Students may also avail themselves of a certain number of courses in other departments. This concentration has the combined support of faculty members in a wide range of disciplines related to second language learning and teaching, enabling the candidate to draw on resources in various departments in Liberal Arts and Sciences and Education. The Program in Linguistics offers training in French historical and descriptive linguistics and philology, at both M.A. and Ph.D. levels. Students in linguistics are required to take some courses in literature in addition to courses in linguistics in the Departments of French and Linguisitics. At the doctoral level, a concentration in Romance linguistics is available, in cooperation with the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, and the Department of Linguistics.
Assistants receive a salary from the French government.
In turn, French graduate students serve as assistants in the Department at Illinois each year. There are approximately thirty students in residence representing all regions of the country. In addition, students have come to study in the Department from various countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. A chapter of the national French honorary society, Pi Delta Phi, is very active on campus. In past years, students from the department have given papers at scholarly conferences ranging from Midwest MLA to international conferences in France and even Australia.