PhD Program
Our doctoral program focuses on educating a small number of PhD students as high quality researchers and teachers. Many of our students go on to take on academic positions in linguistics departments, and we also support students in pursuing alternatives to traditional academic positions.
PhD in Linguistics
The Department of Linguistics offers graduate work leading to the PhD degree. Students may concentrate their graduate work in any of the following areas: syntax, semantics, phonology, phonetics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, language variation, and computational linguistics. 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 linguistics at universities around the world. A 2024 study found that 5.7% of the positions in linguistics departments in the US and Canada were held by our alumni, the third most of 77 PhD granting departments. Our PhD students are also successful in finding positions outside of traditional academic ones, and we support those career paths in professional development.
As one of the top graduate programs in linguistics, the UMass Amherst program receives more than 150 applications each year, but can only accept between five and seven 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, foreign language programs, and mathematics. The PhD program normally lasts five years.
Structure of the PhD program
The program is structured to train students to become skilled linguists, capable of outstanding independent scientific research and teaching. Course requirements are structured to emphasize the core areas of syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, language variation, and computational linguistics. Very early in their graduate education, students begin pursuing original research projects, learning to evaluate different models critically. Like scientific research in any field, this is a collaborative effort in which both students and faculty participate. In the process, a great deal of learning takes place in individual interactions between a single faculty member and a student, or among the students themselves. Most coursework is completed in the first three years of the program, with the fourth and fifth years devoted to dissertation research and preparation. Students must successfully write and defend two “generals” papers and a “breadth” paper before beginning dissertation work. See more on the PhD program requirements.
Advising
The Graduate Program Director (GPD) advises all first-year students. By the end of the third semester, each student forms a Doctoral Guidance Committee (DGC), consisting of two specialists for the general paper and a third member (the 'Chair') appointed by the GPD. Each semester the DGC meets with the student to provide continuing advice and supervision in planning a course of study before embarking on dissertation research. The DGC also approves the completed generals papers.
Teaching
Since most people holding a PhD in linguistics become university teachers, it is important for a graduate program to set up a framework within which teaching skills can be developed. The department therefore requires that every student acquire some teaching experience, either through faculty/student team teaching or by being responsible for teaching a section of one of our introductory courses. In addition, most seminars are structured in such a way as to provide maximum student responsibility and opportunity for classroom participation. See more on the department's teaching philosophy and teaching resources.
Please see the Graduate Handbook for details on the program.