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Ph.D. Requirements

Ph.D. without prior M.A. Program of study

Students who enter with only a bachelor's degree or an MA in an unrelated field must earn at least 49 credit hours as outlined below. Any particular requirement may be waived for students who have taken an equivalent course at another university. Any such waiver, however, will not reduce the total number of courses required for the degree: Additional elective courses must be taken to replace the waived requirement.

Required Courses

(a)  GRSC7001 GradFIRST: First-Year Research and Scholarship Training Seminar (1 hour): must be a section taught by a Linguistics faculty member, unless special permission is granted to take a different version of this course

(b)  LING6021 Phonetics & Phonology

(c)  LING8150 Syntax

(d-e)  Two of the following courses (formal linguistic theory):

•  LING6022 Advanced Phonetics & Phonology
•  LING6160 Compositional Semantics
•  LING8120 Morphology
•  LING8160 Advanced Generative Syntax
•  LING8170 Seminar in Syntax/Semantics
•  LING8180 Seminar in Phonetics/Phonology

(f)  One of the following courses (language acquisition, variation, and change):

•  LING6175 Second Language Acquisition
•  LING6690 Historical Linguistics or LING 8680 Seminar in Historical Linguistics
•  LING6710 Languages in Contact
•  LING6860 Sociolinguistics

(g)  LING8101 Linguistics Colloquium (3x1 hours, S/U)

(h)  LING9300 Doctoral Dissertation (3 hours)

Elective Courses

In addition to the 22 credit hours listed above, the program of study must include 9 elective graduate courses (27 hours), excluding LING9000 or LING9300. A maximum of 12 hours of LING9010 Directed Readings may be included. Relevant graduate courses that do not carry a LING prefix may be included in the program of study with approvals of the Graduate Coordinator and the student's Major Professor.

Primary and Secondary Areas of Concentration

Drawn from the courses comprising the 49 credit hours above, the program of study must include at least 4 courses (12 hours) in a primary area of concentration and 3 courses (9 hours) in a secondary area of concentration, to be determined in consultation with the student’s Major Professor and the Graduate Coordinator. The areas of concentration may include LING9010 Directed Readings or courses specified in (b)-(f) of the list of required courses, in addition to elective courses.

Graduate-Only

Also drawn from the courses comprising the 49 credit hours above, the program of study for a student who bypasses the master's degree must include 4 semester hours of UGA courses open only to graduate students in addition to 16 semester hours of 8000- or 9000-level courses. LING9000 Doctoral Research, LING9010 Directed Readings, and LING9300 Disseration Writing may not be counted in these 20 hours.

Graduate School Requirements

You must fulfill all requirements of the Graduate School for the Ph.D. degree, including the residence requirement and time limits.

Research Skills Requirement

You must achieve two research skills. If you take undergraduate courses to satisfy this requirement, those courses will not be counted on your Program of Study.

Note: Regardless of how you satisfy the Research Skills Requirement, we strongly encourage you to take LING 6400 Quantitative Methods in Linguistics as part of your program of study. Understanding methods of data visualization and statistical analysis that are commonly used in linguistics research is important for anyone pursuing an advanced degree in linguistics.

Updated: 7/26/21

Ph.D. with prior M.A. Program of study

Students who enter with an MA in Linguistics or a related field must earn at least 34 credit hours of coursework as outlined below. Such students should have already had introductory graduate-level coursework in phonetics, phonology, and syntax as part of their MA program. If not, these courses must be taken in addition to the coursework outlined below. Any particular requirement may be waived for students who have taken an equivalent course at another university. Any such waiver, however, will not reduce the total number of courses required for the degree; additional elective courses must be taken to replace the waived requirement.

Required Courses

(a)  GRSC7001 GradFIRST: First-Year Research and Scholarship Training Seminar (1 hour): must be a section taught by a Linguistics faculty member, unless special permission is granted to take a different version of this course

(b)  One of the following courses (formal linguistic theory):

•  LING6022 Advanced Phonetics & Phonology
•  LING6160 Compositional Semantics
•  LING8120 Morphology
•  LING8160 Advanced Generative Syntax
•  LING8170 Seminar in Syntax/Semantics
•  LING8180 Seminar in Phonetics/Phonology

(c)  One of the following courses (language acquisition, variation, and change):

•  LING6175 Second Language Acquisition
•  LING6690 Historical Linguistics or LING 8680 Seminar in Historical Linguistics
•  LING6710 Languages in Contact
•  LING6860 Sociolinguistics

(d)  LING8101 Linguistics Colloquium (3x1 hours, S/U)

(e)  LING9300 Doctoral Dissertation (3 hours)

Elective Courses

In addition to the 13 credit hours listed above, the program of study must include 7 elective graduate courses (21 hours), excluding LING9000 and LING9300. A maximum of 12 hours of LING9010 Directed Readings may be included. Relevant graduate courses that do not carry a LING prefix may be included in the program of study with approval of the Graduate Coordinator and the student's Major Professor.

Primary and Secondary Areas of Concentration

Drawn from the courses comprising the 34 credit hours above, the program of study must include at least 4 courses (12 hours) in a primary area of concentration and 3 courses (9 hours) in a secondary area of concentration, to be determined in consultation with the student’s Major Professor and the Graduate Coordinator. The areas of concentration may include LING9010 Directed Readings or courses specified in (b)-(c) of the list of required courses, in addition to elective courses.

Graduate-only Requirement

Also drawn from the courses comprising the 34 credit hours above, the program of study must include 16 or more hours of 8000- or 9000-level courses, not including LING9000 Doctoral Research, LING9010 Directed Readings, or LING9300 Dissertation Writing.

Graduate School Requirements

You must fulfill all requirements of the Graduate School for the Ph.D. degree, including the residence requirement and time limits.

Research Skills Requirement

You must achieve two research skills. If you take undergraduate courses to satisfy this requirement, those courses will not be counted on your Program of Study.

Note: Regardless of how you satisfy the Research Skills Requirement, we strongly encourage you to take LING 6400 Quantitative Methods in Linguistics as part of your program of study. Understanding methods of data visualization and statistical analysis that are commonly used in linguistics research is important for anyone pursuing an advanced degree in linguistics.

Updated: 7/26/2021

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