Doctoral Coursework

A doctoral student in Linguistics is required to complete a total of 54 credit hours. These credit hours will include:

• Departmental Distribution Requirements
• Concentration Courses
• Supplemental Courses

Departmental Distribution Requirements
The courses that make up our distribution requirements reflect the diversity of perspectives on language and linguistics reflected in our department. Of the 18 courses (54 hours) required for completion of the Ph.D., 9 courses (27 hours) will come from the following content/skill areas:

Acquisition
Computational Linguistics
Discourse
Form
Historical Linguistics
Meaning
Sound I
Sound II
Variation

Concentration Courses
Each concentration requires that a substantial part of the 54 credit hours be within the concentration.  Each Ph.D. student is required to take at least one seminar (most concentrations require two or more).

Supplemental Courses
The remaining credit hours are taken as supplemental courses, selected under the guidance of the student’s faculty advisor. These courses will reflect the needs and interests of the individual student. They may include additional courses within the student’s concentration, linguistics courses in other concentrations, language courses, courses in other departments, and courses at area universities through the Washington Area Consortium of Universities.


Further details on department and concentration specific requirements can be found in our current Linguistics Graduate Student Handbook.