M.A. in Language & Communication
M.A. in Language & Communication

Course Offerings

The MLC offers a uniquely designed, tailored program of study for every student. MLC students can choose between two different paths through the program:

• Formal Linguistics: Select one introductory, graduate-level course in sound (phonology), form (syntax), or meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Students with no significant background in linguistics should register for one of the following courses in their first year in consultation with the advisor. This requirement may be waived for students with a Bachelor’s in Linguistics, but coursework in these areas is encouraged.


Phonetics
Phonology
Syntax
Semantics & Pragmatics

• The Professionalization Seminar (“Prosem”): Career Management for Linguists. The professionalization seminar is designed to show how to use linguistics in a wide variety of professional contexts in business, government, nonprofit and tech organizations. This required course is offered every spring semester and can serve to scaffold your job search. You will create a professional portfolio of oral and written documents to support your job applications and seek out and apply for jobs of interest.

• Three (3) core courses. These courses cultivate essential (a) methodological, (b) theoretical, and (c) analytical competencies in sociolinguistics. Some popular courses that fulfill this part of the curriculum include but are not limited to:

Sociolinguistic Variation
Discourse Analysis: Narrative
Discourse Analysis: Conversation
Intercultural Communication
Sociolinguistic Field Methods

Note that course offerings vary semester to semester, and are subject to change. 

The remainder of the program of study is composed of electives that you select in consultation with your Master’s Programs advisor. These courses can be selected from our theoretical (formal), applied, computational, and sociolinguistic concentrations, from other departments on campus, or from the Washington Consortium, a group of Washington, DC universities that allow cross-registration.

Students have an opportunity to deepen their expertise in one area (such as qualitative discourse analysis), as well as gain a secondary specialization (for example, in computational linguistics, including courses such as Natural Language Processing, Corpus Linguistics or Large Language Models. The Linguistics Department’s course offerings vary from year to year. Some popular courses include:

Metaphor & Social Change
Forensic Linguistics
Discourse of Social Media
Sociophonetics
Discourse, Identity & Narrative
Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism
Task-Based Language Teaching
Institutional Power and Discourse

Language Testing
Language Policy
Task-Based Language Teaching
Statistics for Applied Linguistic Research

Computational Language Processing (Introduction to Natural Language Processing)
Computational Corpus Linguistics
Social Factors in Computational Linguistics
Analyzing Language Data with R

Ancient Egyptian
Field Methods (Language Documentation)

Other courses that reflect the needs and interests of individual students may be selected under the guidance of their Master’s Program Advisor. They may include courses in other departments or schools within Georgetown, as well as courses at area universities (e.g. American, George Mason, George Washington) through the Washington Area Consortium of Universities.

MLC students must be approved to pursue the thesis option. Before their second year in the program, students will submit a thesis request form. If approved, the student must submit a proposal to their mentor. The thesis will be mentored by a faculty adviser with or without additional readers. Upon completion, the Master’s Thesis will be deposited in the Georgetown University Library system. The following are some of the MA theses to come from the MLC program in recent years:

“The Professionalization Seminar changed my life. It gave me a framework for presenting myself, the vocabulary and how to use it in organizing a job search. Not only that, but being able to be reflective and take a moment to figure out what you are passionate about, what you actually want to do.  I feel like you go through college thinking that you have a major and you have to fit a cookie cutter, but this class gives you a chance to make it work for you!”

— Renee Tomlin (MLC ’11)

The Professionalization Seminar in Career Management for Linguists is a unique professional development course, tailored especially for linguistics graduate students. The course is designed to help students figure out where the skills and training that they are acquiring in their classes are needed and valued professionally. It is also designed to help students learn about what motivates them, to uncover values around work, and ultimately to enact the shift to an active professional stance from “What should I do?” to “Here’s what I can do.”

The class is structured as a dynamic mix of lecture, discussion, and activity-based interaction. Students develop an understanding of professional applications of sociolinguistics through readings, lectures and presentations by guest lecturers who themselves engage with the question of combining sociolinguistic theory and practice. Students develop targeted portfolio materials (e.g. resume, cover letter, elevator pitch, online portfolio) to be applied to a current or future job search. Students network at professional events, attend Career Fairs, and conduct informational interviews to practice the skill of clearly articulating where their skills and training combine with their interests and values in a workplace setting.