The Department of Linguistics & TESOL at UT Arlington

We offer a minor, a BA, an MA, and a PhD in linguistics, the scientific study of human language. We also offer an MA as well as a graduate and an undergraduate certificate in TESOL, focusing on teaching English to adult speakers of other languages, in the U.S. and abroad. Our faculty are committed to fostering excellence in teaching and in research. Our research examines the structure and use of the world's languages by gathering digital materials for assessing the range of human language use, describing and documenting endangered languages, and designing experiments to understand how people produce and comprehend their first and second languages.

Woman using Eye Tracker equipment and a class meeing in the Linguistics computer lab

Department News

COVID-19 Updates from UTA

Please read about the updated guidelines and requirements that UTA is deploying to slow the coronavirus (COVID-19), and how these will affect courses, campus events, and travel for the Summer and Fall of 2020: Corona Virus Updates. Our Linguistics and TESOL offices are still closed to in-person business during the duration of the outbreak. Faculty and staff are working remotely and will continue to respond to email and phone calls. But we are geared up for the partial return to campus in Fall 2020/Spring 2021.

Linguistics Faculty!

Join us in welcoming phonologist Dr. Ivy Hauser who will be joining our department as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Linguistics in Fall 2020! Ivy earned her PhD at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2019. This past year she has been teaching at the University of Minnesota. And Dr. Peggy Semingson joins us as an Associate Professor in TESOL starting in January 2021, bringing expertise in digital pedagogies, online learning, ESL and literacy teacher education and bilingualism. We also are pleased to have Dr. Ray Elliott on loan to Linguistics as interim Chair of the Department, starting in Fall 2020. Welcome aboard!

Successful 2020 Defenses

Congratulations to Dr. Ronchao Tang, Dr. Ibrahim Alluhaybi, and Dr. Carly Sommerlot, and Dr. Dan Amy, the department's newest PhDs!

Winner of the 5-Minute Linguist

Congratulations to doctoral student Emily Williams who won the Linguistic Society of America's 5-Minute Linguist Competition in January 2020 in New Orleans!! Photo on Facebook Video of the competition.

3 Research Award Winners
Three members of UTA’s Linguistics faculty have been awarded $1500 each from the College of Liberal Arts Endowment for Faculty Research. The funds will be used by Dr. Jeffrey Witzel to create a database for large-scale investigations into second language (L2) reading development, to Dr. Naoko Witzel for experiments to discern how Korean-English bilinguals organize phonemes in their first language (Korean) and in their second language (English), and to Dr. Suwon Yoon to investigate how human brains process sentences.

Two Grads Accept Tenure Track Jobs
Alumni Dr. Juliet Huynh, (UTA Ph.D. in Linguistics 2019) will start as Asst. Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And Dr. Kristen Fleckenstein (UTA Ph.D. in Linguistics 2019) will start as an Asst. Professor of English at Coastal Carolina University. Both start in Fall 2019.

Click to see the full set of department events!