Graduate Study in Linguistics
The M.A. and Ph.D. are flexible degrees which allow each student to build a program around his or her particular interests. Students may pursue work in either theoretical or applied linguistics, or in the interface of linguistics and other disciplines of cognitive science. Possible areas of specialization include such theoretical areas as morphology, phonology, semantics and syntax, and the interface of these areas with cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence etc. Applied areas of specializatio n include bilingualism, computational linguistics, ESL, lexicography and lexicology, sociolinguistics, language pedagogy and testing, and text linguistics. The Department is especially strong in the interface of linguistics with other cognitive sciences, as well as in syntax, phonology, language acquisition, computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, and the structure of East Asian and Romance languages. The Department actively seeks students interested in these areas. The Department currently has a full-time faculty of ten, eleven cooperating faculty, and 29 students from the United States and some 11 foreign countries.
Deadlines
The admission deadline for February admission is December 1; for September admission it is July 1. Although the financial aid deadline is March 1, financial aid will be awarded earlier to well qualified candidates. Thus, early application is strongly en couraged. All applicants are required to take the GRE. Non-native speakers of English who do not have a degree from an American university are required to take the TOEFL. These are University of Delaware requirements and cannot be waived. These tests have early deadlines, and it is important that the tests be taken at the appropriate time.
Degree Requirements
Students with a B.A./B.S. or M.A./M.S. in linguistics or in an appropriate field may apply. (Students without a degree in linguistics proper may be asked to take additional courses to meet minimum training in linguistics.) Applicants are required to submit a completed application, three letters of recommendation, GRE scores (an absolute minimum of 1050 on verbal and math combined is normally required; the analytical score is also considered), official transcripts of all previous universities or colleges, and a writing sample. Foreign students whose native language is not English must also have original TOEFL scores submitted, on which a minimum of 550 is normally required. For these foreign students, the TOEFL scores will be considered as the verbal section of the GRE when the TOEFL score is higher. In all cases, original GRE scores must be submitted.
Foreign students whose native language is not English and who are awarded a TA must meet the Graduate School requirement for performance on either the Test of Spoken English (TSE) or the Speak Test and attend the University of Delaware's Foreign Teaching Assistant Training Program (held during the summer). The TSE may be taken overseas at any TOEFL Center. Students should consult the University catalogue for details of this requirement.
Various kinds of stipends are available to students who request financial aid. At the departmental level, there are teaching assistantships, graduate assistantships, and research assistantships. At the University level, competitive University fellowships and tuition scholarships are also available. Students entering with a B.A./B.S. and who are awarded financial aid will normally be funded for a maximum of four years; students entering with a credited M.A./M.S. and who are awarded financial aid will normally be funded for a maximum of three years. The four-year and three-year restrictions are continuous time periods which begin with the first date of matriculation and continue regardless of the students' enrollment status during that time. In all cases, renewal of any funding is contingent on the academic and pedagogical (in the case of teaching assistantships) performance of the individual.
Students are required to take a minimum of 69 credits beyond the B.A./B.S.: 60 credits in courses proper and 9 in dissertation. Students entering with an M.A./M.S. in an appropriate area as determined by the department must take a minimum of 39 credits: 30 in courses proper and 9 in dissertation. All transfer credit must be in accord with the rules of the Graduate School; approval of transferred courses is at the discretion of the Committee on Graduate Studies of the Department of Linguistics.
Course Distribution Requirements: 60 credits
Students must take (for a letter grade, not as L or Pass/Fail):
Students must also take at least three 800-level seminars, two in Linguistics and one in Cognitive Science. Lists of advanced course requirements (which are in addition to the general departmental requirements described here) for specialization in the various subdisciplines of linguistics, are available from the Director of Graduate Studies. No course can satisfy two requirements except that the three 800 level seminars can count toward specialization requirements; transfer credit for these requirements may be accepted, but only under the conditions stated above. It is suggested that the remainder of the coursework have an appropriate balance of work in the subfields of linguistics and Cognitive Science and, at the same time, be directed toward the student's major area of research interest.
A maximum of 6 credits in independent study is normally permitted during the entire course of study. All independent study must be taken at the 800-level. No independent study will substitute for required courses.
Students whose native language is English are required to demonstrate proficiency in a language other than English. The goal of the Language Requirement is for the student to be able to function as a professional in the field of linguistics in general and, more specifically, in the chosen area of specialization. Proficiency may be either written or spoken. Each student is responsible for presenting a rationale for:
In this connection, the student should make a written request to the Graduate Director which clearly outlines the projected practical use for the language chosen. The Graduate Director will appoint an individual or a committee to administer the exam, which will be tailored to the student's request. For example, a student may wish to do field work, and this might require an oral examination with a focus on asking linguistic questions. Another may need reading knowledge to have access to journals and books, and this might require translation of a short passage. Still another may envision presenting papers at international conferences and/or participating in subsequent discussions with foreign colleagues, and this might require conversational skills.
Students whose native language is not English will be assumed to have proficiency in English and will have thereby satisfied the Language Requirement.
Students are encouraged to fulfill the Language Requirement as soon as possible. The University stipulates that it must be satisfied prior to acceptance of the Dissertation Prospectus and before a student passes into Doctoral Candidacy (G2 status).
No language examination taken at any other school will fulfill the Language Requirement.
Admission to Doctoral Candidacy
I. Qualifying Examination:
Successful completion of the Qualifying Examination is the first requirement for admission to Doctoral Candidacy. The Qualifying Examination is normally taken no later than the beginning of the third semester of study, and may be taken as early as the beginning of the second semester. Students who do not take the Qualifying Examination by the beginning of the fourth semester will not be allowed to continue in the program. The examination covers phonology, syntax, and either psycholinguistics or sociolinguistics. The examination is held twice a year, in September and February. Students wishing to take the examination during a particular semester must notify the Director of Graduate Studies no later than the last day of classes of the prior semester.
Possible grades on each area of the examination are Pass With Distinction, Pass, Retake, and Fail. In order to be admitted to doctoral candidacy, a student must receive a grade of Pass With Distinction in at least one examination, and at least Pass in the remaining areas. Examinations awarded the grade of Pass or Retake may be repeated once only and this must be in the semester subsequent to the initial examination. Examinations receiving the grade of Fail may not be retaken, and the student will be dropped from the program.
The examinations in each area are prepared and evaluated, whenever possible, by more than one faculty member specializing in that area. All students who are examined in a particular semester will receive the same examination. Although examinations are in written form, if on the basis of the written examination, the Examination Committee for a particular subfield finds it desirable to examine a particular candidate orally as well as in writing, the Committee shall have the right to do so.
Following successful completion of the Qualifying Examination, students are required to submit, for approval of the Committee on Graduate Studies, a publishable paper in their major area. A substantial draft of the paper must be submitted to the advisor for the paper by the end of the semester in which the Qualifying Examination is completed. The advisor must certify to the Committee on Graduate Studies that an acceptable draft has been submitted. By the end of the following semester, the final version of the paper must be submitted and approved by the advisor and the Committee on Graduate Studies. Students who do not comply with the deadline will not be permitted to continue in the program.
The Graduate Committee will appoint an evaluation committee for the paper. Possible grades are Pass, Revise and Fail. The grade of Revise indicates that in the judgement of the Committee, the paper will be acceptable with revision. The grade of Fail indicates that the student should submit a different paper to meet the requirements. Students whose paper has received the grade of Revise or Fail will be allowed one semester to satisfactorily complete the requirement for the research paper. Course papers may be submitted as a qualifying paper, but a grade of A in a course does not imply that the paper is acceptable as a research paper for purposes of this requirement.
All students are required to take at least one doctoral seminar in either applied or theoretical linguistics, whichever is not the area in which they write their Qualifying Paper.
III Review of the Dissertation Committee:
The third and final requirement for admission to candidacy is the acceptance of the Dissertation Prospectus. No later than three semesters subsequent to the completion of the Qualifying Paper requirement, each student must choose a dissertation director, form a dissertation committee, and submit a Dissertation Prospectus for approval. The dissertation director must hold a primary appointment in the Department of Linguistics or be approved by the Graduate Committee. There must be at least three other members acceptable both to the student and to the dissertation director. At least 50 percent of the Committee members must have primary appointments in the Department of Linguistics.
The Dissertation Prospectus must contain the following:
The dissertation committee will meet with the student to examine the proposal and the qualifications of the student to carry out the proposed research. The results of this review will be acceptance into candidacy or a re-examination to be held at a later date to be determined by the dissertation director. The committee may also require further course work if deficiencies are found.
Students are expected to maintain their knowledge in their area of specialization while writing their dissertations. Except in cases in which a candidate is living outside the Newark area for purposes of research (e.g. field work abroad), doctoral candidates will be expected to participate in at least one advanced seminar every semester. All exceptions must be approved by the Graduate Committee.
Students who have passed all examinations and who have received approval of the dissertation prospectus are allowed to write the dissertation. The dissertation director has the responsibility of distributing the dissertation to the readers in ample time for the dissertation to be read adequately; the director also must see to it that the dissertation committee meet when necessary as a group to discuss the progress of the
dissertation. The committee is to administer a final oral defense of the dissertation. Certification of successful defense is then submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of the University.
All full-time students are expected to register for four courses (12 credit hours) a semester, except that students with a teaching assistantship are expected to register for a minimum of three courses (9 credit hours) per semester. Students are required to register for a minimum of 9 hours of dissertation credit.
Since it is important for students to begin to work with faculty members in their area of specialization as early in their academic career as possible, students are encouraged to choose an advisor as early as their second semester of study and are required to do so by the beginning of the third semester. Students are free to change advisors at any time. (For those students who do not choose an advisor by their third semester of study, the Director of Graduate Studies will appoint an advisor.) The Director of Graduate Studies will continue to monitor students' progress throughout their program of study. Each year, the faculty will meet to discuss and evaluate the progress of every student in the program. The results of this procedure will be communicated to the students.
Since most students will take the Qualifying Examination at the start of the 3rd semester of study and, in any case, not later than the start of the 4th semester, the typical in-coming student will normally take the following courses during their initial year of study:
Students not on TA funding will normally take an additional elective course form among courses offered during the semester.
Students not on TA funding will normally take an addditional elective course from among courses offered during the semester.
Although students are not required to take both Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistics, taking both courses in the first year enables the student to choose either area for the Qualifying Exam.
The M.A. program is intended to train students in
Emphasis is placed on developing analytic abilities as well as an understanding of the application of the theoretical foundations of linguistics to the area of specialization.
Students are encouraged to pursue a course of study that takes advantage of the department's areas of strength: syntax, phonology, semantics, morphology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, phonetics, first language acquisition, second language acquisition, methodology of teaching ESL/EFL, language testing, language pedagogy, lexicography, structures of specific languages, historical linguistics and computational linguistics.
Incoming M.A. students will be assigned an advisor. By the end of the student's first semester, a program of study must be submitted to and approved by the student's advisor and the director of graduate studies. Any subsequent changes must be approved by the student's advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies.
Students can satisfy the goals of the M.A. program by completing the requirements of Option 1 or Option 2, described below.
Given the interdisciplinary nature of linguistics, students are encouraged to enrich their M.A. program with relevant courses in related disciplines outside the Linguistics Department (e.g. Computer Science, Education, Psychology, Foreign Languages and Literature). Nevertheless, in order to ensure a solid foundation in linguistics, at least 21 of the required number of credit hours for graduation must be taken in the Linguistics Department.
Students must take at least one 800-level seminar to ensure the adequate development of analytic and research skills.
Option 1: M.A. By Qualifying Examination:
Completion of 30 credit hours and a grade of PASS on
the Qualifying Exam which covers the following four areas of linguistics: phonology, syntax, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Students are encouraged to take the following courses leading up to the Qualifying Exam:
Completion of 36 credit hours to be planned in consultation with the student's advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies to ensure that the student's program covers basic concepts in linguistics as well as strength in at least one subdiscipline of the field.
To acquire an understanding of the basic concepts of linguistics, students who select Option 2 must take at least one course in three of the following core areas of linguistics: syntax, phonology, morphology, semantics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics. Courses which satisfy the requirement in each of these areas are as follows (No one course may be counted toward more than one area.):
Appropriate substitutions may be made with the approval of the student's advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies.