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Linguistics Master's
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Program type:
Major
Format:
On Campus
Est. time to complete:
2 years
Credit Hours:
36
Master the scientific study of language and its structure and explore how language
and discourse continue to evolve with modern technology.
UNT's Master of Arts in linguistics (General degree) offers students broad training
in all core areas of the discipline. Our MA program prepares students for challenging
careers in a variety of industries, including government, education, law, language
documentation, description and language archiving, and natural language processing.
Our MA programs also serve as an excellent foundation for doctoral studies in linguistics
and other language-related fields such as speech pathology, deaf education, audiology,
computational linguistics, or the teaching of English as a second language.
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Request More InfoWhy Earn a Linguistics Master's?
The department of Linguistics, in close collaboration with Library and Information Science, Learning Technologies, and Computer Science, offers a collaborative environment for developing innovative curricula that incorporate research on language with database design and management, text mining, computational and quantitative methods in linguistics, and natural language processing. We project a Linguistics Program with international partners in the fields of TESOL and language data archiving, preservation, and dissemination.
Our Master of Arts degrees in Linguistics offers broad training in all core areas of the discipline and prepare you for challenging careers in a variety of industries, including:
- Bioinformatics
- Education
- Government
- Law
- Natural language processing
A common pedagogical goal is to guide students in linguistic discovery through corpora creation and mining.
Our M.A. programs also serve as an excellent foundation for doctoral studies in Linguistics and other language-related fields, such as speech pathology, deaf education, audiology or the teaching of English as a second language.
Marketable Skills
- Language structure analysis
- Analyze language function and use
- Analyze diverse populations' linguistic behaviors
- Critical thinking
- Formulate solutions to complex issues
Linguistics Master's Highlights
Our strengths lie in our established TESOL program and research areas in language
variation and change, language documentation, and the linguistic analysis of literature.
We also have a new focus of language technology and language data curation. Our international
collaborations currently are with Mexico, India, Pakistan and China.
UNT is one of a few Linguistics programs in the country to offer regular courses in
the linguistic analysis of poetry and prose. The courses focus on the many kinds of
repetition that are used by the world’s great writers, which have the effect of making
literary texts a permanent part of the world’s art.
Beginning full-time students who meet all qualifications may apply for financial assistance
from the UNT office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships. In addition, beginning
and continuing students may apply for financial assistance from the Department of
Linguistics.
We also offer a Graduate Academic Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other
Languages.
UNT Linguistics is supported by an active linguistics research community at UNT with
ties across campus and with local, national, and international communities.
Our practicum in ESL is often available at an international venue.
What Can You Do With a Linguistics Master's?
A degree in Linguistics makes students competitive for jobs in:
- Advertising
- Codes and code-breaking
- Language education
- Law — forensic linguistics
- Marketing
- Speech — language pathology and audiology
Because linguistics provides students with the skills to analyze language, companies such as Microsoft, Google and Apple also are eager to hire students with linguistics degrees.
Linguistics Master's Courses You Could Take
Phonology I (3 hrs)
Introduction to phonological theory and analysis based on cross-linguistic evidence.
Topics: phonological representations including features, syllables and metrical structure;
phonological processes; phonological typology and universals.
Syntax I (3 hrs)
Detailed study of the morpho-syntax and semantics of English and selected non-Indo-European
languages in terms of contemporary linguistic theory.
Semantics and Pragmatics I (3 hrs)
Examines how meaning emerges at the word, sentence, constructional and utterance level
and how it is acquired by children and second-language learners.
Language Typology and Universals (3 hrs)
Data-oriented comparison and classification of the languages of the world according
to their morphological and syntactic characteristics (role relations, word order,
causatives, relative clauses, comparison, etc.) Emphasis is on working through real
data from many languages.
Psycholinguistics (3 hrs)
Deals with a variety of formal cognitive mechanisms that are relevant to the knowledge
and use of natural languages. Primary emphasis is on the modular view of the mind
and its consequences for both L1 and L2 language acquisition.
Research Design in Linguistics (3 hrs)
Provides an introduction to research methods in linguistics and applied linguistics/ESL
with a focus on empirical research and the social and behavioral aspect of language
science. Covers a range of techniques for conducting linguistic research including
language data elicitation, data compilation, and data mining.
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