Our Focus - Past and Present

From its beginning in 1969, Linguistics at the University of Florida has provided instruction in the core areas of phonology, morphology, and syntax, and in pragmatics and semantics as well.  Students can now look forward to additional opportunities to do research in the areas of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics.  We also provide training in teaching English as a second or foreign language through our TESL Certificate.

Graduate Faculty 2009-2010

Director:
C. Wiltshire

Graduate Coordinator:
R. Wayland

Professors:
T. Antes, H. Blondeau, D. Boxer, W. Brown, A. Burns, W. Cowles, J. Essegbey, H. Filip, P. Golombeck, M.J. Hardman, G. Hatav, B. Hebblethwaite, B. Henderson, E. Kaan, V. LoCastro, G. Lord, M. Matondo, F. McLaughlin, G. Miller, A. Pham, D.Pharies, E. Potsdam, R. Thompson, R. Wayland, A. Wehmeyer, C. Wiltshire.

Degrees  

Linguistics at the University of Florida offers four graduate degrees:  the non-thesis M.A., the M.A. with thesis and the Ph.D.  In addition to M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, Linguistics offers a graduate certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL).  As part of its ongoing service to the University community, Linguistics also offers three programs especially designed to suit the needs of international students:  the English Language Institute (ELI), the Academic Writing Program (AWP), and the Academic Spoken English Program (ASE).

For Master's degrees in Linguistics, 36 credits are required (most classes are 3 credits).  A Ph.D. requires 90 credits; it is usually possible to transfer 30 credits from a previously earned Master's degree towards this 90 credit requirement.

Resources

Resources available to graduate students include the Humanities/Social Sciences Library, located in Library West, next to Anderson Hall; the laboratory facilities of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Communication Processes (IASCAP) and the Language Learning Center in Turlington Hall (the home of the Linguistics Program); and access to facilities of the Center for Instructional and Research Computing Activities (CIRCA).

Admission

Students who have not earned an undergraduate degree in linguistics may be admitted to the Graduate Program.  However, if they have never had classes in introductory linguistics, phonetic transcription, and the advanced study of the grammar of a language, they may be required to enroll first as a post baccalaureate student to make up their deficiencies.  Students who have had previous course work in linguistics should consult the Graduate Coordinator to determine the extent to which credits already earned may fulfill UF requirements. Linguistics and University application materials and procedures are available on-line.

Financial Aid

A number of fellowships are available to incoming students.  They include Minority Fellowships, made available by the University of Florida Minority Program, which can provide up to two years' support for Master's and three years' support for Ph.D. candidates; Presidential fellowships; Graduate Council Fellowships; and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences fellowships.  Information may be found in the twelfth edition of Graduate and Post Doctoral Support, available in the University library, and on the Internet.  The Internet address is http://www.aa.ufl.edu/fellows/index.html.  January submission are the rule.

Students who have completed their qualifying exams and begun writing their dissertations may also apply for College Dissertation Fellowships, which carry stipends of approximately $5,000 plus tuition waivers for one term.

Graduate Assistantships are also available in limited numbers, with eligibility determined by the Program's Student Employment Committee, which ranks applicants with respect to individual qualifications and record of academic performance.  Rates of compensation for 1/2 time employment are subject to increments determined from year to year by the results of collective bargaining.  In addition to general education courses for the Linguistics Program, Teaching Assistants may be assigned to teach in ELI, ASE, and AWE Programs.  Applicants fluent in such languages as Arabic, Aymara, Chinese, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Shona, spanish, and Swahili may also find opportunities to teach in departments related to Linguistics.  You may also check our TA Positions page.

For detailed information on requirements for admission and on financial aid, please contact Linguistics by telephone (352) 392-0639; fax (352) 392-8480; mail addressed to Linguistics,  University of Florida, P.O. Box 115454, Gainesville, FL  32611-5454; or e-mail Professor R. Wayland.  Application forms are available on-line.  For detailed information on the English Language Institute (intensive English for non-native speakers) please check their homepage, or call (352) 392-3354, or fax (352) 392-3744.

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Language Requirements

It is assumed that students entering the graduate program will have acquired working knowledge of a second language, with "working knowledge" defined as equivalent to competence acquired in two years of formal study.  This proficiency may be acquired through course work or by living in the country where the language is spoken.  Students pursuing the doctorate in linguistics should also plan to include courses in at least one non-European language and in the structure of a non-Western language.  because of restrictions on graduate students enrolling in undergraduate classes, it is best if these classes are taken before enrolling in graduate school, though accommodations can be made.

Examinations

In addition to examinations required as part of course work, further examinations at three levels are regularly offered.  As presently constituted, the COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION, required of students working towards either the thesis or non-thesis M.A., consists of three parts, with each part focusing on a specific core area -- phonology, morphology, or syntax. Ph.D. applicants are also required to take the comprehensive exams, exceptions can be made under the discretion of the comprehensive exams committee and/or the graduate coordinator.   The comprehensive examinations, offered once a year in the fall, must be taken at the earliest opportunity after students have completed LIN 6323: Phonology, LIN 6402: Morphology, and LIN 6501: Syntax.

Successfully passing the QUALIFYING EXAMINATION, the form of which is determined by the student's supervising committee, advances the students to candidacy for the doctorate.

Formal, ORAL DEFENSES of M.A. theses, non-thesis papers, and Ph.D. dissertations are also required at the end of the degree program.

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Course Offerings

Before you register, be sure to check the course listing for next semester.  Credit may also be earned through Individual Study, Supervised Research, Special Topics, Supervised Teaching, and Research for Master's Thesis and Doctoral Dissertation.  Students are encouraged, with the advice of the Graduate Coordinator and their own advisors, to choose graduate courses offered by other departments and administrative units that may serve individual research interests.)

General | Phonology/Phonetics | Morphology | Syntax/Semantics
Historical | Sociolinguistics | Second Language Acquisition/TESL | Psycho-Neurolinguistics

General

LIN 6084 - Introduction to Graduate Research - (Credit hours: 3)

Scholarly and scientific approaches to study of linguistics.  Scientific method, theory development, data processing, scholarly writing, and structure of research proposals.

LIN 6165 - Field Methods - (Credit hours: 3)

Anthropological linguistics field methods provide opportunities to discover structure in language by listening to and interacting with a native speaker of a language you do not know through processes that involved learning to construct questions that leave open answers, make and test analyses, and write up discoveries.

LIN 6571 - Structure of a Specific Language - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq:  Introductory linguistics course
Linguistic examination of Aymara, Armenian, Polish, Quechua, Sanskrit, Tamil., etc.

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Phonology / Phonetics

Working from theoretical and applied perspectives, phonology and phonetics focus on the sounds of language.  Courses included in this area provide opportunity to gather, analyze, and account for data within varying theoretical materices.

LIN 6208 - Phonetics for Linguists - (Credit hours: 3)

Understanding of issues in experimental phonetics and introduction of research techniques involved in the acoustic, physiological, and perceptual study of speech.

LIN 6226 - Advanced Phonetics - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: LIN 4205 or LIN 6208 or SPA 3011
Exposes students to advanced issues in linguistic phonetics, and to experimental phonetic methods and designs.

LIN 6323 - Phonology - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: LIN 3201
Phonetics, syllabic and prosodic phenomena, neutralization, distinctive features, morphophonemic alternation, phonological systems and processes. Terminology and notational conventions of generative phonology.  Problems from a variety of languages.

LIN 6341 - Issues in Phonology - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: LIN 6323
Technical articles from a variety of twentieth century schools, including American and European structuralism, generative and stratificational phonology, natural and metric-autosegmental phonology.  Examples and problems from a variety of languages.

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Morphology

Morphology focuses on word structure.  Beginning with analysis of the words of specific languages, it introduces analytical procedures involved in the composition and decomposition of words, procedures which themselves entail cognitive issues and also involve questions of interface with other domains of language -- including phonology, syntax, semantics, and discourse.

LIN 6402 - Morphology - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: LIN 3460
Word structure, derivation and inflection.  The position of morphology in a grammar, the relationship between morphology and the rest of the grammar, typology, cultural and conceptual categories, predictions of various theories of morphology..  Examples and problems from a variety of languages.

LIN 6410 - Issues in Morphology - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq:  LIN 6402
Technical articles from a variety of twentieth-century schools.  Prominent inquires include the place of morphology in grammar, its relationship to other components, and the possibility of constructing a unified theory of morphology.

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Syntax / Semantics

Syntax focuses on basic structures of sentences, giving attention to data gathered from various languages of the world and using analytical procedures  derived from the research of current investigators using various methods of analysis. 

LIN 6501 - Syntax - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq:  LIN 3010
The generative-transformational model of syntax:  phrase structure, the lexicon, case and agreement, movement, government, and anaphora.  Emphasis on problem solving and linguistic argumentation.  Undergraduates should be aware that this course may be taught in conjunction with a graduate course that bears the same title.

LIN 6520 - Issues in Syntax - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq:  LIN 4500, LIN 6501
Further investigation of the generative-transformational model of syntax:  advanced clause structure, binding theory, constraints on movement and Logical Form.

LIN 6562 - Discourse Grammar - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: LIN 6501
Recent developments in study of relationships between sentence grammar and discourse. Subject and theme, relativization and subordination, pronoun and anaphora, transitivity, tense and aspect, information structure, and discourse basis for grammatical categories.  Synthesis of topics into systematic framework.

LIN 6773 - Topics in Computational Linguistics - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: consent of instructor
Overview of the field of natural language processing and computational linguistics.

LIN 6804 - Semantics I - (Credit hours: 3)

Truth conditional semantics as opposed to pragmatics. Basic notions in classical logic since logic is assumed in truth conditional semantics.

LIN 6856 - Semantics II - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: LIN 6804
Introduction to doing formal semantics for linguists, based on the theory of Richard Montague and theories developed within his approach.

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Historical Perspectives

Historical perspectives courses present models for the analysis of language development, provide opportunity for analyzing data from the development of particular languages of the world, and give an overview of the history of linguistics itself.

LIN 6039 - Studies in Etymology: The Roots of English - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: 1 year of foreign language (preferably Latin or French)
Word formation and change in form and meaning, linguistic (Indo-European, Germanic) background of English, sociocultural history of English in England, and input from classical sources.

LIN 6128 - Historical Linguistics - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: LIN 6323, LIN 6501
Principles and methods of historical and comparative linguistics, development of competing models for language change and linguistic relatedness.  Examples and problems from a broad spectrum of languages.

LIN 6129 - Issues in Historical Linguistics - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq:  LIN 6341, LIN 6520, LIN 6128
Advanced diachronic linguistics.  The mutual interdependence of diachronic and synchronic analyses of language.

LIN 7118 - History of Linguistics - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq:  LIN 6323, LIN 6501
The history of accounting for language data as evidenced by grammar-writing from Panini to the twentieth century, with primary focus on the development of linguistics  taught in Europe and America.

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Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics focuses on the description of language as it is used in the real world.  It assumes that language is fundamental in the organization and understanding of everyday interactions, both from individual and societal perspectives.

LIN 5657 - Gender and Language - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq:  LIN 3010
Language in the construction of cultural, sex, and gender roles within a culture.  A focal point is the grammaticalization of gender in languages of the world, including non-Indo-European languages.

LIN 6601 - Sociolinguistics - (Credit hours: 3)

Major approaches to language in contact: ethnographic, sociological, linguistic.  Applications of sociolinguistics to applied linguistics, social sciences, and education.  Collection and analysis of data.

LIN 6622 - Bilingualism - (Credit hours: 3)

Psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of bilingualism, with implications for education.

LIN 7641 - Seminar in Language Variation - (Credit hours:  3)

Possible topics include variation theory, conversational interaction, language contact, bilingualism, pidgins and Creoles.

LIN 7885 - Discourse Analysis - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq:  LIN 6601
Methods of discourse analysis research and face-to-face discourse and pragmatics.

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Second Language Acquisition/TESL

Applied linguistics includes courses in the teaching of English as a Second Language; materials and techniques in TESL; curriculum development in TESL; second language acquisition; modern English structure, language testing.  Research in the applied linguistics area may also involve study of issues of bilingualism, second language discourse, and cross-cultural language use.

LIN 5741 - Applied English Grammar - (Credit hours: 3)

English phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, including historical analysis of irregularities in English and descriptions of dialect features.

LIN 6622 - Bilingualism - (Credit hours: 3)

Psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of bilingualism, with implications for education.

LIN 6720 - Second Language Acquisition - (Credit hours: 3)

The neurolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic bases of second language acquisition in childhood and adulthood.

LIN 7725 - Topics in Second Language Acquisition - (Credit hours: 3; max 9)

Prereq: LIN 6720
Focused topic in the area of second language acquisition.

TSL 6171 - Materials and Techniques for TESL I - (Credit hours: 3)

Theories of TESL teaching methods and materials.  Instruction in classroom materials. Observation of ESL classroom procedures.

TSL 6172 - Materials and Techniques for TESL II - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: TESL 6171
Continuation of TSL 6171.  Instruction in designing courses and programs in ESL.  Each student will be required to develop a sample ESL course.

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Psycho-Neurolinguistics

LIN 6707 - Psycholinguistics - (Credit hours: 3)

Explores basic issues in psycholinguistic research, including language production, comprehension, acquisition, and development.

LIN 6708C - Methods in Psycholinguistics - (Credit hours: 3)

Prereq: LIN 6702; STA 2023 or consent of instructor
Hands-on experience designing and conducting psycholinguistic experiments and analyzing experimental data.

LIN 6796 - Cognitive Neuroscience of Language - (Credit hours: 3)

Overview and critical evaluation of brain imaging techniques and issues in language and brain research, covering speech perception, word recognition, reading syntax, discourse processing, production, language acquisition, and bilingualism.

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