PhD in Linguistics
Dawei Jin, presenting a conference paper (now an Assistant Professor Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China)
Overview
The mission of the department’s PhD program is to train students to do research in linguistics and produce research that reflects the values and the mission of the department as a whole, to prepare them for academic jobs at teaching universities, liberal arts colleges, or major research universities and for jobs outside of academia. Our goal is to ensure that all of our students have at the end of their study an academic or industry position that requires a PhD in Linguistics. Our doctoral degree track focuses on breadth and empirical/experimental methodologies. Students receive training in traditional disciplines such as syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonetics and phonology, and they may also receive substantial training in other areas, such as language typology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, and historical and contact linguistics. All of our students are required to take at least two semesters of Methods classes, which include courses in Field Methods, Quantitative Methods and Statistics, Corpus Linguistics and Computational Linguistics. Our students are also encouraged to explore interdisciplinary research within the UB Center for Cognitive Science, and many of our students receive extensive training in Cognitive Science through collaborations with the Psychology or Computer Science departments.
PhD Funding
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We are committed to recruiting the very best PhD students and preparing doctoral students for career success. UB features:
- World-class faculty experts mentor PhD students in a dynamic research and learning environment. Students can focus on their research and scholarship alongside renowned faculty while preparing for the careers and professions that await them after graduation.
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PhD Funding Opportunities
- Academic year stipends of $23,000 and a full tuition waiver for all full-time, funded PhD students on 10-month academic teaching assistant, research assistant, or graduate assistant appointments.
- UB’s stipend levels are competitive among public Association of American Universities (AAU) member institutions.
- Additional Fellowship Opportunities:
- Arthur A. Schomburg Fellowship Program: Candidates are required to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and must demonstrate how they have overcome a disadvantage or other impediment to success in higher education. Candidates must also demonstrate a commitment to contributing to the diversity of the student body by facilitating and enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in their academic programs and campus activities. Even though financial need is not a requirement for program eligibility, applicants may utilize economic disadvantage as a basis for eligibility. This scholarship program is open to any and all prospective candidates regardless of race, color, national origin, or sex, and is consistent with all current governing federal and state nondiscrimination law. All application submissions will be assessed and evaluated in accordance with the required eligibility criteria. Students may apply for the Schomburg Fellowship on the UB graduate application for their program.
- Presidential Fellowships: To be eligible for Presidential Fellowships, candidates must meet the criteria listed on the Presidential Fellowship page. Both domestic and international students are eligible, if they meet these criteria. For any questions regarding funding for academic year 2025–2026, contact the director of graduate studies or department chair.
- Arthur A. Schomburg Fellowship Program: Candidates are required to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and must demonstrate how they have overcome a disadvantage or other impediment to success in higher education. Candidates must also demonstrate a commitment to contributing to the diversity of the student body by facilitating and enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in their academic programs and campus activities. Even though financial need is not a requirement for program eligibility, applicants may utilize economic disadvantage as a basis for eligibility. This scholarship program is open to any and all prospective candidates regardless of race, color, national origin, or sex, and is consistent with all current governing federal and state nondiscrimination law. All application submissions will be assessed and evaluated in accordance with the required eligibility criteria. Students may apply for the Schomburg Fellowship on the UB graduate application for their program.
Application Deadlines
December 15: All PhD applicants wishing to be considered for financial support
March 1: All other international PhD applicants
April 1: All other domestic PhD applicants
Online Application
PhD Program Metrics
Degree Requirements
| Credit Hours: 72 | |
| Core Courses (Students with substantial prior preparation in linguistics choose one core course in each of the areas of: (1) Phonetics/Phonology;(2) Morphosyntax; (3) Semantics – plus a fourth course in their desired area of specialization; students without substantial prior preparation take two core courses in each area.) |
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| Specialization Courses |
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| Breadth |
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| Methods Courses* |
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| Electives |
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For most students with no transfer credits from other institutions, the categories in the table above should account for 48 of the 72 credits required for the Ph.D. The remaining 24 credits can be Independent Study, thesis/dissertation guidance or up to 12 credits from other UB departments. (Students in the Cognitive Science track and those earning a concurrent M.S. in Computational Linguistics may be permitted to take additional courses in other departments in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies.)
*Students should consult the Director of Graduate Studies to determine which Methods courses are more appropriate given their intended specializations.
PhD students are required to take four courses in their main specialty (including relevant core and methods courses), and are expected to choose their two methods courses in accordance with their specialization. Students need not choose their area of specialization early in their graduate career; faculty only expect that students take these four courses by the time they finish their course work (i.e., complete their 72 credit hours).
Students admitted to the PhD track who decide, during the first or second year, that they no longer wish to pursue a PhD, may instead complete the course requirements for the MA specialization and take the MA exam.
Specializations and Applicable Courses
This list of courses is intended only as a guideline, and additional classes may be added to these lists upon approval by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS). Please also note that some courses are more frequently taught than others. Students should contact the DGS to inquire about future course scheduling.
| Phonetics and Phonology | Phonology practicum (LIN 502) Phonetics (LIN 531) Phonology I (LIN 532) Phonology II (LIN 533) Historical Linguistics (LIN 539) Acquisition of Phonology (LIN 556) Prosodic analysis of natural discourse (LIN 558) Advanced seminar in Phonology (LIN 612) Advanced Phonetics (LIN 670) |
| Morphosyntax | Morphology (LIN 510) Syntax I (LIN 515) Typology and Universals (LIN 525) Syntax II (LIN 535) The Syntax of Romance (LIN 537) Discourse and Syntax (LIN 604) Approaches to the Lexicon (LIN 608) Current syntactic theory (LIN 614) Advanced Morphology (LIN 616) Role and Reference grammar (LIN 625) Functional morphosyntax (LIN 626) Structure of a non-Indo-European language (LIN 630) Linguistic description of an American language (LIN 631-633) |
| Semantics and Pragmatics | Discourse pragmatics (LIN 504) Meaning and communicative behaviors (LIN 506) Conversational analysis (LIN 507) Linguistic Anthropology (LIN 521) Semantics I (LIN 538) Semantics II (LIN 543) Formal semantics (LIN 548) Introduction to cognitive linguistics (LIN 580) Cognitive foundations of language (LIN 581) Language and cognition (LIN 582) Empirical semantics (LIN 606) Semantics of space, time, and force (LIN 636) Cognitive structure of language (LIN 637) Advanced discourse analysis (LIN 723) |
| Psycho/Neurolinguistics* | Corpus linguistics (LIN 514) Psycholinguistics (LIN 517) Language acquisition (LIN 555) Neurolinguistics (LIN 592) Cross-linguistic study of language development (LIN 603) Topics in psycholinguistics (LIN 641) |
*Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics are highly interdisciplinary and may involve substantial work in other departments.
The qualifying paper (QP) is required of students who have been admitted to the Doctoral program in the Department of Linguistics. It must be completed before the student can pass on to Phase 2 of the program (i.e., the phase during which students conduct their PhD thesis research).
The QP is intended to give the student experience in carrying out a research project that goes beyond what is normally required of a course paper; however the project certainly can evolve out of a course paper. The paper should have the format of a journal submission, and be between 9,000 and 12,000 words in length.
Early in their second year of graduate study, the student should choose a faculty member who will advise the student while he or she is working on the QP. (The faculty member may be, but does not have to be, the same faculty who will direct the student’s dissertation.) The role of the advisor is to guide the student as he or she is carrying out the research and the writing. The student, together with the advisor, select a second committee member (or “reader”), who will read and comment on the QP.
Once the QP has been approved by the advisor, the Director of Graduate Studies will assign a third committee member (or “reader”), and the other members of the QP committee will then read the QP and provide feedback or simply approve the paper if no additional revisions are necessary. When the committee has approved the QP, the three faculty sign the approval form. Students return the form to the Director of Graduate Study after all three faculty have signed the form, and (s)he will also sign it. Finally, the form is sent to the graduate secretary, so that (s)he can enter the information into our student database and file the form in the student’s file.
Students are required to make an oral presentation of their QP research at the end of their fifth semester (at the latest), and to finish their QP by the end of the sixth semester (at the latest). Upon completion of a student’s QP, the faculty as a whole will either determine whether (s)he should passed onto Phase 2 of the PhD program. In the event a student is not passed onto the P.D phase of the program, (s)he will earn a terminal MA and will leave the program.
The dissertation proposal is not intended to be a paper in the same sense as the QP. Rather, the dissertation proposal should be viewed as a very long abstract. It should include a statement of the topic (or hypothesis/claim); the context for the research (Why should other linguists be interested in the research? How does it fit into previous research?); the methodology and nature of the data or evidence that the student hopes to collect or find; and, perhaps, a preview of the conclusions the student hopes to present or the contribution the dissertation will make. Generally, the proposal should not be any longer than 20 pages; however the dissertation advisor ultimately determines the form of the proposal.
The proposal defense is simply a meeting of the committee members and the student to ensure that everyone is clear about the nature of the topic, the scope of the research, and the methodology. Typically, no one “fails” a proposal defense, since the primary goal is to clarify and comment on the research before the research begins. The student should be aware, however, that the proposal defense may result in significant changes in the research plan.
Once the proposal defense has taken place, the committee members sign the form, the form is returned to the Director of Graduate Studies to sign, and finally the form is sent to the Assistant to the Chair.
