Prospective Students
Current Students
Ph.D. in Linguistics
The Department of Linguistics offers graduate work leading to the Ph.D. degree. Students may concentrate their graduate work in any of the following areas: syntax, semantics, phonology, phonetics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, morphology, and Optimality Theory. Graduate training in the department is strongly oriented toward preparing students to carry on individual creative research and teaching in theoretical linguistics as early as possible in their graduate careers. The graduate program is set up so as to maximize close student-faculty contact. Most of our students go on to become professors in the field of theoretical linguistics at universities around the world.
As one of the top four graduate programs in theoretical linguistics, the UMass Amherst program receives more than 130 applications each year, but can only accept between 5 and 8 students a year. Because of the structure of the program, applications are accepted only for fall semester admission.
Interdepartmental Work
Our students often do additional graduate-level work at the University in departments with course offerings related to the study of natural language, such as Philosophy, Computer Science, Communication Disorders, Psychology, the foreign language programs, and Mathematics. Though the Ph.D. program normally lasts five years, students with a largely interdisciplinary plan of study may extend to a sixth year with departmental consent.
Cognitive Science Certificate Program
Members of the Linguistics, Computer Science, Philosophy, and Psychology departments at the University and the other institutions of the Five College Consortium (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges) work together in a Cognitive Science Graduate Certificate Program, which holds evening interdisciplinary seminars and colloquia during the year.