Linguistics Students

The Linguistics concentration prepares students for careers in interdisciplinary fields involving the use of language, such as speech-language pathology and ESL instruction. Graduates have a wide variety of paths they can pursue, and part of my job as your advisor is to provide you guidance on class choices so that you are both qualified for and prepared for whichever path you choose, be that graduate school or straight into industry work.

The following information has been collected across various websites and combined here to help you look at everything at once. This being said, the information here is not exhaustive but rather intended to provide you an overview of what you must take to complete the degree. Click on the links below to read through the full information for all of the requirements.

If you plan on pursuing a graduate program in Speech-Language Pathology, also check out my page on SLP graduate programs, also linked to the right.

The following is a brief overview of your list of requirements, organized by your degree audit.

English Department Requirements

  • American Literature (3 hrs)
  • British Literature (3 hrs)
  • World Literature (3 hrs)
  • Film (3 hrs)
  • Linguistics (3 hrs) – Must be ENG 210, Introduction to Linguistics*
  • Rhetoric (3 hrs)

* Note: I recommend taking ENG 210 prior to starting on your Linguistics requirements below.

Linguistics Requirements**

Additional restrictions not mentioned below can be found on the Linguistics degree page.

  • Linguistics Core (6 hrs, or two of the following)
    • ENG 315 Phonetics
    • ENG 324 Modern English Syntax
    • ENG 326 History of the English Language
  • Linguistics Electives (6 hrs, or two of the following)
    • ENG 315 Phonetics
    • ENG 320 Anatomy and Physiology of Speech
    • ENG 324 Modern English Syntax
    • ENG 325 Spoken and Written Traditions of American English Dialects
    • ENG 326 History of the English Language
    • ENG 327 Language and Gender
    • ENG 328 Language and Writing
    • ENG 329 Language and Globalization
    • ENG 335 Language Development
    • ENG 338 Speech Science
    • ENG 494 Special Topics in Linguistics
    • FLS 333 The Sounds of Spanish
    • FLS 405 Spanish-English Comparative Grammar
    • SOC 207 Language and Society
    • WGS 327 Language and Gender
  • Advanced Linguistics, capstone (3 hrs)
    • ENG 494 Special Topics in Linguistics (usually taken in the senior year, but we should discussion your options when you are a rising junior)
  • English Electives (6 hrs)

Additional Requirements

You can not take more than five 200-level courses for the major.

Additionally, you cannot double-count courses across these categories. Neither of these restrictions apply to GEP or CHASS requirements.

All courses must be taken for a grade  and you must earn a C- or higher for them to count towards the degree. You must have a GPA of 2.0 or higher to graduate.

 

As an English major within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, you are required to take both the University’s and the College’s general education requirements. Many courses can satisfy these requirements, and you can look those up with the Degree Requirements page through Registration and Records.

I highly recommend that you try to get these requirements out of the way as soon as you can in your academic career. This will give you the freedom to take what’s more interesting to you as a Junior and Senior and allow you to be taking courses relevant to your career path at the same time you’re (hopefully) doing an internship. Additionally, if for whatever reason you can’t get into a GEP or CHASS course that you need, you still have time left to fulfill the requirement. Relatedly, you also have either 12 hours or 27 hours (depending on when you started the program) of free electives. Try to save those for your senior year, again so that if you can’t get into a class you have that safety net of free electives you can fall back on.

College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) Requirements

  • ENG 101 (4 hrs)   [This is also a GEP requirement – you don’t need to take it twice!]
  • History I (3 hrs)
  • History II (3 hrs)
  • Foreign Language 200 level (3 hrs)
  • Philosophy (3 hrs)
  • Arts & Letters (3 hrs)
  • Social Sciences (9 hrs, each must be from a different discipline)

University Requirements
Description of GEP Requirements from University Catalog

  • Mathematical Sciences (6 hrs)
  • Natural Sciences (7 hrs)
  • Humanities (6 hrs)    [This will be satisfied by your degree.]
  • Social Sciences (6 hrs)   [This will be satisfied by CHASS requirements.]
  • Additional Breadth (3 hrs) OR US Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (3 hrs) — This depends on when you started at NC State. See me if you have questions!
  • Interdisciplinary Perspectives (5 hrs)
  • Health and Exercise Studies (2 hrs) (One of these must be at the 100-level)

There are additional co-requisites also required for the University. Classes you take for the major or to meet a CHASS or GEP course will double-count here, or you can fulfill the requirements through electives:

  • U.S. Diversity (if you have the Additional Breadth requirement above)
  • Global Knowledge
  • FL 102 Proficiency, if you didn’t satisfy this already via High School

 

A note about the Foreign Language requirement

There are three courses required to get to the required 200 level course for the Foreign Language requirement: 101, 102, and 201 in your chosen language. Prior to starting this sequence you will take a foreign language placement test. This is taken online, unless you feel you might place out of 201. In that case, you should opt to take the exam in a proctored, face-to-face setting. If you indeed place into a level higher than 201 you may be able to get the requirement waived or take 202 to fulfill the requirement.

If you place into 101 and took the same language in high school, then the 101 class will be required but will be considered non-degree (it won’t count for anything on your transcript). For example, if you took Spanish in high school and place into FLS 101, then FLS 101 will be non-degree and will not count as a Free Elective. If you took Spanish in high school and decide to take Italian as your language at NC State, then FLI 101 will count as a free elective. FL* 102 will count as a Free Elective.

I highly recommend starting your Foreign Language requirements in your very first semester. If you continue from the language you took in high school, then that will ensure everything’s fresh in your mind (you don’t want a two-year gap between High School and your FL* 102 course, for example). If you decide to change languages, then you’re facing three semesters of a language, and you’ll want to start that sooner rather than later. You absolutely do not want to be entering your senior year having not taken a single language course and realizing that you’re going to need to stick around an extra semester just to fulfill FL* 201!