Classroom at the University of Rochester

An Evolving Linguistics Curriculum

Our graduate curriculum has grown tremendously in the last few years and has recently been reviewed and refined to align with emerging research, student needs, and best practices in linguistic pedagogy. Our evolving curriculum gives graduate students a stronger foundation and greater flexibility to shape their academic path. With clearer course sequences and more robust requirements, students gain the depth needed to conduct advanced research across multiple subfields.

Fall 2025

New PhD Course Requirements

We've reevaluated the PhD course requirements to ensure our students are devloping a reasonably substantial breadth and depth in our program. PhD students must take at least eight foundational courses and four elective courses, including at least one seminar, for a total of twelve core courses, or 48 credit hours. The new course requirements can be found on the PhD program page, and will be added to the new PhD handbook released in May 2025.

Who Does This Impact?

These new course requirements apply to all PhD students admitted in Fall 2025 and onward. While PhD students in previous cohorts are not bound by the new course requirements, they are highly encouraged to take as many of these courses as they're able to. It's in every student's best interest to take advantage of the breadth and depth of this new curriculum.

Recent Curriculum Updates

  • A new PhD handbook will be released by the end of May 2025 to represent the program updates that were made in the 2024-2025 academic year.
  • We've reevaluated the PhD course requirements to ensure our students are devloping a reasonably substantial breadth and depth in our program. These new course requirements apply to all PhD students admitted in Fall 2025 and onward.
  • The department is excited to introduce newly structured course sequences in syntax, sound, and morphology, which involved renaming existing courses, as well as creating a range of new courses that will begin being offered in Fall 2025. A few of these new courses include: Statistical Methods in Linguistics, Languages of Africa, Phonetics, Phonology, Topics in Sociolinguistics, and Prosody.
  • We’ve clarified our policy on testing out of foundational courses—highlighting that exceptions are rare and must be earned through demonstrated, substantial expertise. Students testing out of a course must still complete an equivalent or more advanced course in that subfield to satisfy the foundational requirement. Additionally, PhD candidacy now follows the successful defense of the second qualifying paper.

2024-2025

Linguistics Course Catalog

For a full and updated list of linguistics courses, reference our most recent course catalog for the 2024-2025 academic year. The next academic year's course catalog will be released in late May.

While we try to maintain a consistent course offering pattern, due to faculty leaves, enrollment numbers, and curricular changes, we can't always accomodate this. Use the links below to check out the courses that are currently beging offered and our course offering history.

Contact Us

Get in Touch

For more information about the Department of Linguistics, our programs, our research, or our courses, send us an email.