Linguistics Concentration

The Department of English at East Carolina University offers a variety of graduate courses in linguistics and teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). These courses provide a bridge between the humanities and the social sciences, and between language studies and other academic areas, such as anthropology, education, and speech and hearing sciences.

Our Linguistics and TESOL graduate students organize the annual TALGS (TESOL and Applied Linguistics Graduate Students) conference, which provides graduate students and TESL/TEFL professionals a forum to showcase their research and teaching practices.

You can contact Dr. Slobodanka Dimova (dimovas@ecu.edu) if you have any questions about required coursework or the program in general. On admission, you will be initially advised by Dr. Michael Aceto (acetom@ecu.edu) or Dr. Donna Lillian (lilliand@ecu.edu); as your research interests begin to focus, you will choose an advisor in your area of interest.

ECU Student Perspectives on Linguistics & TESOL Video
To watch, right click on the links and save to your computer: (.mov) or (.wmv). You can view the videos with Quicktime or Windows Media Player.

Course Work and Other Requirements

Core
ENGL 6009 Research Methods in Language Study (3 s.h.)               

Required                                                       
ENGL 7530 Descriptive Linguistics (3 s.h.)                        

Select five courses  from this list (15 s.h.)
ENGL 6505: Linguistic and Cultural History of the English Language 
ENGL 6526: The Structure of English: Phonology and Morphology
ENGL 6527: The Structure of English: Syntax and Semantics
ENGL 6528: TESOL: Theories and Principles
ENGL 6529: Applied Linguistics for Language Teachers
ENGL 6531: TESOL: Methods and Practicum
ENGL 7525: Language and Society
ENGL 7535: Principles of Language Testing 
ENGL 7605: Discourse Analysis
ENGL 7680: Writing Systems of the World
ENGL 7565: Linguistics, Education, and ESL

Electives  (6-9 s.h.)

Comprehensive Assessment Requirement (3-6 s.h.)
There are two ways to meet the comprehensive assessment requirement:

A. The Comprehensive Assessment Project (CAP) consists of an annotated bibliography and a synthesis paper. When prepared, the student presents the project to the CAP committee during a scheduled exam. Following the presentation, committee members ask questions related to the project. The CAP demonstrates the student’s ability (1) to examine field literature critically and reflectively; and (2) to evaluate the project’s findings in the larger context of knowledge gained through his or her coursework.

For the annotated bibliography the student chooses a field-related topic of interest, formulates a research question, and finds, through library research, at least twenty sources directly related to his or her research question. The sources consist of current full-length articles published in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters and/or books. Dissertation abstracts are not acceptable. Foundational work on a given topic, regardless of the date of publication, is admissible. All sources have to be approved by the student’s CAP committee before the student begins annotating them. The annotated bibliography follows the APA citation format. It is prefaced by an introduction giving the student’s rationale for the project.

For the synthesis paper, the student writes a cover paper synthesizing the information learned from research. The student clearly shows how this research has informed his or her response to the research question. The student draws conclusions and, where relevant, considers practical implications of his or her findings. The paper is 7-10 pages (cc. 2,000-2,500 words) in length.

B. The Thesis requires 6 s.h. of thesis (ENGL 7000), and is recommended for those who plan to continue their studies in a PhD program. The Thesis option requires a Prospectus Meeting with the Thesis Committee to be conducted within the first three weeks of the semester in which the student plans to complete the Thesis, and an Oral Defense. The Prospectus Meeting and Defense may be conducted by conference call for DE Students. A full description of thesis requirements is provided by the Department of English graduate studies office or e-mail englishgrad@ecu.edu.