Jump to the main content block
  1. Home
  2. Academics
  3. M.A. Program in Linguistics

M.A. Program in Linguistics

An Overview of the M.A. Program

The M.A. program in Linguistics was established in 1986 and is the first M.A. program in Linguistics at public universities in Taiwan. It is well known that the M.A. program contains a large number of required courses. This is because the curriculum is designed to introduce students to the basic concepts and essential analytical skills in theoretical linguistics so as to lay a solid foundation for further research. In addition, elective courses are offered on a regular basis, with a wide range of specialties, including, acoustic phonetics, Austronesian linguistics, Chinese dialectology, comparative syntax, construction grammar, discourse analysis, experimental phonology/phonetics, formal semantics, functional syntax, language acquisition, language contact, language documentation, lexical semantics, minimalist syntax, morphology, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, typology, etc.

Requirements for the M.A. Program in Linguistics

To earn an M.A. degree in Linguistics at NTHU, students must complete all the following requirements within four (4) years:

  1. Course requirements: All students must complete 28 credit hours of course work for a grade, of which 23 credits are of the required courses and 5 credits are of the elective courses.
  2. Thesis credits: In addition to 28 credit hours of course work, students must take 4 credit hours of Thesis.
  3. Language proficiency: Coursework taken for the second foreign language
  4. Qualifying Exam: Students must pass an oral defense of the qualifying paper. The qualifying paper must be written in one of the following areas: phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology, experimental linguistics, and historical linguistics.
  5. An M.A. thesis

Course Requirements for the M.A. program in Linguistics

  • Phonology (Ⅰ) (3 credits) and Phonology (Ⅱ) (3 credits)
  • Syntax (Ⅰ) (3 credits) and Syntax (Ⅱ) (3 credits)
  • Articulatory Phonetics (2 credits) [Fall of the 1st year]
  • Field Methods (3 credits) [Fall of the 2nd year, Prerequisite: Articulatory Phonetics]
  • Choose two from the following three courses (6 credits in total):
    • Historical Linguistics (3 credits) [ususally offered in Spring semesters]
    • Formal Semantics (3 credits) [ususally offered in Fall semesters]
    • Introduction to Neurolinguistics (3 credits) [ususally offered in Fall semesters]
  • The electives: five (5) or more credits offered by the Institute of Linguistics (usually two courses)

For past courses please visit NTHU course info page or this page.

Policies and procedures (in Chinese)