Academic Notes

  • A grade of C or better is necessary for all courses offered toward a major in linguistics.
  • No courses offered toward the fulfillment of the requirements for the major may be taken on a pass/fail basis.

Questions?

For questions, or to declare a major or minor, please see the Undergraduate Linguistics advising page.

Requirements for the Major

Nine courses are required to complete a major in language and linguistics.

Four Core Courses
  • LING 100 Introduction to Linguistics
  • LING 110 Phonological Theory
  • LING 120 Syntactic Theory
  • LING 130 Formal Semantics OR LING 140 Discourse and Pragmatics
One Advanced Language Course

This may be chosen from the following list:

ARBC 103a, 103b, CHIN 105a, 105b, FREN 104b, 105a, 106b, GER 103a, 104a, 105a, GRK courses higher than 100, HISP 105a, 106b, HBRW 141a, 144a, 161b, ITAL 105a, 106b, JAPN 105a, LAT courses higher than 100, RUS 105a, 106b.  

This is often a fifth semester language class. Other classes may be approved by permission of the undergraduate advising head. 

Four Electives

These include linguistics courses not used as core courses, or others chosen from among those listed in the Language and Linguistics University Bulletin section (under "Courses of Instruction").

If all four electives are non-LING courses, they cannot all four be from the same individual discipline. (For instance, all four could be LING courses, or three could be from philosophy and one from anthropology, but all four could not be from philosophy.)

Thesis (optional)

Students who meet the approval criteria may choose to write a senior thesis.  Further information can be found on the Thesis page.