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The Linguistics Major
Admissions requirements
Although the department prefers that prospective majors present a cumulative GPA of 2.50 or higher, it will accept students who meet the following minimum qualifications:
  1. Completion of at least one year of college course work or the equivalent in a foreign language.
  2. Completion of at least one writing (W) course, or a second composition (C) course beyond the College of Arts and Sciences' minimum C requirement.
  3. Completion of two quantitative and symbolic reasoning (Q/SR) courses. Note that LING 200 or 400 may satisfy part of this requirement.
  4. A minimum grade of 2.0 in each and a cumulative GPA of 2.50 in the three W and Q/SR courses.
Applicants who do not meet the minimum qualifications may appeal and may submit materials in addition to transcripts clarifying any aspect of past course work. See adviser for information on appeal procedure.


The Linguistics Major
 The following is an outline of the required courses for the Linguistics major:

Introductory course in linguistics. (5 credits)
Core courses (25 credits):
  • Phonetics I, Phonology I (LING 450, 451)
  • Syntax I, II (LING 461, 462)
  • One of:
  • Intro to Semantics (LING 442)
  • Intro to Morphology (LING 481)
  • Introduction to Sociolinguistics (LING 432)
Language courses (30 credits):
  • One year each (or the equivalent) of two languages, one of which must belong to a family of languages different from the student's own native language. For native English speakers, this means one year of study of a non-Indo-European language. Non-native speakers of English may count English as one of their languages. A student may test out of one language, but not both. For full details, contact the Linguistics Undergraduate Adviser. For full details, see the Language Requirement page.
Elective courses (20 credits):
  • Additional credits in linguistics or related fields. For full details, see the Elective Requirement section below.
Total credits: 50, in addition to required language courses


Double Majors Involving Linguistics
 Courses used to satisfy the requirements for a second major may also be used to satisfy applicable Linguistics major requirements, such as the language and elective requirements.

There is no College or University rule to the effect that courses which are potentially applicable to two majors must count exclusively towards one major or the other.


The Elective Requirement
Generally, any upper division courses (300 level or higher) in Linguistics or Romance Linguistics which you have not already used to satisfy the core course or language requirements may be applied to the elective requirement, with the exception that introductory linguistics courses may not be used to fulfill the elective requirement. Additionally, LING 220 and 270 may count towards the elective requirement. You are required to take one of LING 432, 442, or 481 for the core course requirement. You may use the others toward the Linguistics Elective requirement.

Many departments on campus offer classes that are related to linguistics. These may be counted toward the Linguistics Elective requirement. See the list of approved elective courses in other departments.

NOTE: If you want to take a class outside the linguistics department that is related to linguistics but is not on the approved list, contact the Undergraduate Adviser for more information.

Linguistics Department Course Offerings
For current course offerings, consult the Time Schedule.

For complete lists and descriptions of the department's course offerings, consult the General Catalog:
University of Washington Department of Linguistics   |   Box 354340 Seattle, WA 98195-4340   |   Phone: (206) 543-2046   |   Fax: (206) 685-7978   |   phoneme@u.washington.edu
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