New Linguistics Major requirements (effective August 2025)

The Department of Linguistics has proposed a revision to the A.B. in Linguistics degree requirements, which will go into effect in Fall Semester 2025. The new requirements offer more choices for students, and also more clearly identify the goals of the different degree requirements. 

REQUIREMENTS HOURS REQUIRED

Foundational courses

LING 3060 Phonetics and Phonology
LING 3150W Generative Syntax

[Phonetics/phonology and syntax are fundamental aspects of language
structure that provide the necessary background for other courses.]

 6

Major core courses

(choose 2 from the following list)

LING 3015 Language and Society
LING 3160W Advanced Generative Syntax
LING 3250 Morphology
LING 3350 Language, Mind, and Brain
LING 4022 Advanced Phonetics and Phonology
LING 4015 Psycholinguistics
LING 4160 Compositional Semantics
*LING 4530 A Finite-State Intro to Computational Linguistics
*LING 4570 Natural Language Processing
LING 4690 Historical Linguistics
LING 4720 Language Typology and Linguistic Universals

[These courses introduce you to other central subfields of linguistics
or cover more advanced topics in phon/phon and syntax.] 

 6

Distributional requirements

(choose one course each from any 2 of the following 3 lists)

Language acquisition, bilingualism, and contact
CMSD (LING) 3120 Study of Language Development
LING 3780 Heritage Languages
LING 3790 Language Maintenance and Language Shift
LING 4175 Second Language Acquisition
LING 4710 Languages in Contact

Language diversity, history, and usage
LING 3830 Languages of the World
LING (AFAM) 4015 Language, Race, and Ethnicity in the US
LING (CLAS) 4211 Introduction to Indo-European Studies
LING (CMLT) 4740 Discourse Analysis
LING 4770 Historical Sociolinguistics
LING (CMLT, WMST) 4870 Language, Gender, and Sexuality
LING (COMM) 4887 The Digital Life of Language

Quantitative and research methods
LING 4400 Quantitative Methods in Linguistics
LING 4410 Experimental Methods in Linguistics
LING 4880 Introduction to Language Documentation and Field Methods
LING (ENGL) 4886 Text and Corpus Analysis 

[This requirement promotes greater breadth of knowledge and introduces 
you to important research methodologies, which can also be
applied to other fields of study.]
 

 6

Major electives

Choose any 2 LING courses at the 3000/4000-level.

[Use these courses to explore areas that are of special interest to you in
greater depth. Together with the choices that you make in the other areas
above, this allows you to customize the Linguistics major to better fit
your own educational and career goals.]

 6
TOTAL HOURS REQUIRED 24

Support Linguistics at UGA

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!  

EVERY DOLLAR CONTRIBUTED TO THE DEPARTMENT HAS A DIRECT IMPACT ON OUR STUDENTS AND FACULTY.