The Master of Arts (MA) program provides a graduate-level introduction to the subject matter and skills of the discipline.

Requirements

The department offers MA Plan A and Plan B programs.  In addition to the University-wide residence requirements of a minimum of two semesters of full-time work, all three programs require that students demonstrate competence in one language other that their native language.

Plan A requires a thesis (9 credit hours) and a minimum of 21 credit hours of course work.  A final oral examination covering the thesis and related areas is also required.

Plan B students must complete 30 credit hours of course work for a grade (not CR/NCR or Audit), of which 18 hours must be at the 600-level or above, including 3 hours of a 700-level seminar.  Students may choose between three “streams”:  Linguistic Analysis, Experimental Linguistics, or Language Documentation and Conservation.  For a list of courses required for each stream, see the MA manual and MA checklist.  A final seminar presentation near the end of course work is required for students in the Linguistic Analysis and Experimental Linguistics streams.  The topic and format of the presentation must be approved in advance by the graduate chair.  Students in the Language Documentation and Conservation stream must submit a ‘Research Portfolio’ for approval.

For more information, please refer to the Graduate Handbook.