Programs by Campus
Bloomington
Linguistics
College of Arts and Sciences
Departmental E-mail: lingdept [at] indiana [dot] edu
Departmental URL: www.indiana.edu/~lingdept
(Please note that when conferring University Graduate School degrees, minors, certificates, and sub-plans, The University Graduate School’s staff use those requirements contained only in The University Graduate School Bulletin.)
Curriculum
Degrees Offered
Master of Arts in Linguistics, Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics
Special Departmental Requirements
(See also general University Graduate School requirements.)
Master of Arts in Linguistics
Admission Requirements
Admission to the M.A. program will be based on evaluations of (1) undergraduate grade record, (2) level of achievement in the Graduate Record Examination General Test, (3) three letters of recommendation, and (4) undergraduate exposure to linguistics and related course work. Students not satisfying requirement (4) may be admitted but may be required to do course work prerequisite to introductory graduate courses.
Thesis
Optional; maximum of 4 credit hours.
Final Examination
None.
Course Requirements
A total of 30 credit hours, including L520, L530, L541, L542, and L543. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) must be achieved in these five core courses. Additional electives as approved by the department. Specific course requirements may be met by taking a higher level course in the same area. A minimum of 20 credit hours must be from linguistics department offerings.
Foreign Language Requirements
Reading knowledge of one foreign language approved by the department and knowledge of the structure of a language or languages other than English and outside the student’s general language family. (The L653-L654 sequence may satisfy the second part of this requirement.)
Master of Arts in Linguistics with a Concentration in Computational Linguistics
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which addresses the use of computers to process or produce human language. Linguistics contributes to this field an understanding of the special properties of language data, and also provides theories and descriptions of language structure and use. Computational linguistics is largely an applied discipline concerned with practical problems. Typical applications include: natural language processing, machine translation (translating from one language to another), speech synthesis, speech production, information retrieval (finding relevant documents or parts of documents in large collections of texts), cognitive modeling, and, in general, almost anything dealing with natural language interfaces.
Course Requirements
The master’s track in computational linguistics consists of a minimum of 30 credit hours to include L541, L542, L543, L545, and L645. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) must be achieved in these five core courses. Students must also fulfill a specialization course requirement by taking two of the following courses: Q520 (Cognitive Science), L614 (Linguistics), L615 (Linguistics) and seminar courses such as P657 (Psychology) and L700 (Linguistics) approved by the student’s academic advisor. Three additional electives must be taken. A minimum of 20 credit hours must be from linguistics department offerings. Outside electives must be approved by the student’s academic advisor.
Programming Language Requirement
One computer programming course or the equivalent approved by the student’s academic advisor.
Foreign Language Requirement
Reading knowledge of one foreign language approved by the department.
Doctor of Philosophy Degree
Admission Requirements
Admission to the Ph.D. program will be based upon evaluation of (1) previous academic record, (2) level of achievement on the Graduate Record Examination General Test, (3) three letters of recommendation, (4) previous exposure to linguistics and related course work, and (5) compatibility of interests with those of the faculty.
Fields of Study
The doctorate is normally pursued in areas such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, historical linguistics, African linguistics, computational linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Other concentrations, including a combined degree with cognitive science, are also possible with the approval of the department.
Course Requirements
A minimum of 90 credit hours, including dissertation. Specific requirements include one graduate course each in phonetics, phonology, syntax, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language acquisition, plus at least four courses in linguistics at the 600-700 levels, one of which must be L642 or L643 for students in general linguistics. Only one of these four courses may be taken outside the Department of Linguistics. Additional course requirements may be set by the student's advisory committee.
Minor
The choice of a minor field should be agreed to by the student’s advisory committee. The specific requirements for the minor are established by the department that grants the minor. The student is responsible for ascertaining what those requirements are and for meeting them.
Advisory Committee
All students in the Ph.D. program will select an advisory committee consisting of at least three faculty members, one of whom should normally represent the student’s minor field. The committee must be selected no later than the end of the semester following the completion of the master’s degree at Indiana University, or, in the case of students entering the program with master’s degrees from other institutions, no later than two semesters after matriculation.
Students will plan their programs with the advisory committee, which will be responsible for counseling students with regard to the qualifying examination, setting the examination, and administering it.
Foreign Language Structure
Knowledge of the structure of a language other than English and outside the student's general language family (choice to be determined in consultation with the student's advisory committee). The structure requirement can be fulfilled in three ways: (1) by completing a one-semester course on the structure of some language; (2) by completing a two-semester elementary level sequence of a language; (3) by completing the field methods sequence L653-654.
Research Tools Requirements
(1) Reading or speaking knowledge of a foreign language relevant and applicable to doctoral study in the student’s research area, and (2) proficiency in a research skill appropriate to the student’s research area, including, but not limited to, reading knowledge in an additional foreign language, statistics, logic, programming, methods in social science research, or field methods. Proficiency is normally demonstrated by two semesters of appropriate instruction. Students may not count field methods classes for both the foreign language structure and research tools requirement. The choice of appropriate research tools is to be determined in consultation with the student’s advisory committee.
Qualifying Examination
Comprehensive; the examination is on two distinct areas of linguistics - one primary, one secondary - and requires the student to develop five research proposals and one research paper. Specific focus and scheduling of the examination is determined by the student’s advisory committee.
Research Proposal
After nomination to candidacy, the student will select a research committee composed of no fewer than three members of the Department of Linguistics faculty and an outside representative. This committee must approve the proposed dissertation topic.
Final Examination
Oral defense of dissertation. This defense is open.
Ph.D. in Linguistics with a Concentration in African Languages and Linguistics
Course Requirements
A minimum of 90 credit hours, including dissertation. Specific requirements include A501, L653-L654, one graduate-level course each in phonetics, phonology, syntax, and historical linguistics, plus at least two additional courses in linguistics at the 600-700 levels. Where appropriate, additional courses may be assigned by the student’s advisory committee.
Foreign Language Requirements
Three languages: (1) proficiency in two foreign languages, one of which must be an African language and the other normally French or German; and (2) knowledge of the structure of a foreign language or language group other than Romance or Germanic.
(All other requirements are the same as the above for the Ph.D. in Linguistics.)
Ph.D. in Linguistics with a Concentration in Computational Linguistics
Course Requirements
A minimum of 90 credit hours, including dissertation. Specific requirements include L545, L555, L615, L645, one graduate-level course each in phonetics, phonology, syntax, and at least two additional courses in linguistics at the 600-700 levels. Where appropriate, additional courses may be assigned by the student’s advisory committee.
Research Tool Requirements
The student must demonstrate proficiency (1), in the basics of discrete mathematics or mathematical linguistics, which can be met by courses such as L611 or Q520; and (2) in programming techniques, with working knowledge of at least two programming languages.
Qualifying Examination
The qualifying exam is comprehensive; the examination is on two distinct areas of computational linguistics and/or linguistics. At least one of the qualifying examinations must entail a practical software artifact. The artifact may be a program, a computational grammar, an implemented scheme for corpus annotation, or some other approved artifact. The other examination may take the form of a written paper (of publishable quality) or a written exam. Specific focus and scheduling of the examination is determined by the student’s advisory committee.
(All other requirements are the same as the above for the Ph.D. in Linguistics.)
Ph.D. Minor in Linguistics
Doctoral students in other departments may choose linguistics as an outside minor. Twelve (12) credit hours of approved courses are required; at least three of the courses must be from the Department of linguistics. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) or higher must be achieved in these courses. The specific program for satisfying this requirement should be developed in consultation with a linguistics faculty serving as a minor representative on the student's advisory committee.
Ph.D. Minor in African Languages and Linguistics
The minor consists of a minimum of four courses (12 credits) including the following: (1) one course in an African language at the 600 level or higher, (2) A501, and (3) two additional courses in African languages or linguistics approved by the student’s minor advisor. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) or better must be achieved in these courses.
Ph.D. Minor in Computational Linguistics
Requirements: The minor consists of a minimum of 15 credit hours of course work, including the following: (1) L545 and L645, (2) one of L503, L541, L542, or L543, and (3) two specialization courses taken from the following: B651 (Computer Science), Q520 (Cognitive Science), S522 (Speech and Hearing Sciences) and seminar courses such as P657 (Psychology), L700 or L715 (Linguistics) or other courses (such as L614) approved by the minor advisor. A grade point average of 3.0 (B) or higher must be achieved in these courses.