Admission Requirements

To be considered for admission, applicants must have:

• a Bachelor of Arts or equivalent degree from an accredited institution with a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.75 for all undergraduate work and 3.0 based on the last two years of the B.A.
• completed at least 12 semester hours of linguistics prerequisites including courses equivalent to Articulatory Phonetics, Phonological Analysis, Morphology and Syntax. All prerequisite courses must have been completed with a minimum grade of B.
• completed at least 6 semester hours (or equivalent) of a foreign language. If the applicant does not meet this requirement, the requirement may be met later during the program; however, any credits earned towards the foreign language requirement will not be included in the total hours needed to complete the M.A. degree.
• a minimum TOEFL score of 600P/250C for students who are not mother-tongue speakers of English.

Transfer Credit

Students may transfer up to 18 semester hours of graduate level credit into the program from other accredited institutions. Transfer credit must be in the area of linguistics and must not come from a degree which has already been conferred. The registrar and program chair will determine which courses may be transferred and from which institutions at the point of admission.

Prerequisite Courses

All the linguistics prerequisites (not including foreign language courses) can be completed in the summer session preceding admission at the Canada Institute of Linguistics.  The summer session is a full semester of university credit condensed into an intense 9-week program, offered at a significantly discounted tuition rate ($245/sh in 2012). The MA Linguistics prerequisite courses offered in the summer are:

LING 310 Articulatory Phonetics
LING 330 Phonological Analysis
LING 360 Grammatical Analysis (equivalent of LING 361 Morphology + LING 362 Syntax)

*Many students also opt to take LING 210 Language and Society during the summer session as it is a prerequisite for some grad courses and for membership in some affiliate organizations.

The summer session is also a great way to check out TWU and the MA Linguistics program before committing to the degree program. 

To attend the summer session, a separate application to CanIL is required. To find out more about the summer session or to apply, go to the CanIL summer session website or contact Sharina Kim at caniladmissions@twu.ca.  Financial aid is available for the summer session.