linguistics phd ut austin

Graduate Programs

Introduction.

The Department of Linguistics offers programs of graduate study leading to the M.A. and the Ph.D. Theoretical approaches in all areas of linguistics are emphasized, providing a thorough grounding in five core areas of linguistics through required courses in phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and field methods. Advanced courses are offered in the department’s core concentrations of phonetics and phonology, syntax and semantics, descriptive and documentary linguistics, computational linguistics, and the linguistics of signed languages, as well as areas that may be within the research interests of specific faculty. Students may also elect to take related coursework in such departments as Anthropology, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Computer Science, Philosophy, Psychology, and Statistics, as well as specific language departments. For more information on the Graduate School, the University of Texas, and the city of Austin, please visit the university website. If you have any questions after reading the available material, please contact the Graduate Coordinator.

Ph.D. Program

The program of work for the PhD in linguistics requires 54 hours of coursework, to be completed prior to advancing to candidacy in the PhD program. The PhD program is a full-time program, with most courses taking place between 8 am and 5pm on weekdays. Depending on the area of concentration, completing a PhD requires between 5 and 7 years, with 6 years being the average time to degree. An MA is not required for admission to the PhD program.

All graduate students must take the following 5 courses (15 credit hours).

In addition to the courses above, PhD students must successfully complete 39 credit hours of approved coursework.  Approved  means that you will work out your program with your graduate advisor and your personal academic advisor, and your plan will be approved on this basis. This coursework must include:

• Six credit hours in a minor area. The hours must represent a coherent area of study in linguistics and/or a closely related field.
• The Forum for Doctoral Candidates (taken in the 5th semester)
• The balance of credits will be for “research equivalencies,” mostly in the primary area of specialization. The research equivalencies include LIN 381K, LIN 381L, any LIN 389, LIN 395, any advanced course or non-core area course. Doctoral students are expected to enroll in at least one research equivalency each semester during their first three years.

An additional research paper is required at the end of both the first and second years.

• To qualify for PhD candidacy, a student must complete all specified coursework, submit research papers in each of the first two years, and submit the Qualifying Paper in the area of primary specialization.
• The Graduate Advisor will appoint two faculty readers to evaluate the Qualifying Paper (the student may suggest names) with appropriate areas of specialization.
• Students are expected to submit a proposal for their Qualifying Paper at the beginning of the fall term in which they will register for the Doctoral Forum. Students are expected to finish the paper during the fall term in conjunction with the Doctoral Forum. It is expected that the paper will be submitted and accepted by the end of the third year in the program.
• The topic must have the Graduate Advisor's approval. After a Qualifying Paper has been submitted, the student may not request a change in topic or a change in readers for that paper.
• The Doctoral Forum (Linguistics 397) is specifically designed to give participants the opportunity to present their work in progress and receive feedback from fellow students as well as the instructor. The Forum is to be taken on a Credit/No Credit basis.
• Students must submit at least a full draft of the Qualifying Paper to the Graduate Advisor and the two approved readers by the end of the fifth semester in residence, counting from the date when the student first entered the graduate program, whether as an MA or a PhD student.
• Students must submit the official version of the Qualifying Paper to the Graduate Coordinator for distribution to the readers at the beginning of the sixth semester, so that there is time for revisions and approval before the end of the semester. The evaluations that the readers make are “pass,” “pass contingent on an oral exam,” “fail,” or “revise.” The evaluation is normally made within two weeks of the date of submission. Students are given a date by which any revisions are to be made.

Application to Candidacy After completion of the requirements described above, the student is eligible to apply for PhD Candidacy with the Graduate School. This requires the submission of an approved Program of Work and an Application for PhD Candidacy, both of which must be approved by the Graduate Advisor. The candidacy application, which includes the dissertation proposal and lists the proposed committee members, must also be approved by the supervising professor. The application for Candidacy must be submitted online through UT Direct. Information can be found at the Office of Graduate Studies website.

Continuous Registration Graduate Students who have been admitted to PhD candidacy are required to register continuously (every fall and spring) from the time they are admitted to candidacy through the semester in which they receive their degree. Students are responsible for maintaining their own continuous registration.

Ongoing Evaluation All students are evaluated on an annual basis (at the end of the Spring semester) or as needed. Any problems with the student’s progress are noted and conveyed to the student by the Graduate Advisor.

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M.A. Program

While the department usually does not accept students to only the MA degree, there may occasionally be reasons why an applicant needs to apply for the MA degree rather than the PhD, and in those cases we may consider the application. MA only students usually do not receive funding. PhD students indicate PhD as their degree objective even if they do not yet have an MA. All students take the same set of core courses, whether enrolled in the MA or PhD program. The MA program is a full-time program, with most courses taking place between 8 am and 5pm on weekdays.

The program of work for the MA in linguistics requires 36 hours. In general terms, the MA program requires 2 years of approved coursework, including an MA thesis or report. All graduate students in linguistics must take the following 5 courses (15 credit hours).

21 hours of approved coursework beyond the 15 credit hours of core courses is required.  This coursework includes:

• 6 hours in a minor area
• thesis/report hours
• 6 hours of research equivalencies (LIN 381K, LIN 381L, any LIN 389, LIN 395, any advanced course or non-core area course) in the primary area of interest.
• 3-6 hours (depending on whether the thesis or report option is chosen) of research equivalencies, which are usually taken in the primary area but may include additional coursework in the minor area or supporting work as recommended by the student’s advisor and approved by the Graduate Advisor.

An additional research paper is required at the end of the first year.

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Concentrations

• Computational Linguistics
• Documentary and Descriptive
• Signed Linguistics
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Syntax/Semantics

The Computational Linguistics concentration area educates students in the theory, technologies and applications of Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing (NLP).

The documentary and descriptive linguistics concentration prepares students to collect and analyze new data on previously under-studied languages and speech communities, and to prepare grammars, dictionaries, text collections and other descriptive materials that contribute to their documentation.

Signed Linguistics  research concerns the experimental phonetics of signed languages, various aspects of the grammar of signed languages, the sociolinguistics of signing communities, and the acquisition of signed languages as first languages. 

The study of speech sounds in human languages includes both  phonology (the definition and distribution of sound categories) and phonetics (the realization of those categories in terms of physiological, aerodynamic, acoustic and psychological events) .

Students will work closely with faculty advisors in developing their own research.

Related links

Office of Graduate Studies

• Graduate Advisor:  David Beaver
• Graduate Coordinator: Ben Rapstine

UT Austin NLP and 

Computational Linguistics

Our work in Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics at UT Austin spans many departments and schools. We build systems that produce and understand natural language, try to understand how those systems work, study what they can tell us about human language and cognition, and think about NLP's potential harms, benefits, and impacts on society. 

Check out what we're up to in the UT Austin Natural Language Learning Reading Group .

Greg Durrett

Katrin Erk 

Linguistics & CS

David Harwath

CS & Neuroscience, Lab

Info . School (iSc hool), Lab

Linguistics , Lab

Kyle Mahowald

Desmond Ong

Psychology, Lab

Jamie Pennebaker

Psychology (Emeritus)

Psychology, Lab  

Info. School (iSchool), Lab

Trista Cao , iSchool

Sanjana Gautam , iSchool

Leonie Weissweiler , Linguistics

Ph.D. Students

RJ Antonello

Layne Berry

Alex Braylan

Hung-Ting Chen

Vanya Cohen

Wenxuan Ding

Soumyajit Gupta

Sebastian Joseph

Gauri Kambhatla

Leo Zeyu Liu

Puyuan Peng

Juan Diego Rodriguez

Zayne Sprague

Aditya Vaidya

Jordan Voas

Manya Wadhwa

Fangcong Yin

Michael J.Q. Zhang

Fangyuan Xu

Masters Students

Luke Strgar

Neuroscience

Linguistics.

Sasha Boguraev

Gabriella Chronis

Eric Holgate

William Sheffield

Hongli Zhan

Asher Zheng

Jiyang Zhang

Anubrata Das

Chi-Yang (Ethan) Hsu  

Houjiang Liu

Yiheng (Sam) Su

Emma Gueorguieva

Ruiyang Zhou

Recent Alumni and former postdocs

Kanishka Misra , Postdoc 2023-2024, Linguistics

Maaz Amjad , Post d oc 2022-2024, SSW  

Venkat Govindarajan , Ph.D. 2024, Linguistics

Xi Ye, Ph.D. 2024, CS

Kaj Bostrom, Ph.D. 2024 CS

Anisha Gunjal , M.S. 2024, CS

Ritika Mangla , M.S. 2024, CS

Smriti Singh , M.S. 2024, CS

Shailee Jain , Ph.D. 2023, CS

Anirudh Srinivasan , M.S., 2023, CS

Yili Wang , M.S. 2023, CS

Tanya Goyal , Ph.D. 2023, CS

Jifan Chen , Ph.D. 2023, CS

Yasumasa Onoe , Ph.D. 2023, CS

Pengyu Nie , Ph.D. 2023, ECE

Spencer Caplan , Postdoc 202 3, Psychology

Ryo Kamoi , M.S., 2023, CS

Sooyong Lee , M.S., 2023, CS

Venelin Kovatchev , Postdoc 2022, iSchool

Diego Garcia-Olano , Ph.D. 2022, ECE

Prasoon Goyal, Ph.D. 2022, CS

Jialin Wu, Ph.D. 2022, CS

Sheena Panthaplackel , Ph.D. 2022, CS

Wei-Jen Ko , Ph.D. 2022, CS

Jiacheng Xu , Ph.D. 2022, CS

Ashwin Devaraj , M.S. 2022, CS

Mustaf Rahman , Ph.D. 2021, iSchool

Pengxiang Cheng , Ph.D. 2020, CS

Elisa Ferracane , Ph.D. 2020, linguistics

Su Wang , Ph.D. 2020, linguistics

Laura Manor , M.A. 2020, linguistics

Aishwarya Padmakumar, Ph.D. 2020, CS

An T. Nguyen , Ph.D. 2020, CS

Neha Srikanth , M.S. 2020, CS

Ye Zhang , Ph.D. 2020, CS

Nazneen Rajani , Ph.D. 2018, CS

Jesse Thomason, Ph.D. 2018, CS

How to Apply

Deadline for applying for fall 2025.

The deadline for applying for Fall 2025 is November 15, 2024. Please note that this deadline is earlier than in preceding years . We do not admit in Spring or Summer. Decisions are announced in late February or early March.

Information about admissions can be found here:  https://gradschool.utexas.edu/admissions/apply . 

When creating your profile, make sure you enter your family name in the field "Last Name, Family Name, or Surname" and your given name in the field "First Name or Given Name." Otherwise, your application will not match your transcripts and test scores correctly.

Admission to the graduate program is not restricted to those with a BA in linguistics, and the core course offerings are specifically designed to meet the needs of entering students with little or no previous course work in linguistics. It is not necessary to have an MA to apply for the PhD in Linguistics.

Application Requirements

• Submit the Application for Admission to Graduate Study and $65 application fee to the Office of Admissions.
• You must upload one copy of the official academic transcript from every senior college you have attended. Transcripts are not required from junior colleges and community colleges. See instructions for uploading the pdf of your transcript.
• We will not be requiring applicants to have taken the Graduate Record Examinations General Test (GRE) for the fall 2024 application period. 
• Submit the Application for Undergraduate & Graduate Admission - Students From Other Countries and the $90 non-refundable processing fee. If you are admitted to UT, you will also be required to submit a Certificate of Financial Responsibility, which can be found on the UT International Office page and which shows you have sufficient funding to attend UT.
• Take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or IELTS (International English Language Testing System) in time to have the official test scores reported to the Office of Admissions by the application deadline. Look here for minimum test requirements and when exemptions may be granted.
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All applicants:

The following three items are required by the Graduate Linguistics Program.

• Statement of Purpose - a clear and straightforward statement in which you give an idea of: your current interests in linguistics; how these interests developed; your plans for graduate study and eventual specialization, even if tentative. The statement of purpose may be uploaded electronically through the online application process.
• Recommendation letters - we require three letters from professors who know you and your work. E-mails will be sent to the recommenders whom applicants identify on the application. The recommenders will receive a link which they can use to upload letters of recommendation.
• Sample research paper, or work of similar scope, that clearly demonstrates your writing ability. The sample research paper can be uploaded at this link  once your application is loaded and your application fee is paid.
• Curriculum Vitae
• List of Publications (submitted as "Supplemental Info").

Do not send official paper transcripts at this time. You will only be required to submit official paper transcripts if you are admitted to the program.

Note: All applicants are responsible for ensuring that the above mentioned items are uploaded. Applicants should contact the Linguistics Graduate Program in order to verify that all items have been uploaded by their due date.

Meet Our Doctoral Students

Pedro Andres Alba Diaz

Pedro Andres Alba Diaz is a PhD student whose research focuses on auditory signal processing and cochlear mechanics under the mentorship of Dr. Srikanta Mishra. Pedro holds a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Guanajuato in Mexico and a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the Universität zu Lübeck and the Technische Hochschule Lübeck in Germany, where he gained experience in auditory research. He has contributed to projects evaluating cochlear implant models and decoding auditory attention. Pedro enjoys traveling and spending time with friends and family outside of academia.

Amanda Ortiz-Alvarez

Amanda Ortiz-Alvarez is a Spanish-English bilingual speech-language pathologist and PhD student currently working alongside her mentor, Dr. Courtney Byrd, at the Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research. Amanda received her BA in Foreign Languages and Linguistics, as well as her MS in Speech-Language Pathology, at the University of New Mexico. Amanda's research presently strives toward exploring the lived experiences of people who stutter/stutterers and their families/relevant others to elucidate facilitators of support, adaptive change, and empowerment for individuals to communicate authentically and live life on their terms.

Sajana Aryal

Sajana Aryal is a doctoral student currently working as a Graduate Research Assistant under the mentorship of Dr. Srikanta Mishra. She earned her undergraduate degree in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology from the Institute of Medicine at Maharajgunj Medical Campus in Kathmandu, Nepal. Following that, she pursued a master's degree in Audiology at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, affiliated with Mysore University in India. She has accumulated three years of professional experience as a clinical Audiologist in private hospitals and clinics in Nepal. Her research interests encompass a variety of topics within the field, including tinnitus, hyperacusis, misophonia, cochlear synaptopathy, and extended high-frequency hearing loss. Sajana is originally from the beautiful country Nepal.

Yao Chen (M.S., CCC-SLP) is a doctoral student under the mentorship of Dr. Chang Liu in Speech Psychophysics Lab. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from Tsinghua University, China and her master’s degree in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences from UT Austin, United States. Her research interests include speech perception in noise and treatment efficacy of parent training among children with autism. She is from China.

Cissy Cheng

Cissy Cheng is a doctoral student studying under the mentorship of Dr. Rajinder Koul. Cissy earned her BA in Linguistics from Fudan University and her MS in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences from Boston University. She has experience working with clients with aphasia, autism, and voice disorders. Her research interests include speech production training using visual support, and treatment efficacy of AAC devices for people with aphasia. During her spare time, Cissy enjoys watching tennis and running.

Leah is a doctoral student studying under the mentorship of Dr. Liberty Hamilton. Leah earned her bachelor’s degree in cognitive science and technology/artificial intelligence from Xiamen University and her master’s degree in psychology from New York University. Her research interest lies in understanding how bilingualism is represented in the human brain using electrophysiological methods.

Nayanika Ghosh

Nayanika Ghosh is a doctoral student in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. She completed her undergraduate and Master’s degrees in speech-language pathology at the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore. She also completed hospital internships in speech-language pathology and worked as a clinical speech-language pathologist in India before beginning the Ph.D. program at UT. Her research interests include neurological voice disorders and evidence-based treatment of voice.

Carrie Hutchins

Carrie Hutchins received both her B.S. and M.S. degrees in CSD from Western Kentucky University. She has nearly 15 years of experience as a public school-based Speech Language Pathologist and is passionate about developmental language disorders and school-based issues. Carrie is currently enrolled in the PhD program at the University of Texas at Austin.   Her work in the Children's Language, Literacy, and Learning (CL3) Lab addresses school-based professional issues and effective practices for children with DLD in schools.

Jilliane Lagus

Jilliane Marai Lagus, MS, CCC-SLP, is a pre-candidacy doctorate student under the mentorship of Dr. Corinne Jones at the Swallow Modulation Laboratory. She completed a BS in Speech Pathology at the University of the Philippines Manila and an MS in Communication Disorders at the University of Texas at Dallas. Jilliane is interested in the thoughtful examination of the neuroscience of the aging swallow using data science techniques to unearth development patterns otherwise undetectable by manual or traditional analysis. A deeper understanding of how healthy humans eat and drink safely well into vulnerable older age will help clinicians determine better interventions that can help prevent or mitigate swallowing disorders and their effects (malnutrition, dehydration, death). Off-duty, Jilliane's goals include walking 10,000 steps a day, listening to audiobooks at x2 speed, watersports, and learning about new languages and food.

Mimi LaValley

Mimi LaValley is a certified speech-language pathologist studying under the mentorship of Dr. Rajinder Koul. Her area of interest is improving access to AAC and assistive technology for bilingual individuals with neurodevelopmental and acquired language disorders in a variety of settings including acute care.

Rylee Manning

Rylee Manning is a doctoral student under the mentorship of Dr. Stephanie Grasso in the Multilingual Aphasia and Dementia Research (MADR) Lab. She received a master’s degree in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language from the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language in San Sebastián, Spain. She also earned an M.Phil in Linguistics from Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses on developing assessment and treatment for multilingual speakers with aphasia resulting from stroke, injury and neurodegenerative disease.

Lauren Ralston

Lauren Ralston completed her Bachelor’s Degree (B.S.) and Doctorate of Audiology (Au.D.) at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a clinical audiologist and Ph.D. student under the mentorship of Julia Campbell. Her research in the Central Sensory Processes Laboratory examines how the brain reorganizes when individuals have tinnitus and/or hearing loss.

Enjoli Richardson

Enjoli Richardson is a doctoral student at The University of Texas at Austin under the mentorship of Dr. Courtney T. Byrd. She is a licensed and certified Speech-Language Pathologist with the American Speech-Language- Hearing Association. Her current research interests include exploring the intersections of Race, Gender, and Disability within culturally and linguistically diverse populations who stutter.

JoLynn Riojas

JoLynn Riojas completed her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. She is a licensed and certified speech-language pathologist and a doctoral student under the mentorship of Dr. Courtney T. Byrd. Her research interests include empowering the voices of school-age children who stutter and inspiring change in school-based speech therapy with an approach focused of communication, advocacy, resiliency, and education.

Keerthana (Keerthi) Stanley

Keerthi is a doctoral student under the mentorship of Dr. Jun Wang, and works as a graduate research assistant in the Speech Disorders and Technology Lab. She received her bachelor's degree in Neuroscience from UT Dallas in 2023. Her research interests include better understanding the cognitive processes underlying speech planning and production as well as speech kinematics, both typical and disordered.

Lisa Wauters

Lisa is a doctoral student under the mentorship of Dr. Maya Henry and works as a research speech-language pathologist at the Aphasia Research and Treatment Lab. She earned her MA in Speech-Language Pathology from UT Austin in 2016. Her primary areas of research include assessment and treatment of aphasia and cognitive-communication disorders associated with stroke, neurodegenerative disease and traumatic brain injury.

Xinming Zhou

Xinming Zhou is a doctoral student in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences studying under the mentorship of Dr. Chang Liu. Xinming received her B.A. in Cognitive Science from the University of Connecticut and an M.S. in Neuroscience from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests lie in the cognitive and neural processes of speech perception, particularly accented speech and speech-in-noise perception among typical and atypical populations.

Junyi Jessy Li

[email protected]

Associate Professor Department of Linguistics The University of Texas at Austin Computational Linguistics @ UT UT NLP Group Office: RLP 4.728

About Publications Students Teaching CV

View My GitHub Profile

I am an Associate Professor in the Linguistics Department at The University of Texas at Austin where I work on computational linguistics and natural language processing. More specifically, my research focuses on discourse processing, language generation, and NLP in social contexts. I belong to the Computational Linguistics Group at UT Linguistics , and the UT NLP Group . I obtained my Ph.D. from the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017, advised by Ani Nenkova . Usually, I go by Jessy.

Some of the topics that I am currently researching include:

• Discourse Processing : What is coherence and how do humans and machines make sense of long texts? We investigate discourse-level devices at play, e.g., discourse structure, questions under discussion (discourse comprehension as question generation and question answering), and pragmatics.
• Natural Language Generation : How can we harness, improve, and evaluate text generation models to improve information access and integrity? We study text simplification, summarization, question generation, and incorporating discourse models in generation.
• Language and Society : We seek to understand how people use language to express their emotions, and how we perceive ourselves in connection to the world impacts our language use, often in subtle ways.
• Language and Code : Together with researchers in UT’s CS and ECE departments, we develop models for software code and comments, as well as for software testing.

Activities and Service

• October 2024, talk at Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), the University of Trento
• October 2024, talk at Workshop on Mind, Language and Ethics in AI, UT Austin.
• July 2024, talk at University of Marburg; check out the slides on QUD and generation .
• July 2024, talk at UM-SJTU Joint Institute.
• May 2024, talk at Georgetown University.
• March 2024, talk at Texas A&M University Data Science Seminar Series
• November 2023, talk at Columbia University, seminar on language generation and summarization
• November 2023, talk at South by Semantics Workshop
• November 2023, talk at St. David’s CHPR Colloquium Series
• October 2023, panel on simplification and LLMs at HARC
• October 2023, talk at UT Dallas
• July 2023, *SEM invited talk: Modeling Discourse as Questions and Answers

May 2023 Colloquium at Northwestern Lingusitics

• NAACL Secretary , 2024-2025
• Tutorial Co-chair at EMNLP 2024 .
• Senior Area Chair at ACL 2025, NAACL 2025, ACL 2024 , NAACL 2024 , EACL 2024 , LREC-COLING 2024 ; Area Chair at AAAI 2024 .
• Action Editor of TACL
• (Senior) Action Editor for ACL Rolling Review
• Associated editor for the Dialogue and Discourse journal
• Co-organizer of the Workshop on Computational Approaches to Discourse (CODI)
• SIGDIAL Board Member , 2023-2025.

University Catalogs

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Lin - linguistics, linguistics: lin, lower-division courses, lin 306. introduction to the study of language..

Survey of major areas of linguistics: sound systems, grammatical structures, historical development of languages, language families and linguistic universals, dialect differences and their social significance. Three lecture hours a week for one semester.

LIN 312. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language.

An interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary introduction to the manifold aspects of language. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

LIN 312C. Culture and Communication.

Same as Anthropology 307 . An introduction to the study of culture through communication and the theory of signs. Three lecture hours or two lecture hours and one discussion hour a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Anthropology 307 , Linguistics 312 (Topic: Culture and Communication), 312C .

LIN 312D. Languages around the World.

Explores the language families of the world. Considers such questions as: what does it mean for languages to be related, and how do we know that they are related in the first place; why are there only a handful of language families in Europe and Africa while there are scores in South America and New Guinea; What can we say about where a language or language family may have originated; and how much living history is being lost as languages become endangered or extinct when people stop speaking them? Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 312 (Topic: Languages Around the World) and 312D may not both be counted.

LIN 312E. Language of Sign and Gesture.

Explores how language, a faculty that arises in the brain, is expressed by the body, both for spoken languages (via the vocal tract) and for signed languages (via the hands and face). Also includes an examination of how language, a special cognitive faculty unique to humans, intersects and overlaps with other communication systems, with a focus on gesture, the nonlinguistic communicative systems used by humans and some nonhuman species. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 312 (Topic: Language in the Body) and 312E may not both be counted.

LIN 313. Language and Computers.

Examine a conceptual, non-programming overview of how computers learn, understand, and generate human language, including text encoding, machine learning, language modeling, and text generation. Study what makes human language difficult for computers, how these challenges are overcome, and implications for society. Engage in quantitative reasoning; technical background not required. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 312 (Topic: Language and Computers) and 313 may not both be counted.

LIN 315. Speech Science.

Same as Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences 315S . Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the encoding and decoding of speech. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Communication Sciences and Disorders 315S , 358S , Linguistics 315 , 358S , Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences 315S .

LIN 119S, 219S, 319S, 419S, 519S, 619S, 719S, 819S, 919S. Topics in Linguistics.

This course is used to record credit the student earns while enrolled at another institution in a program administered by the University's Study Abroad Office. Credit is recorded as assigned by the study abroad adviser in the Department of Linguistics. University credit is awarded for work in an exchange program; it may be counted as coursework taken in residence. Transfer credit is awarded for work in an affiliated studies program. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary.

Upper-Division Courses

Lin 321l. american english..

Same as English 321L . An overview of the historical development of English in the Americas. Attention to regional, social, and ethnic differences, and their implications for public education. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. English 321L and Linguistics 321L may not both be counted. Prerequisite: One of the following: Comparative Literature 315 , English 303D , 316L , 316M , 316N , 316P , or Tutorial Course 303D .

LIN 323L. English as a World Language.

Same as English 323L . An account of the spread of English around the world; national, social, and regional varieties. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. English 323L and Linguistics 323L may not both be counted. Prerequisite: One of the following: Comparative Literature 315 , English 303D , 316L , 316M , 316N , 316P , or Tutorial Course 303D .

LIN 129S, 229S, 329S, 429S, 529S, 629S, 729S, 829S, 929S. Topics in Linguistics.

Lin 344k. phonetics: the production and perception of speech sounds..

Articulation and transcription of speech sounds; distinctive feature systems; physiological and acoustical aspects of phonetics; common phonological processes. Three lecture hours a week for one semester.

LIN 345. Language Change and Language Variation.

Introduction to the study of how languages change and the principles developed by linguists to account for these changes. Investigation of the various domains in which change occurs, and the social and linguistic motivations for change. Examines the methods linguists use to determine the earlier profile of a language or its parent language, before identified changes occurred. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Linguistics 344K .

LIN 346. Exploring Accents.

Explores how different speakers of the same language differ in their pronunciation, according to regional and social groupings. Acoustic analysis of English speakers will provide the basis of an inquiry into how and why accents differ. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 346 and 350 (Topic: Exploring Accents) may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Linguistics 344K .

LIN 350. Special Topics in the Study of Language.

Nontechnical examination of social, educational, and political problems to which current linguistic knowledge is relevant. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Varies with the topic.

Topic 3: Sign Languages and Signing Communities. Same as American Sign Language 326. Examines the grammar of signed languages, their use in signing communities, and the acquisition of signed languages as first languages. No knowledge of American Sign Language is required. May not be counted toward fulfillment of the foreign language requirement for any bachelor's degree. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing. Topic 4: Language and People. Areas in language and linguistics that most directly impact people, such as language and ethnicity, language and nation-building, and language politics. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing. Topic 5: Bilingual Language Acquisition. Examines various aspects of bilingual first language acquisition including phonology, morphology, and syntax, as well as the child's use of his/her languages. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing. Topic 6: Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Same as Latin American Studies 322 (Topic 15: Indigenous Languages of the Americas). Examines various aspects of languages in the Americas, including their linguistic structures, the cultural domains in which they exist, and their histories of language contact and change. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing. Topic 7: Language, Cognition and Rhythm. Explores connections between language and various musical forms, and what the psychological basis for these connections might be. Reading materials are drawn primarily from the published literature in psychology, linguistics, and music perception. Linguistics 350 (Topic: Language, Cognition, & Rhythm) and 350 (Topic 7) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing. Topic 10: How to Describe a Language. Practical introduction to language documentation and preservation. Subjects include language diversity and practical methods for describing, documenting, and preserving languages, with an emphasis on the phonological and morphological analysis of restricted data sets, as well as the role of linguists in conjunction with communities of speakers who wish to document or revitalize their languages. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 350 (Topic: How to Describe a Language) and 350 (Topic 10) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing. Topic 11: Speech Intelligibility. An overview of the main empirical findings on talker-, listener-, and signal-related factors that shape speech intelligibility, the degree to which spoken language can be comprehended. Explores how signal-related (physical), peripheral (auditory-perceptual), and system-related (mental) factors condition variation in both the production and perception of intelligible speech. Also examines how variation in intelligibility conditions different levels of spoken language processing and different tasks that the listener is performing during spoken language comprehension. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 350 (Topic: Speech Intelligibility) and 350 (Topic 11) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Linguistics 344K, 358S, or consent of instructor. Topic 12: Analyzing Text Data: A Statistics Toolkit for Linguists. Introduction to statistical concepts and analyses via language problems and linguistic data sets. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 350 (Topic: Words in a Haystack) and 350 (Topic 12) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing. Topic 14: Linguistics of Writing. How language relates to the written word and how linguistic analysis is intertwined with writing. Subjects include the typology and evolution of writing systems, the psycholinguistics of reading and writing, and the role of writing in contemporary language politics. Linguistics 350 (Topic: Linguistics of Writing Systems) and 350 (Topic 14) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing. Topic 15: Computational Semantics. Studies methods for automatically learning and analyzing word meanings and sentence meanings. Encompasses vector space models as well as logic-based semantics. Linguistics 350 (Topic: Computational Semantics) and 350 (Topic 15) may not both be counted. Additional prerequisite: Upper-division standing; and previous programming course in Python or Linguistics 350 (Topic 12) or consent of instructor.

LIN 350C. Language and the Brain.

Same as Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences 350 . Explore the neuroanatomical and functional operations of the major brain structures that underlie speech/language. Examine hemispheric dominance for language, neurological and language breakdowns in aphasia, and brain imaging methods and studies of language representation. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Communication Sciences and Disorders 350 ; Linguistics 350 (Topic 1); Linguistics 350C ; Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences 350 . Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 350E. Why Chinese Has No Alphabet.

Same as Asian Studies 350C . Introduction to the history and evolution of the Chinese writing system and language. No background in Chinese language, culture, or linguistics is required. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Asian Studies 350C , 361 (Topic 30), Linguistics 350 (Topic: Why Chinese Has No Alphabet), 350E . Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 350S. Word Meaning.

Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 350 (Topic: Word Meaning) and 350S may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Linguistics 306 .

LIN 351. Language and Identity.

Investigate the central importance of language to the formation of people's regional, social class, gender, ethnic, and age identities through psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, sociophonetics, and popular media sources. Examine how socially driven spoken language variation is created and how it is perceived. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 350 (Topic: Language and Identity) and 351 may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 351C. A Linguistic History of India.

Same as Asian Studies 348E . Explore the richly documented linguistic and literary history of languages in the Indian subcontinent, paying attention to linguistic phenomena, contact effects, and language-based movements. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Asian Studies 348E , Linguistics 350 (Topic: A Linguistic History of India), 351C , 373 (Topic: A Linguistic History of India). Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 351D. Language, Culture, and the Texas German Experience.

Same as American Studies 370 (Topic 47), Anthropology 324L (Topic 55), and German, Scandinavian, and Dutch Studies 351C . The evolution of the culture and language of German immigrants to Texas from the 1840s through the present and how they have influenced other ethnic groups in Texas. Three lectures a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: American Studies 370 (Topic 47), Anthropology 324L (Topic 55), German, Scandinavian, and Dutch Studies 351C , Linguistics 351D . Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 353C. Introduction to Computational Linguistics.

Introduction to key representations and algorithms used in computational linguistics and key natural language processing applications. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing; and Linguistics 350 (Topic 12) or previous programming course in Python or consent of instructor.

LIN 353D. Computational Discourse and Natural Language Generation.

Introduction to machine learning models for discourse processing and text generation. Explore open issues in NLG, including evaluation, ethics, and factuality. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Linguistics 350 (Topic 12), Computer Science 303E , 312 , or basic programming experience in Python or similar languages; and basic knowledge of probability and statistics.

LIN 353N. Natural Language Processing.

Introduces theoretical and applied topics relating to natural language processing, including machine translation, search, automatic summarization, and dialog systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Computer Science 378 (Topic: Natural Language Processing), Linguistics 350 (Topic: Natural Language Processing), 353N .

LIN 353S. English Syntax for Writing.

Same as English 345W . Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: English 345W , Linguistics 350 (Topic: English Syntax for Writing), 353S . Prerequisite: Linguistics 306 and one of the following: Comparative Literature 315 , English 303D , 316L , 316M , 316N , 316P , or Tutorial Course 303D .

LIN 357. Undergraduate Research.

Supervised research experience. Individual instruction. May be repeated for credit. Offered on the pass/fail basis only. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing and Linguistics 306 with a grade of at least C-.

LIN 358Q. Supervised Research.

Supervised student-initiated research. Individual instruction. May be repeated for credit. Offered on the pass/fail basis only. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing and Linguistics 306 with a grade of at least C-.

LIN 360K. Introduction to English Grammar.

Introduction to the study of the syntactic structure of modern English from the viewpoint of generative grammar. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. English 360K and Linguistics 360K may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 364. Introduction to Psycholinguistics.

Three lecture hours a week for one semester Linguistics 350 (Topic: Intro to Psycholinguistics) and 364 may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 364M. History of the English Language.

Same as English 364M . Development of sounds, forms, and vocabulary of the English language from its origins to the present. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. English 364M and Linguistics 364M may not both be counted. Prerequisite: One of the following: Comparative Literature 315 , English 303D , 316L , 316M , 316N , 316P , or Tutorial Course 303D .

LIN 365. Bias.

Same as Cognitive Science 365 and Human Dimensions of Organizations 365 . An interdisciplinary introduction to bias from the perspectives of psychology, political science, business, philosophy, and linguistics. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Cognitive Science 365 , 360 (Topic: Bias), Linguistics 365 , 350 (Topic: Bias), Human Dimensions of Organizations 330 (Topic: Bias), 365 . Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 371. Machine Learning for Text Analysis.

Examine basic machine learning methods, with an emphasis on building applications that intelligently analyze text. Explore supervised learning (e.g., logistic regression, neural networks), unsupervised learning (e.g., clustering), and natural language processing. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Linguistics 371 , 373 (Topic: Machine Learning Text Analysis), 373N . Prerequisite: Upper-division standing and one of the following: Linguistics 350 (Topic 12), Computer Science 303E , 312 , or basic programming experience in Python or similar languages.

LIN 372J. Meaning and Message.

Explore theories of linguistic meaning using logical and mathematical tools. Introduction to key ideas from compositional and lexical semantics. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 350 (Topic: Linguistic Meaning) and 372J may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing and Linguistics 306 .

LIN 372K. Sound Patterns: From Sound to Word.

Methods and principles of analyzing the sound systems of languages. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Linguistics 344K .

LIN 372L. Syntax and Semantics: The Structure and Meaning of Utterances.

Methods and principles of describing the syntactic systems of languages. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing and Linguistics 306 .

LIN 373C. Child Language.

Examine theory and research concerning the development of language in children. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 373 (Topic 1) and 373C may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 373D. African American Language.

Same as African and African Diaspora Studies 365C and English 364E . Introduction to the history and contemporary form of African American Language (AAL). Through readings, examine the linguistic description of essential features, the use of AAL in the creation of culturally and historically influential texts, and AAL as a subject of public discussion. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: African and African Diaspora Studies 365C , English 364D (Topic: African American English), 364E , Linguistics 373D . Prerequisite: One of the following: Comparative Literature 315 , English 303D , 316L , 316M , 316N , 316P , or Tutorial Course 303D .

LIN 373E. Endangered Languages.

Same as Anthropology 320G . Examine language rights as a tool for defending small-scale and minority language communities against the spread of national and global languages. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Anthropology 320G , 320L (Topic Language Endangerment/Rights), 320L (Topic 13), Linguistics 373 (Topic: Language Endangerment/Rights), 373 (Topic 12), 373E . Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 373G. The German Language: Historical Perspectives.

Same as Anthropology 320J and German 369 (Topic 4). Conducted in English. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Anthropology 320J , 320L (Topic 9), German 369 (Topic 4), Germanic Civilization 327E (Topic 9), Linguistics 373 (Topic 9), 373G . Prerequisite: Three semester hours of upper-division coursework in German or Linguistics.

LIN 373L. American Indian Languages and Cultures.

Same as Anthropology 320C . Explore the myriad of indigenous languages of North America and how they are intertwined with culture. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Anthropology 320C , 320L (Topic 4), Linguistics 373 (Topic: Amer Indian Langs and Culs), 373L . Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 373P. Introduction to Cognitive Science.

Same as Cognitive Science 360 (Topic 1) and Philosophy 365 (Topic 2). Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Cognitive Science 360 (Topic 1), Linguistics 373 (Topic 7), 373P , Philosophy 365 (Topic 2). Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 373S. Speech Play and Verbal Art.

Same as Anthropology 320D . Examine speech play and verbal art (from puns to lies to songs to stories to poetry) from ethnographic and linguistic perspectives in a host of contexts and languages. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Anthropology 320D , 320L (Topic 5), Linguistics 373 (Topic: Speech Play and Verbal Art), 373S . Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.

LIN 374M. Sociolinguistics.

Same as Anthropology 374M . Explore current interests in sociolinguistic research literature. Examine language and gender; social, regional, and ethnic dialects of American English; language use in African American communities; language and identity in a pluralistic society; and language, literacy, and education. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Anthropology 374M , Linguistics 350 (Topic: Sociolinguistics), 374M . Prerequisite: Anthropology 302 or Linguistics 306 .

LIN 377. Syntactic Theory.

Introduction to formal syntax, which refers to the use of a mathematically precise formalism to model the syntax of human languages and test theories against the challenge of new data. Hands-on solving of syntax puzzles of increasing complexity. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Linguistics 373 (Topic: Syntactic Theory) and 377 may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Linguistics 306 and 372L .

LIN 379. Conference Course in Linguistics.

Supervised individual study of selected problems in linguistics. Conference course. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Six semester hours of upper-division coursework in linguistics.

LIN 679H. Honors Tutorial Course.

Supervised individual reading for one semester, followed by research and writing to produce a substantial paper. Conference course for two semesters. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: For 679HA , admission to the Linguistics Honors Program; for 679HB , Linguistics 679HA .

Graduate Courses

Lin 380k. phonology i..

The descriptive techniques of generative phonology. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

LIN 380L. Syntax I.

An introduction to the description and analysis of syntax. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

LIN 380M. Semantics I.

An introduction to formal semantics and pragmatics, and the logical techniques needed to analyze them. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

LIN 380S. Sociolinguistics.

An introduction to sociolinguistic research, with attention to theoretical issues. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and Linguistics 380K and 380L .

LIN 381K. Phonology II.

Readings and problems in current phonological theory. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and Linguistics 380K .

LIN 381L. Syntax II.

Advanced description and analysis of syntax. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and Linguistics 380L .

LIN 381M. Phonetics.

Speech production and perception; acoustic phonetics; phonetics and phonology; experimental techniques. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

LIN 381S. Semantics II.

Continuation of Linguistics 380M . Descriptive methods and theoretical tools for investigating meaning in human languages; an introduction to propositional content and speech acts. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and Linguistics 380L and 380M .

LIN 382. Historical Linguistics.

The principles of language change, reconstruction of earlier linguistic stages, language contact, and language relatedness. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and Linguistics 380K .

LIN 383. Comparative and Diachronic Linguistics.

The comparative method; applications to particular linguistic families. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing; additional prerequisites vary with the topic.

Topic 3: Introduction to Romance Linguistics. Same as French 396K (Topic 1: Introduction to Romance Linguistics), Italian 396K (Topic 1: Introduction to Romance Linguistics), Portuguese 396K (Topic 2: Introduction to Romance Linguistics), and Spanish 396K (Topic 2: Introduction to Romance Linguistics). Additional prerequisite: Graduate standing in languages and consent of instructor and the graduate adviser. Topic 6: History of the Arabic Language. Same as Arabic 382C (Topic 4). Topic 8: Introduction to Diachronic Linguistics: Germanic. Same as Classical Civilization 383 (Topic 2) and German 381 (Topic 3). Only one of the following may be counted: Classical Civilizations 383 (Topic 2), German 381 (Topic 3), Linguistics 383 (Topic 8). Topic 10: Comparative Semitic Grammar. Same as Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures 383 (Topic 5). Examine Semitic languages including their phonology, morphology, and syntax. Only one of the following may be counted: Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures 383 (Topic: Comparative Semitic Grammar), 383 (Topic 5), Linguistics 383 (Topic: Comparative Semitic Grammar), 383 (Topic 10), Hebrew 382C (Topic: Comparative Semitic Grammar).

LIN 384. Language Structures.

Languages studied have included Chatino, German, Mayan, Romance languages, and others. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and twelve semester hours of upper-division coursework in linguistics.

Topic 4: German Syntax. Same as German 393K (Topic 1: German Syntax).

LIN 385. Field Methods in Linguistic Investigation.

Methods of research in phonological and grammatical description; work with speakers of under-described languages. Three lecture hours a week for one semester, with additional field hours to be arranged. Offered on the letter-grade basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

LIN 386M. Mathematical and Computational Linguistics.

Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Topic 2: Computational Linguistics I. Topic 3: Computational Linguistics II. Topic 4: Computational Linguistics III: Advanced Parsing.

LIN 387. Linguistics and Language Teaching.

Same as Curriculum and Instruction 385G (Topic 6). Designed primarily for participants in international education exchange programs. Application of the findings of linguistics to the teaching of languages. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

LIN 389C. Research in Computational Linguistics.

Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

LIN 389D. Research in Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics.

Lin 389p. research in phonetics and phonology., lin 389s. research in syntax and semantics., lin 389v. research in signed languages., lin 391. topics in descriptive linguistics..

Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing; additional prerequisites vary with the topic.

Topic 2: Studies in English Grammar. Additional prerequisite: Consent of instructor.

LIN 392. Current Developments in Linguistic Research.

A reading course in a selected area of linguistics. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Topic 1: Introduction to Cognitive Science. Same as Cognitive Science 380 (Topic 1: Introduction to Cognitive Science), Philosophy 383C, and Psychology 394U (Topic 3: Introduction to Cognitive Science). Only one of the following may be counted: Cognitive Science 380 (Topic 1), Linguistics 392 (Topic 1), 393 (Topic: Introduction to Cognitive Science), 393 (Topic: Topics in Cognitive Science), Philosophy 383 (Topic: Introduction to Cognitive Science), 383C, Psychology 394U (Topic 3). Topic 2: Tools for Linguistic Description. Basic tools for analyzing and describing a language through linguistic fieldwork, including phonetic transcription, the discovery and presentation of surface phonology, morphophonology, inflectional morphology, derivational morphology, grammatical categories, and syntax. Topic 3: Linguistic Typology. An introduction to the typological study of language: the investigation into the nature of human language, as informed by systematic cross-linguistic comparison.

LIN 393. Seminar in Linguistic Topics.

Topic 4: Neurolinguistics. Topic 6: Speech Play and Verbal Art. Same as Anthropology 393 (Topic 3). Topic 8: Linguistics of Signed Languages. Topic 9: Language Contact. Examine the phenomenon of language contact from both structural and sociocultural angles. Investigate processes and patterns involved in lexical and structural borrowing, formation of new contact varieties such as creoles and mixed languages, role of contact in driving and shaping language change, and dynamics of specific contact zones. Explore the role of discourse strategies and norms, bilingualism, code-switching, and particular sociocultural practices in determining the nature of the contact that takes place and its effects on the languages involved. Linguistics 393 (Topic: Language Contact) and 393 (Topic 9) may not both be counted.

LIN 393C. Language Acquisition.

Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

LIN 393P. Topics in Phonology and Phonetics.

Lin 393s. topics in syntax and semantics..

Topic 3: Frame Semantics. Same as German 393K (Topic 15). Explore theories and applications frame semantics within linguistics. Only one of the following may be counted: German 393K (Topic: Frame Semantics), 393K (Topic 15), Linguistics 393 (Topic: Frame Semantics), 393S (Topic 3). Additional prerequisite: Graduate standing. Topic 4: Lexical Semantics. Explore theories of word meaning, including what the basic elements of word meaning are, how those elements are composed into more complex meanings, and what kinds of grammatical processes augment and modify word meanings. Examine the nature of lexical categories, representations of events and individuals, and how a word's meaning is related to its syntactic and morphological properties. Topic 5: Lexical Semantic Typology. Examine the way word meanings and their grammatical behavior vary across languages. Examine specific case studies to explore how the same types of word meanings can be represented differently across languages and how the principles that relate word meaning to grammar also vary, focusing on argument realization, morphological processes of word building, and lexical inventories. Topic 6: Minimalist Program. Investigate work within the minimalist program, the current instantiation of the principles and parameters approach to the study of the human language faculty. Examine the development of the minimalist program, including a critical overview of its key concepts and the basic properties of its formal framework. Explore several case studies drawn from very recent work within this tradition that are illustrative of the nature of the approach. Linguistics 393S (Topic: Minimalist Program) and 393S (Topic 6) may not both be counted. Topic 7: Word Meaning and Syntax. Investigate the interface between word meaning and syntax beginning with an overview of polysemy, vagueness, prototypes, semantic change and the acquisition of word meaning. Explore the mapping from the lexicon to the syntax, focusing on predicate-argument mapping, argument alternations, and lexicalization patterns. Linguistics 393S (Topic: Word Meaning and Syntax) and 393S (Topic 7) may not both be counted.

LIN 394K. Philosophy of Language.

Same as Philosophy 394K . Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Only one of the following may be counted: Linguistics 393S (Topic: Philosophy of Language), 394K , Philosophy 391 (Topic: Philosophy of Language), 394K . Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

LIN 395. Conference Course in Linguistics.

Supervised research. Conference course. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor and the linguistics graduate adviser.

LIN 396. Topics in Sociolinguistics.

Detailed investigation of an area of current interest in sociolinguistics. Most topics provide an opportunity for field research. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing; additional prerequisites vary with the topic.

Topic 2: Introduction to Graduate Linguistic Anthropology. Same as Anthropology 392N. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor. Topic 3: Ethnography of Speaking. Same as Anthropology 393 (Topic 8: Ethnography of Speaking). Additional prerequisite: Consent of instructor. Topic 4: Turkic Cultures and Languages in Central Asia. Same as Middle Eastern Studies 381 (Topic 26: Turkic Cultures and Languages in Central Asia). Additional prerequisite: Consent of instructor. Topic 7: Grammar of the Arabic Language. Same as Arabic 382C (Topic 2).

LIN 397. Forum for Doctoral Candidates.

Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in linguistics and consent of instructor.

LIN 698. Thesis.

The equivalent of three lecture hours a week for two semesters. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: For 698A , graduate standing in linguistics and consent of the graduate adviser; for 698B , Linguistics 698A .

LIN 398R. Master's Report.

Preparation of a report to fulfill the requirement for the master's degree under the report option. The equivalent of three lecture hours a week for one semester. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in linguistics and consent of the graduate adviser.

LIN 398T. Supervised Teaching in Linguistics.

Teaching under the close supervision of the course instructor; weekly group meetings with instructor, individual consultations, and reports throughout the teaching period. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and appointment as a teaching assistant.

LIN 399W, 699W, 999W. Dissertation.

May be repeated for credit. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Admission to candidacy for the doctoral degree.

Professional Courses

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Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin offers an exceptionally diverse and comprehensive training program that is unique and unparalleled in the US. Our strength lies in our interdisciplinary approach to the teaching and applications of Linguistic Anthropology, whereby students benefit from a program grounded in sociocultural and sociolinguistic theory.

Graduate students select and combine from a broad range of expertise when developing a program of study, including:

• An ethnographically constituted, discourse-centered approach to language, culture and society;
• the close analysis of talk-in-interaction across a range of settings and contexts;
• the analysis of gesture, body comportment and semiotic uses of space;
• language endangerment and the role of the anthropologist in threatened communities;
• issues in language contact and language change;
• verbal art and the aesthetics of language production including humor, narrative and poetics;
• institutional language and its role in the reproduction of culture and the nation-state;
• the poetics and politics of translation;
• language in its relation to other semiotic media;
• post/colonial linguistic institutions.

Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin has long been at the center of the intellectual currents and theories of linguistic anthropology. Starting in the early 1970s, with the presence of such scholars as Richard Bauman, Ben Blount, Mary Sanches, Joel Sherzer, and Brian Stross, the Department was a hub of activity concerning the then emerging ethnography of speaking and performance based views of verbal art—which linked Linguistic Anthropology with concerns in Folklore and Sociolinguistics. Ties between Linguistic Anthropology and Folklore were exemplified in work by Roger Abrahams and Américo Paredes. In the 80s, UT Linguistic Anthropology was at the forefront of ethnopoetics and later the discourse-centered approach to language and culture. Key figures at the time were Steve Feld, Joel Sherzer, and Greg Urban. In the mid-90s, graduate students in Linguistic Anthropology helped create the Symposium About Language Society—Austin (SALSA), one of the premier graduate run conferences on topics of interest to Linguistic Anthropology. More recently, UT Linguistic Anthropology has been dedicated to the documentation and archiving of Indigenous languages of the Americas (resulting in the Archives of Indigenous Languages of Latin America, (AILLA).

UT Austin also has a top-ranked Department of Linguistics, and students in Linguistic Anthropology take courses with the Linguistics faculty who represent a comprehensive range of expertise, interests and language areas, including Professors Nora England, Patience Epps, Danny Law, and Tony Woodbury, among others. The departments of Anthropology and Linguistics continuously build close relationships among faculty and students through social and professional activities, which include symposia, interest groups and coordinated course offerings in such areas as natural discourse, social meaning and social variation in language, the nature of speech communities and the social basis of language change. The Texas tradition of Linguistic Anthropology has long stressed intensive ethnographic engagement and careful attention to linguistic details.

Within Linguistic Anthropology, we have a strong commitment to providing our undergraduate and graduate students with state-of-the-art equipment for coursework, field research, and data analysis in our Multimedia Lab. Relevant faculty and courses can also be found across the University, especially in the departments of English, French-Italian, Communication Studies, and Rhetoric and Composition.

In addition, faculty and students in linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics maintain a continuing interest in the linguistic and cultural diversity found in Texas and its adjacent areas, and students are encouraged to take advantage of the ample opportunities for fieldwork in the region.

• Courtney Handman
• Elizabeth Keating
• James Slotta
• Anthony K. Webster