The Undergraduate Program

For Transfer Students

Transfering to UNC

Are you interested in transferring to UNC to study linguistics? This page should help answer some of your questions or tell you where you need to look to find more information.

First Things First

The first thing you will need to do is apply to UNC, and be accepted, as a transfer student. You can find information, application forms, and answers to frequently asked questions here.

Preparing to Transfer as a Linguistics Major

As a new or prospective transfer student, you probably want to know how your previous coursework can be transferred to satisfy graduation requirements at UNC. There are two different kinds of graduation requirements, so here is what you need to do to find out about each kind.

Requirements – 1: The Linguistics Major

To complete the LING major at UNC, you must:

Take the prerequisite to the major: LING 101, Introduction to Language
Complete the requirements for the major: Seven LING courses numbered 200 or above

Transfer Options for LING 101: Most courses entitled something like “Introduction to Language” or “Introduction to Linguistics” can be transferred as LING 101. In addition, any course that introduces the basic areas of linguistics such as phonology, syntax, morphology, and historical linguistics, and includes linguistics problem-solving, can probably be transferred as LING 101. If you would like to know whether a specific course you have taken qualifies, please contact the undergraduate advisor and provide a course description, syllabus, or other course information.

If you will be a junior transfer and you have never had a linguistics course, you might want to think about satisfying the LING 101 requirement before you begin your first semester at UNC. This is because LING 101 is a prerequisite for almost all other LING courses at UNC. So, if you take it in the fall of your junior year, you will not be able to take any other LING courses until spring, which leaves all seven courses for the major to be squeezed into your last three semesters. Not impossible, but definitely a busy schedule. Therefore, if your current college or university does not have an Intro to Linguistics course, you might want to consider enrolling in such a course at another college near you, or taking the Carolina Courses Online version of UNC’s LING 101.

Transfer Options for Major Requirements: At least 50%, four out of seven, of the courses for the major must be completed at UNC. This means that up to three courses can be transferred from another school, or a study-abroad program, and applied to the LING major.

One possibility is to transfer a course as a specific UNC course. This is possible when there is a good match between the content of the two courses.

Another possibility is to transfer a course as “LING Major Elective Credit.” This happens when there is no closely matching UNC course, but your course did focus on some aspect of linguistics. You can apply courses transferred in this way toward the LING major as well.

Even if your current college or university has no Linguistics department, you may find courses that can be transferred as LING credit. For example, the English department or foreign language departments might have courses on the structure or history of English or another language. The Psychology department might have a course on child language development. The Philosophy department might have a course on logic in language, and the Communication department might have a course on language disorders.

If you would like more information about whether a specific course you have taken can be given LING major credit, please contact the undergraduate advisor and provide a course description, syllabus, or other course information.

Requirements – 2: Other Requirements

For questions about transferring courses to satisfy anything outside the Linguistics department, including General Education requirements, a second major, a minor, or the total number of credit hours to be applied toward graduation, please see the Transfer Students page on the Undergraduate Admissions web site, or the department for the subject in question.

For International Exchange Students

If you would like to come to UNC as an exchange student from abroad, you can find the information that you need from International Student and Scholar Services. Once you have arrived at UNC, you are welcome to enroll in linguistics courses. We recommend that you begin with LING 101, Introduction to Language, if you have never had a linguistics course before.