The department accepts students who meet the minimum requirements stated above, but recognizes that a GPA of 2.50 or higher is indicative of the motivation and academic skills needed for the reasonable probability of success in the program. Applicants who do not meet the minimum requirements may submit alternative materials for consideration. The Department of Linguistics offers a program of study for graduate students leading to the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. The program is administered by the departmental faculty. The major interest of the core faculty lies in syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology, sociolinguistics, and in theoretical aspects of second-language acquisition.
Some course work is also available in various cooperating departments.
Among those fields represented outside the department are anthropological linguistics, psycholinguistics, philosophy of language, and the structure and history of a number of individual languages and language families. Three letters of recommendation and Graduate Record Examination scores are required for all applicants. Doctoral degree applicants should send the department a copy of their master's thesis or a paper of high quality, or both. One course in semantics. Three courses at the 400 or 500 level.