Getting Started

College: HFA

Information below is meant to guide first year students in getting starting with this major and choosing appropriate courses. More advanced students interested in this major would also likely start with proposed foundation/pre-requisite courses. Please refer to the Major page located in the left menu bar to learn about the full major requirements.

How to Explore / Get Started in the Major

Suggested General Education Courses

All Undergraduates are required to satisfy the General Education Requirements. Guidelines for students are available at https://www.umass.edu/gened.

Although no General Education courses are specifically recommended, logic and mathematics courses are valuable.

Suggested Major and Pre-requisite Courses

LINGUIST 201 (R2) is a prerequisite to LINGUIST 401, 402, 404, 412, 414, 505, 509, 510. In addition, LINGUIST 101 would be a good choice.

How to Declare the Major

This major is unrestricted, which means any student may declare the major. Unrestricted majors may still have an entry process such as meeting with an advisor or attending an informational meeting.

Students should declare the major by the first semester of their junior year at the latest. A grade of "A" in LINGUIST 201 is highly desirable. All students are urged to meet with an undergraduate advisor in Linguistics to plan their program.

Summary of Requirements for the Major

Minimum total # of credits required: 36 (or more depending on major focus)

Students must earn a cumulative GPA of at least 2.0 in the major.

Linguistics offers a “pure” major and nine interdisciplinary majors in which the study of linguistics forms a significant part of the curriculum. The pure major includes a six-credit cross-linguistic grammar requirement. The joint majors combine Linguistics with Anthropology, Chinese, German, Japanese, Philosophy, Portuguese, Psychology, Russian, or Spanish. All majors require a certain number of central linguistics courses, and these are combined with courses from the other discipline in the joint majors.

In addition, all majors must satisfy the HFA foreign language requirement and the Junior Year Writing and Integrative Experience requirements. Joint majors may satisfy the Junior Year Writing and Integrative Experience requirements in either department. Students interested in any of these majors should see their advisor in Linguistics to plan their program.

For interdisciplinary majors combining Linguistics and another discipline beyond those listed above, students should see their advisor in Linguistics to plan a major through the BDIC Program.

Is there a minor? If so what are the requirements?
Yes. A total of five courses (15 credits) comprise the minor. Refer to the Minor page located in the left menu bar to learn more.

For further information, contact:
Prof. Ellen Woolford
N440 Integrative Learning Center
(413) 545-6841
woolford@linguist.umass.edu

Prof. Magda Oiry
N416 Integrative Learning Center
(413) 545-6826
moiry@linguist.umass.edu

Prof. Kristine Yu
N422 Integrative Learning Center
(413) 545-6830
krisyu@linguist.umass.edu

Prof. Brian Dillon
N436 Integrative Learning Center
(413) 577-4198
brian@linguist.umass.edu