewed as one and the same thing – are rapidly growing fields in the high-tech sector, critical for development of such technologies such as voice-enabled smart phones (e.g. Siri, Cortana) and home assistants (e.g. Alexa). IBM’s Jeopardy-winning Watson system is another example of what CL can do. Yet another application area is text analytics for market analysis. This certificate is specifically intended to address a growing need for language processing skills, particularly those associated with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence/cognitive technologies. Systems like Siri or Alexa are built on a pipeline of language processing technologies, ranging from voice and speech recognition to language understanding and automatic question answering. Developing such technologies is a complex process that requires knowledge from both Linguistics and Computer Science.
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Degree Requirements*
The MA in Linguistics degree is a 36-hour program.
* Requirements below will first appear in the 2021-22 catalog
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
Required Foundation Courses:
- LING 5405 - Programming for Linguistics
- LING 5410 - Foundations of Computational Linguistics
- LING 5412 - Advanced Models of Language
- LING 5415 - Special Topics in Computational Linguistics
The additional foundation courses should be decided in consultation with the graduate advisor. The selection of these courses will be individually tailored with the graduate advisor to support students’ goals and interests in the program.