nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu>,
Larry Horn, Frances Ingemann, Craig Melchert, Paul Kershaw, Ed
Burstynsky, Mark H Aronoff, Bill Merrifield, Wayne O'Neil, Bernard
Comrie.
Stanley Dubinsky
Linguistics Program
University of South CarolinaEditor for this issue: <>
UNIVSCVM.bitnet>On April 9, 1993, I posted the following query: > We are interested in finding out about non-IE/"exotic" language > requirements (at the Ph.D. level) in other linguistics departments and > programs. > (1) Does your program have such a requirement? > (2) How many semesters of the language must be taken to meet the > requirement? > (3) What (semester) level of competence must be achieved to meet the > requirement? I received responses from individuals at the following 16 institutions: Cornell University University of Essex, UK University of California - Los Angeles University of Illinois - Urbana/Champaign San Diego State University Ohio State University University of Florida Yale University University of Kansas University of North Carolina Michigan State University University of Toronto State University of New York - Stony Brook University of Texas - Arlington MIT University of Southern California The following summary also includes my own institution, University of South Carolina Four of the seventeen institutions have no specific non-IE requirement: MSU, USC, OSU, Essex, and UCLA. Some specific comments: University of Essex: Like most British departments, we are small by comparison with many American ones and don't require (or even offer) an 'exotic' language course. However, many of our PhD students are native speakers of non-IE languages, and most of them tend to work on their native language, so the pragmatic impetus for such a requirement is perhaps limited. UCLA: At UCLA we do not have an exotic lg requirement at the PhD level although such languages are accepted as fulfilling the two lg requirement for the PhD. OSU: Up until last year, we had a pretty heavy requirement--for the Ph.D.: reading knowledge of two languages relevant to a student's area ... an exam in the history or structure of any language, and 10 credit hours and/or a "linguistically oriented knowledge" of a language that was not "standard average European" (essentially Romance and Germanic, though for some reason, Modern Greek was considered standard average European while Ancient Greek was not). Last year, as we were revising our graduate program requirements, the language requirements bit the dust. ... The only language requirement for the Ph.D. degree is: Students must demonstrate a linguistically oriented knowledge of a language other than a [their] native language (or dominant language, in the case of bilinguals). This requirement may be fulfilled by taking 10 hours of linguistically-oriented course work on an appropriate language (on the history or structure of a language, for instance) or by writing a substantive paper that incorporates ... substantial primary data from the chosen language. MSU: Now that M.S.U. has gone to semesters, there's not enough time to take the technical classes plus the language classes, and so the non-IE language requirement has unfortunately been dropped. Of the institutions listed above, 12 of 17 have some requirement having to do with knowledge of a non-IE, "exotic", or uncommonly taught language (Cornell, Illinois, SDSU, Florida, Yale, Kansas, UNC, Toronto, SUNY-Stony Brook, UT - Arlington, MIT, and South Carolina). In the case of SDSU, the course in question is one of a group of four courses, out of which three must be taken. Of course, as might be imagined, the class of languages which fulfill such requirements vary widely. At South Carolina, students may take Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, or Swahili. The distinction is rather easy to make, since all the other languages taught at the university are commonly taught, European, IE languages. At Cornell, Basque (which is European but non-IE) counts, and so does Singhala (which is IE, but not European). Illinois has a "non-western" language requirement. Some Indo-European languages count toward the requirement: hindi, sanskrit, persian, etc. Frequently used are african languages, arabic, and hebrew. Some students have chinese/japanese/korean, etc. Students from "non-western" countries don't have to take any more "non-western" languages. At the University of Toronto, (for a B.A. in linguistics) there is an "exotic language" requirement. Over the years the term "exotic" has been relaxed to include Slavic, etc. Romance and Germanic are excluded. At MIT, the "Less Familiar Language" requirement used to be strictly a non-IE one, but got changed to its present form after Greek and Irish arose as candidate languages. As might be imagined, there is no single approach for dealing with students whose native language happens to fit into the non-IE or "exotic" category. Some programs (Essex) cite this as one reason for not having such a requirement. In some programs (Illinois), native speakers of a "non-western" language are exempt from the "non-western" language requirement. It was also noted that native speakers of a non-IE language can, in some instances, fulfill this requirement by taking two introductory semesters of their own language (although it is not clear to me whether this is ever official policy). The manner in which this requirement may be fulfilled varies from institution to institution. As can be seen in the table below, five programs (SDSU, Kansas, SUNY-SB, UT-Arlington, and MIT) require a course (or courses) in the structure/analysis of an "exotic" language (or language group). Five programs allow students to meet the requirement either through a structure course or through study of the language itself (Cornell, Illinois, Florida, Yale, and UNC). Two programs have students take language instruction to meet the requirement (Toronto and South Carolina). There are also two programs which allow students to meet this requirement by "writing papers demonstrating knowledge of the phonology and syntax of the language" (Kansas) or by "successfully completing 1) a master's thesis on the linguistic structure of a non-Indo European language, or 2) a detailed examination on the structure of a non-Indo European language together with a substantial paper ... on the structure of the language examined" (UT - Arlington). The required number of courses to meet this requirement also varies somewhat. Taking one year of language instruction satisfies the requirement for all those programs which have the option, except for Illinois and Toronto, which require 2 years of instruction. Of those programs which offer a structure course to fulfill the requirement, only Cornell requires two semesters. One problem with using language instruction in a non-IE language to satisfy this requirement in a graduate program is that it typically involves registering for two semesters of lower division undergraduate instruction, and some graduate schools are loathe to count these credits towards the completion of a graduate degree. This is a problem here at South Carolina, and was mentioned as having been a problem at Florida. language typology/struc/field methods Cornell 2 sem 2 sem (typology, structure of X) Illinois 4 sem 1 sem (structure of X) SDSU ----- 1 sem (exotic lg structures) Florida 2 sem 1 sem (structure of X) Yale 2 sem 1 sem (structure of X) Kansas _____ 1 sem (struct); or research paper North Carolina 2 sem 1 sem (structure of X) Toronto 4 sem (BA) ----- SUNY - Stony B ----- 1 sem (structure of X) UT - Arlington ----- 1 sem (struct); or paper/thesis MIT ----- 1 sem (structure of X) South Carolina 2 sem ----- I hope that this summary may be of use to someone else out there. It will certainly be so to us. Many thanks to the following people for taking the time to respond: Ed Rubin, Andrew Spencer, Vicki Fromkin, Lynne Murphy, Zev bar-Lev, Brian D. Joseph, John Bro, PAINTER <M384512Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue