M.A. Program

The M.A. is a degree that all students must earn en route to the Ph.D. It can under certain circumstances be a terminal degree. The M.A. requires two years of coursework and the successful completion of an oral exam, normally taken at the end of the second year. Even students who already have an MA when they enroll in the graduate program are required to earn the Berkeley Linguistics M.A.

Two Plans

The M.A. in Linguistics may be obtained under "Plan I" or "Plan II". Plan I requires 25 semester units plus a thesis. Plan II requires 30 semester units. The vast majority of students follow Plan II. All candidates for the M.A., whether following Plan 1 or Plan II (including those students who will be granted a second M.A.), must pass a 2-hour comprehensive oral examination, to be administered by their M.A. Committee.

M.A. Course Requirements

The required courses for the M.A., designed to provide the broad foundation necessary for advanced work in Linguistics, are as follows:

In addition to the required courses listed above, students are expected to fill out their program with other courses in Linguistics - or related areas - as approved by their advisor. In the two years that it generally takes to complete the M.A. program in Linguistics, it will, of course, be possible to take several other courses beyond those required for the degree.

The M.A. Committee

The Graduate Advisor acts as advisor to new students. By the beginning of the second year, students should choose a personal advisor, with whose help the M.A. Committee can be constituted when completion of the degree is imminent. This committee, with the student's advisor as chair, will have three members, one of whom will be appointed by the Department and will serve on all M.A. committees in a given year. The third member will be negotiated by the student in consultation with the student's advisor. This third member (with the permission of the Graduate Advisor) may be from outside the Linguistics Department. The M.A. Committee administers the oral M.A. examination.

The Oral M.A. Examination

To receive the M.A., all students must take a two-hour oral examination. In order for the student to progress through the graduate program in a timely fashion, this examination is taken near the end of the second year. It covers three broad areas of linguistics as follows (with about 30 minutes assigned to each area):

The purpose of the MA oral examination is twofold: first, to assess the student's general knowledge of the field of linguistics, and second, to assess the student's ability to analyze data on an impromptu basis and to argue for and against different viewpoints in front of an audience.

Each member of a student's M.A. Committee is responsible for one of the three areas selected by the student. The three areas to be covered must be apportioned among committee members prior to the scheduling of the exam.

Passing the M.A. examination, and fulfilling the coursework requirements, qualifies a student to receive the M.A. degree. This requires a formal application to the Graduate Division. After all requirements have been satisfactorily completed, the Department will recommend the degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics. (Under Plan I, there are some special requirements on preparing and filing the thesis; see the Graduate Division's 'Guidelines for Preparing a Doctoral Dissertation or Master's Thesis' on their policies & procedures page.)

Terminal M.A. degree

Not all students continue to the Ph.D. When the M.A. degree is awarded, the Department will separately recommend for or against the student's continuation into the doctoral program. If the Department recommends against, the student will have a terminal M.A.

It sometimes happens that a student fails the initial oral M.A. exam. In this case, an ad hoc committee of department faculty is appointed to decide whether the student can retake the exam. Only one re-take will be permitted; it is normally scheduled for the following semester. If a retake is not recommended, the student can, with departmental permission, elect to take a written M.A. exam. If this exam is passed, the student can be awarded a terminal M.A. degree. A failed second M.A. exam means that the student must leave the program without a degree.