Departmental Honors

The Departmental Honors program requires 16 credits of honors coursework, the completion of which enables you to graduate "With Honors." You do not have to be enrolled in the University Honors Program (a 32-credit program) to undertake the Departmental Honors program (a 16-credit program). All University Honors Program participants must, however, complete the 16 credit Departmental Honors program as part of their overall University Honors requirements.

Departmental Honors students must maintain an overall 3.20 grade point average and a 3.20 average in the major. Required honors coursework is as follows:

  • Students must successfully complete LING 793H (Phonetics and Phonology) and LING 794H (Syntax and Semantic Theory), and ONE course from the list below. Each of these courses will require additional work from honors students, which must be recorded on a Change of Honors Designation Form.
  • Students must successfully complete a written thesis/project for LING 795H/796H (Senior Honors, 4 credits), under the supervision of a member of the Interdepartmental Linguistics faculty. The proposal for the thesis project will be approved by the Linguistics Coordinator, subject to review by the Interdepartmental Linguistics Committee. The student is advised to enroll in a 700-level course related to the thesis project in the same semester or the semester preceding the work on the thesis project. Below are some recent research topics that students have examined for their honors theses.

Honors Courses

  • ENGL 715, Methods of Teaching English as a Second Language
  • ENGL 716, Curriculum and Materials in English as a Second Language
  • ENGL 718, English Linguistics and Literature
  • ENGL 719, Sociolinguistics Survey
  • ENGL 727, World Englishes
  • ENGL 752, History of the English Language
  • ENGL 779, Linguistic Field Methods
  • LLC 791, Methods of Foreign Language Teaching
  • LING 790, Special Topics in Linguistic Theory
  • PHIL 550H, Logic (Honors) (Note on Gen. Ed. requirements)*
  • PHIL 745, Philosophy of Language
  • PSYC 712, Psychology of Language
  • RUSS 733, History and Development of Russian
  • SPAN 733, History of the Spanish Language


*If PHIL 550H is used to satisfy the Honors requirement in Linguistics, then it may not be used to satisfy a General Education requirement.

Students who want to take these courses as honors courses will inform the instructor at the beginning of the semester, and will do additional work beyond that required for non-honors students.