SUMMARY OF
A PROPOSAL FOR A Ph.D. IN LINGUISTICS
Department of English
George Mason University
The Washington D.C. metropolitan area, including Northern Virginia, has an
extremely diverse population, speaking many different native languages.
Because a working knowledge of English is so highly advantageous, there is a
great demand for qualified ESL instructors and consequently a demand for
theoretically informed linguists with a specialization in second language
acquisition. Linguistic science has revealed that theoretical linguistic knowledge
is of great utility to those who teach language, administer language programs,
deal with language policy and planning, and work in other areas related to the
structure and acquisition of human language.
The GMU Linguistics Program administers two graduate programs: the English:
Linguistics MA degree, as well as a program leading to a Teaching English as a
Second Language (TESL) Certificate. Both graduate programs are designed to
illustrate ways of examining the nature of language to those whose jobs it will be
to teach it.
With the proposed Ph.D. in linguistics, we seek to extend this involvement in
language acquisition and the major subfields of linguistics into interesting
research on the nature and mechanisms of language and the limitations and
constraints on how it works.
Our proposed Ph.D. Program in Linguistics will train students to be research
scientists in academia, industry, and government. Students with a Ph.D. in
Linguistics will be qualified to work as research and teaching professors at
universities around the world. Many applied linguistics programs are in need of
faculty who are trained in linguistic theory and second language acquisition. Our
Ph.D.s could work in other areas relating to second language acquisition: they
can work as administrators of language-learning programs or do governmentfunded research in applied linguistics. They can also work as researchers at
hospitals in speech pathology. In the industrial world, our graduates can serve as
linguists in the area of machine language understanding and computational
linguistics. These are the areas currently involved in the design of intelligent web
searching, machine translation, voice recognition, and automated services.
The Ph.D. Program in Linguistics will consist of the following components: core
linguistics courses in phonology, syntax, and semantics, with a focus on second
language acquisition, fundamental courses in research methods, seminars in the
core theoretical areas and in second language acquisition, elective courses,
qualifying papers, and dissertation research.
All students are required to do 72 credit hours of course work and dissertation
research to complete the program requirements successfully. Of the 72 hours, 36
hours are for core and second language acquisition course requirements. 36
additional hours are required: 6 hours of additional advanced seminars in two
chosen core areas, 12 hours of electives (which may be taken in the Linguistics
Program, Modern and Classical Languages, Psychology, Philosophy, or
Education and Human Development), 6 hours of qualifying research papers, and
at least 12 hours of dissertation research.
Ph. D. graduates are expected to demonstrate the ability to carry out original
independent research in linguistics. This may include research in any of the core
areas of phonology, syntax, or semantics. Students may concentrate in second
language acquisition or areal linguistics, such as Spanish linguistics. The
graduate of our program will have a demonstrated knowledge of linguistic theory
and second language acquisition and will be able to build bridges linking theory
to acquisition. Many of the graduates will benefit from a rigorous TA mentoring
program where there will be a concerted effort to train students to be effective
teachers of linguistics.
The doctoral program will be the only Ph.D. program in linguistics in Virginia. It is
designed to be accessible to eligible students coming out of our own Master’s
degree in English: Linguistics, as well as by any new qualified student with or
without a master’s degree in linguistics from another institution. The program will
accommodate both full- and part-time students. All coursework for a student
entering without a linguistics master’s can be completed by a full-time student
within four years. We anticipate that qualified students will gain valuable research
and teaching skills from various graduate research assistantships and teaching
assistantships. In particular, teaching assistantships will allow graduate students
to teach in our growing undergraduate linguistics concentrations.
The program is compact and self-contained, yet designed to allow students to
fulfill many of the elective courses from a selected set of other programs
including Modern and Classical Languages, Psychology, Philosophy, and the
College of Education and Human Development.
A recent survey of the linguistic job listings shows 111 jobs at the assistant
professor level at American universities. Of these, approximately 35 jobs are in
second language acquisition — precisely the area of specialization that our
program addresses. A significant proportion of the 111 jobs call for a
specialization in some foreign language. This areal studies focus plays to one of
GMU's strengths: the Modern and Classical Languages Department at GMU has
several linguistically sophisticated faculty, and we plan to involve them actively in
this project, enhancing our Ph.D program’s interdisciplinary nature.