Our graduate program offers a vibrant environment for the study of French as a native and second language (L2), French as a minority language (Louisiana French), and also minority languages in France (Picard, Breton, Occitan). French-specific training in syntax, semantics, morphology, and phonology provides a unique foundation in the nature of grammar and in its interactions with other systems of cognition.
Our award-winning faculty offer strong expertise on many critical issues—social and dialectal variation, historical change, language contact and endangerment, and second language knowledge, production, and processing. We nourish students’ scholarly development and are proud of an excellent job placement record for Ph.D. graduates. Recent thesis topics range from “Processing wh-Dependencies in L2 French” to “Phonology and the Prosodic Hierarchy in Picard.”
We offer financial aid in the form of fellowships and associate instructor positions, generally in five-year packages for students who successfully complete the M.A. degree and continue on to the Ph.D.
Indiana University Bloomington is a great place to study, with a beautiful campus and a vibrant scholarly environment. The Department of French and Italian has close and collegial relationships with the Department of Linguistics, the Department of Second Language Studies, the Medieval Studies Institute, and many other programs to offer students interdisciplinary experiences. Upon completion of the Ph.D., our graduate students typically obtain excellent placements at universities and colleges worldwide.
The College of Arts