University of Chicago
Humanities Division
Chicago Linguistic Society
Language Labs and Archives

Graduate Program

The University of Chicago operates on the quarter system. The graduate program in linguistics leading to the PhD degree is intended to be completed in five years. Graduate students normally register for three courses per quarter, three quarters per year. They generally take three to four years of coursework. In the first year, students must take the following nine courses: Phonetics, Phonology 1 and 2, Syntax 1, 2, and 3, Pragmatics, and Semantics 1 and 2. After the first year, students have a great deal of freedom in the selection of courses, though the following coursework is required. In the second and third years, students must take the Research seminar. Students must take courses in historical linguistics and morphology and must also take one advanced course in each of the following three areas beyond the first year courses and the Research seminars: 1. phonetics/phonology, 2. syntax/semantics/ pragmatics, 3. socio-historical linguistics. Students may take any course which fits into their general plans of studies. A large proportion of courses offered in the Linguistics Department are advanced courses that are open to all students. The topics of most of these courses change from year to year; they reflect the faculty’s ongoing engagement in research and cover areas of current interest in the field at large. The selection of courses is influenced by the current interests of the students and faculty. Students are also free to take courses related to their research interests which are offered in other departments of the University.

In the third quarter of the first year, students take qualifying exams covering the mastery of the first six courses. The results of the qualifying exams also form a crucial, but not sole or defining, part of the formal first year review. Upon successful completion of these exams, students are officially admitted to the PhD program. In the second and third years, students continue taking courses and write two qualifying papers under faculty supervision. In addition to these major landmarks, students are required to pass reading examinations in two scholarly languages (normally French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, or Russian), and to satisfy a non-Indo-European language requirement (normally by taking a one-year course). On completion of the qualifying papers and language requirements and on the acceptance of a dissertation proposal, students are admitted to candidacy for the PhD degree; the only remaining requirement is the dissertation.

The University of Chicago offers several joint doctoral programs. Such options currently exist between the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Anthropology, the Committee on Human Development, the Department of Psychology, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the Department of Philosophy.

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