The UCLA Linguistics Department Graduate Program
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A
Brief History |
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT
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UCLA's
Linguistics Department began as an interdepartmental graduate M.A. program in
1960; a Ph.D. program was introduced in 1962, and a B.A. program in 1965. The
department was established in 1966, and has flourished ever since; its
doctoral program has consistently been ranked in national surveys as one of
the top two or three programs in the country. At the undergraduate level, the department currently administers ten majors in addition to its basic Linguistics major-the joint majors in Linguistics and East Asian Languages & Cultures, English, French, Italian, Scandinavian Languages, Spanish, Philosophy, Anthropology, Computer Science, and Psychology. The department also administers an undergraduate major in African Languages, an undergraduate minor, and teaches courses in several African languages, including Swahili, Zulu, and Hausa. |
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At the graduate
level, the department offers M.A. and Ph.D. degree programs in Linguistics,
and its faculty participate in interdepartmental Ph.D. programs in Applied Linguistics
(the study of second language acquisition, discourse, and questions of
language teaching pedagogy, methodology, etc.), Biomedical
Engineering, American Indian
Studies, and African Studies.
Our faculty and graduate programs are internationally acclaimed, and we
attract some of the best and brightest graduate students from this country
and abroad, with a current graduate student population of between 45 and 50
students from almost every continent. The goal of the UCLA Linguistics Department's program is to provide a basic education in the nature of human language and linguistic theory for undergraduates, and to train graduate students as university teachers and as researchers in the major areas of linguistics. |
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Theoretical Orientation
The department has a strong theoretical orientation committed to research in formal linguistic theory, addressing questions in the fields of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, and at the interfaces of these fields with the fields of psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, computational linguistics, mathematical linguistics, historical linguistics, and the linguistic study of particular language areas (especially African languages and American Indian languages). A number of factors distinguish the UCLA linguistics department from other departments with similar emphases.
Field Work
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Linguistics
as an empirical science uses cross-linguistic evidence to develop and test
theories of human language. In keeping with this goal, the UCLA program is
committed to training its graduate students to analyze primary data in the
Field Methods sequence, in which the students work with a native speaker
consultant of a little-studied language. Substantial opportunities to develop
fieldwork skills and to test theoretical ideas against novel data are
provided, along with department funding for native speaker consultants.
Several of the faculty have long experience in fieldwork and provide
practical guidance to students embarking on their own field study. In addition, the department also has a long tradition of teaching and research on African languages and American Indian languages, with students pursuing field-based research while simultaneously pursuing interests in other core areas. Several language courses are taught by the department, including (at present) Hausa, Zulu, Swahili, Wolof, and Quechua. Other departments at UCLA offer courses in a very wide range of other languages. |
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Graduate Student Career Development
The UCLA Linguistics Department emphasizes the development of professional skills
among its graduate students, particularly in presenting their own research at
conferences and for publication. The present department budget offers travel funding for students to present papers whose
work has been accepted for presentation at regional, national, and
international conferences. The department also offers some funding to its
graduate students to pay for native speaker consultants and experimental
subjects.
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The most recent national comparative survey of graduate programs (from the year 2000) can be found at the Web site of the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students. (Note: on this site, we are listed as the UCLA Department of Linguistics, not the Applied Linguistics Interdepartmental Program). |
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ADMISSION TO THE GRADUATE PROGRAM
Although the department offers both the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, it normally admits only those students who plan to ultimately pursue a Ph.D. Students are normally admitted to begin residence in the Fall quarter only.
Applicants for related interdepartmental Ph.D. programs such as Applied Linguistics should NOT apply to the Department of Linguistics but to the programs concerned.
We assume a background roughly equivalent to a B.A. in Linguistics. This does not mean that the department will not accept applicants with little Linguistics background. Students lacking sufficient background may, however, need to complete preparatory or supplemental courses in their first year.
The typical class size of entering graduate students per year is about seven to ten. We make admissions offers to about 13-15 applicants per year, from an applicant pool of approximately 130.
The deadline for submission of applications for the Fall quarter is December 15 of the previous year.
The UCLA Application for Graduate Admission and the Application Fee must be submitted online, via UCLA Graduate Division’s website: http://www.gdnet.ucla.edu/gasaa/admissions/applicat.htm. General information about applying to UCLA for graduate study is also outlined on the Graduate Division’s site.
Applicants must submit the following:
- A statement of purpose, explaining their
background for graduate study in linguistics and their immediate and
long-range goals in the field. Statements of purpose should
primarily focus on intellectual interests and research plans, though
autobiographical material can be useful where it is clearly relevant.
- Three letters of
recommendation,
ideally from scholars who can attest to the applicant’s potential in
linguistics and general intellectual qualifications. Letters from
employers can also be useful where they supplement the letters from
teachers.
- Official records (transcripts) from each academic institution
attended. These must bear the actual signature of the Registrar and the
seal of the issuing institution.
- A research paper or other piece of writing in linguistics or a related
field. This part of the dossier is very important, and is often given more
weight in admissions decisions about admissibility than anything else,
since it (potentially) provides evidence of the ability to pursue original
research in the field. In general, it is unusual for the Department to consider an applicant who has
not submitted a research paper. If no paper in linguistics or a
related field is available, it is better to include a paper in some
non-related field, rather than no paper at all.
- International applicants whose first language is not
English must certify their proficiency in English, via the Test of English as a Foreign Language
(TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).
More information, including minimum score requirements, is available on
the Graduate Division’s website.
- The Confidential Financial Statement. (International applicants only.)
- Although not required, it also would be useful to
include with your application an informal list of the courses you have
taken in your desired field. Add any information you think would
clarify the kind of work you did, especially if the title of a given
course does not reflect the actual course content.
- Applicants who are not independently wealthy are asked
to submit a fellowship application. It is useful to inspect
the list of UCLA fellowships on your application carefully, to see what
you might be qualified for. To a limited extent, the Admissions
Committee uses the criterion of what students can be supported with
available resources.
(Please note that the GRE is no
longer required. Please do not submit GRE score reports to our program, as
they will not be considered.)
The Linguistics Department undertakes to provide support packages for all the students that it admits, with support commitments lasting for up to five years, subject to maintenance of satisfactory academic standing. All support packages include the cost of tuition, fees, and a salary or living stipend; consult the department for current stipend levels. Almost all support packages involve a mixture of fellowship, Research Apprenticeship (RA), and Teaching Apprenticeship (TA) positions, spread out over the 5 year period.
We admit only as many students as can be supported. Prospective applicants should apply for an extramural fellowship (such as NSF or an equivalent type of fellowship from another country, such as the Canadian SSHRC fellowship) where possible. Prospective applicants who have been granted such fellowships generally have an excellent chance of admission.
Available financial awards vary from year to year. The application form for Graduate Fellowships (other than NSF and foundation awards) is included in the Graduate Admission application packet. The following outlines the principal sources:
FELLOWSHIPS
UCLA Fellowships – Chancellor's Fellowships, President's Fellowships, Dean's Fellowships, Pauley Fellowships, Cota-Robles Fellowships, and Departmental Fellowships are combined with a mixture of TA and RA appointments to make up the full support package. All students who have been advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. are also eligible to apply for Dissertation-year Fellowships for their fifth year; these are awarded on a competitive (university-wide) basis. In recent years UCLA Linguistics graduate students have had considerable success in winning these fellowships.
National Resource Fellowships (Title VI)--for language and area studies: e.g. Africa, the Near East, Latin America, East Asia. Applications are selected by the relevant area studies centers and the department. (For information see the admissions packet.) Title VI fellowships require students to enroll for one 4-unit course per quarter in the relevant language area and include a stipend which is supplemented by additional departmental support (RAship, TAship, etc.) to bring them up to the general annual support level.
TEACHING APPRENTICESHIPS
These are awarded to students on the basis of admissions fellowship commitments, timely progress in graduate work, student specialization, and need. They are normally available only to students in the second year of graduate study and beyond, and sometimes to first years during Spring quarter.
COURSES AND DEGREE REQUIREMENTS
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LINGUISTICS
COURSES Upper Division Undergraduate Courses, some of which may be taken by students to make up deficiencies, include courses in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, syntactic typology and universals, language change, child language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and language disorders. The department also offers courses in a number of African languages. Graduate Courses cover every major area of linguistics, including: phonological theory, syntactic theory, typology, language change, phonetic theory and experimental phonetics, morphological theory, formal semantics, mathematical linguistics, computational linguistics and natural language processing, field methods, learnability theory, psycholinguistics, linguistic areas and linguistic structures, history of linguistics, disorders of language development, and linguistic anthropology. Proseminars are advanced graduate special-topics courses in the areas mentioned above. Most faculty offer proseminar courses in their area approximately once per year, often on the topic of their current research. |
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Seminars are informal talk series, meeting once per week, in which faculty and students present their current research to colleagues for comment and discussion. There are active seminars in Native American languages, phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, and syntax/semantics.
Additional courses in various topics, including thesis preparation, college teaching practicum and practical phonetics, are also regularly offered.
Degree Requirements
Although the department offers both the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, each with
its own set of requirements, completion of the M.A. degree is normally just a
milestone towards the completion of the Ph.D. requirements. We normally admit
students to the graduate program only if they have the Ph.D. as their ultimate
degree objective, and new graduate students are normally admitted directly into
the Ph.D. program, regardless of whether they have already completed an M.A.
elsewhere.
Furthermore, all students, including those who already have an M.A. degree, are
normally expected to complete all of the M.A. degree requirements at UCLA, as
part of the normal progress toward the Ph.D. The M.A. requirements include six
obligatory core courses, three additional courses selected by the student from
a list of survey courses covering various areas of the field, and completion of
an M.A. thesis (an original research paper of approximately 50 double-spaced
pages). There is also a language exam requirement: students must demonstrate
reading ability in a foreign language. Students who choose to withdraw from the
program and who wish to receive a terminal M.A. degree may elect to undergo a
comprehensive oral exam instead of completing an M.A. thesis.
The Ph.D. requirements involve taking a few additional courses, including our two-quarter sequence in Field Methods and various seminar and proseminar courses selected by the student. Other requirements include delivering a department colloquium, and completion of the Ph.D. dissertation.
Typical Progress
Typical Progress Most of our students take about five years to complete the full graduate program. Of course, students' backgrounds and work patterns are diverse; some take less time and others take more. A few students have completed all our requirements in just three years, though such students typically have had a strong background before coming here.
Since the normal course load for graduate students is three courses per quarter, it is usually possible for students to complete all or most of the M.A. course requirements within the first year of the program. Students who enter the program with deficiencies in certain areas may need to take longer to satisfy the M.A. course requirements, since they may have to enroll in certain upper-division undergraduate courses during their first year.
During the second year, students take the Field Methods course, sample a variety of advanced seminar courses, take additional survey courses, and complete their M.A. thesis. Second year students normally enroll in an M.A. thesis preparation course during the fall quarter of their second year, in which they make class presentations outlining their progress. They usually focus on writing their M.A. thesis during the winter and spring quarters of the second year.
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All students
must have completed the M.A. thesis and all other M.A. requirements by the
end of the spring quarter of the second year. The third-year students are encouraged
to explore the field, take advanced seminars, prepare original research for
publication or presentation at conferences, etc. By the end of the third year, students should have a good idea of the area they plan to concentrate on for their dissertation, and they should have a Ph.D. committee assembled before the end of the spring quarter. Fourth years students should be advanced to candidacy before the end of the fall quarter; this entails the completion of all Ph.D. requirements other than the dissertation, including defense of a prospectus of their dissertation in an oral exam conducted by their committee. The last two quarters of the fourth year, as well as the entire fifth year, is devoted to the completion of the dissertation and, in ideal circumstances, finding a job! |
FACULTY
Click here for a list of current Linguistics faculty, with links to their Web pages.
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FACILITIES |
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Dynamic
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In addition,
the Linguistics Department maintains its own computer
facilities, a department
library, and provides office space to its graduate students. |
The library system at
UCLA, with over seven million volumes, is ranked in the top ten university
libraries in the
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UCLA
Department of Linguistics c/o Graduate
Admissions Adviser |
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(310)
825-5060 |
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(310)
206-5743 |
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Contact the
Department's Student
Affairs Officer. |