Major Requirements for Students Pursuing Latin Honors
LING 3001H - Honors Introduction to Linguistics
LING 5201, 5202, 5302, 5303 are available to honors students and may be submitted as graduate-level add-ons with no further modification to the course. Other 5xxx level LING classes may be eligible as add-ons for students who complete graduate-level course expectations.
LING 3093: ideally taken fall of senior year
LING 3052V: ideally taken spring of senior year
Non-honors Linguistics majors must complete LING 4901W: Capstone Seminar in Linguistics. Honors students do not need to take this course.
An Honors thesis is required of all honors students majoring in linguistics. The thesis is completed by registering for the two-semester sequence LING 3093-3052V. These courses must be taken on an A-F grade basis. The final thesis usually is 20–40 pages, although actual length may vary according to the topic. All theses must be approved by a three member committee.
The first semester is conducted as an independent study under the supervision of a professor with expertise in the subject of the thesis, and usually consists of background reading, data gathering, and other research. The first semester should culminate in completion of an initial draft of the research. The final writing of the thesis is done in the second semester, LING 3052V, which will meet concurrently with LING 8005. This is a seminar devoted to the writing and structure of linguistics papers, as represented by models to be examined and discussed in class. It will include peer review and commentary on successive drafts, along with discussion of the linguistic issues appropriate to the topics students are writing about in each seminar.
A summa thesis should make a novel contribution to the area of study, providing new insights and advancing understanding of the topic of the thesis. It should furthermore include new data, gathered either through field work or experimental data, include a new analysis of existing data within an appropriate theoretical framework, or provide a new evaluation of existing proposals. In the last case, the summa thesis offers not just a review of existing literature, but also a critical evaluation of the theoretical or empirical generalizations offered in that literature. Magna and cum laude students may complete a thesis comprising a critical review of existing literature.
For further information on the honors thesis and guidance in choosing a topic and/or an advisor for the first semester's research, contact the Honors Faculty Representative in linguistics prior to registering for the course.
All students will choose a thesis committee comprising at least three members, a thesis advisor and two additional reviewers. Students are responsible for identifying a thesis advisor who will agree to supervise their thesis prior to submitting their thesis proposal. At least one member—not necessarily the thesis advisor—must be tenured or tenure-track faculty at the University of Minnesota, and at least one member must be affiliated with the department in which the thesis is conducted.