Linguistics Major Requirements (Prior to August 2025)

NOTE: This page contains the Linguistics major requirements for students who declared before August 2025.         Students who declared a Linguistics major after August 2025 should refer to this page here.

Major requirements consist of two courses that are required for all students, two courses selected from Area I, two courses selected from Area II, and two major elective courses.

Most of our 4000-level courses are cross-listed with graduate courses at the 6000-level. Undergraduates should sign up for the 4000-level, unless you are an Honors student or have been admitted to the dual A.B./M.A. (Double Dawgs) degree program. Graduate or undergraduate students registered at the 6000-level have to complete additional requirements in the course, which typically involve additional readings, more challenging assignments, in-class presentations, and a final paper.

Required Courses
  • LING 3060 Phonetics and Phonology
  • LING 3150 or LING 3150W Generative Syntax

Note: These courses are prerequisites for most of the other 3000/4000-level courses and should be taken as soon as possible after completion of LING 2100 and declaration of the major.

Area I

Choose 2 courses from the following list:

  • LING(CMSD) 3120 Language Development or LING 4175/6175 Second Language Acquisition or LLED 5730/7730 L1 and L2 Acquisition and Development
  • LING 3160 or LING 3160W Advanced Generative Syntax
  • LING 3250 Morphology
  • LING 3350 Language, Mind, and Brain
  • LING 3830 Languages of the World
  • LING 4022/6022 Advanced Phonetics and Phonology
  • LING 4105/6105 Psycholinguistics
  • LING 4160/6160 Semantics
  • LING 4400/6400 Quantitative Methods
  • LING 4530/6530 A Finite-State Introduction to Computational Linguistics or LING 4570/6570 Natural Language Processing
  • LING 4720/6720 Language Typology and Linguistic Universals
Area II

Choose 2 courses from the following list:

  • LING 3850 Language, Politics, and Identity
  • LING 4015/6015 Language, Race, and Ethnicity in the US
  • LING(ENGL) 4080 Language Variation and the Linguistics of Speech
  • LING (CLAS) 4211/6211 Intro to Indo-European Studies
  • LING(ENGL) 4886 Text and Corpus Analysis
  • LING 4690/6690 Historical Linguistics
  • LING 4710/6710 Languages in Contact
  • LING(CMLT) 4740/6740 Discourse Analysis
  • LING 4770/6770 Historical Sociolinguistics
  • LING 4860/6860 Sociolinguistics
  • LING(CMLT) 4870/6870 Language, Gender, and Sexuality
  • LING 4880/6880 Introduction to Language Documentation and Field Methods
Major Electives

Choose any 2 additional LING courses (6 hours) at the 3000/4000-level, which may include no more than 3 hours of directed study/research/internship courses (LING 3990, LING 4945, LING 4960R, LING 4970R, LING 4980R, LING 4990R).

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Your donations to the Department of Linguistics will support research and travel opportunities for students and faculty and other initiatives to enhance students' education in linguistics. Please consider joining other friends and alumni who have shown their support by making a gift to our fund. We greatly appreciate your contributions to the success of our programs!  

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