Duration of Study
Ph.D. students shall complete the graduation requirements for the program degree within the regular study duration of seven years (a minimum of two years and a maximum of seven years).

Coursework Requirements
Students of the Ph.D. program in Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching are required to complete a minimum of 30 credits, excluding the 12 credits designed for the dissertation, for graduation.
1. With the consent of the dissertation advisor, doctoral students may take courses at another graduate institute accredited by the Ministry of Education. A maximum of 6 credits, including those taken prior to admission into this program, can be transferred and counted towards the minimum credit requirements for graduation. The credit waiver is applicable on the condition that the same courses are offered by the FLLD Ph.D. program in Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching.
2. Second Foreign Language Requirement:
Ph.D. students must demonstrate reading and writing proficiency in two foreign languages. Those whose first foreign language is English are required to be proficient in German, French, Spanish, or Japanese as their second foreign language (Chinese is included as one of the second foreign language options for students whose native language is not Chinese). Students are required to study one of the five second foreign languages for two years (at least 8 credits) and earn a passing grade of 60 or above. These credits are excluded from the minimum of graduation credits. The second foreign language requirement may be waived for students who, within four years prior to official enrollment, have studied a second foreign language for at least two years (at least 8 credits) at a university or college accredited by the Ministry of Education and earned a grade of at least 60. Students who wish to waive the second foreign language requirement must submit their application, accompanied by an official transcript, by the end of the first week of enrollment. Ph.D. students not qualified for the second foreign language requirement exemption may, by the end of the third week of enrollment, apply for a language proficiency examination and have the requirement waived with an exam score of at least 60. Otherwise, students are required to take a second foreign language course for two years (a minimum of 8 credits) and earn a passing grade of at least 60.
3. Prerequisite Courses:

• Ph.D. students who have not completed a minimum of two linguistics-related courses from any undergraduate program must complete the course of Introduction to Linguistics from the FLLD undergraduate program (enrolled for 2 semesters).
• Ph.D. students who have not completed a minimum of two linguistics-related courses from any master’s programs must complete at least two of the following courses from the FLLD master’s program: A. Phonetics and Phonology; B. Syntax; C. Semantics; D. Second Language Teaching and Learning: Theories and Methods; E. Language Acquisition.

*Ph.D. students shall complete the prerequisite courses, with a score of 70 or above for each course, before they are enrolled for their fourth year of study.

Qualifying Examination
1. The qualifying examination consists of two written exams: the Reading List Exam (core disciplines) and the Specialty Exam (student-selected subjects).
2. Upon completion of 20 credits, a Ph.D. student may submit an application with the transcripts for the qualifying examination. If an application is submitted by the end of February, the examination shall be completed by the end of October in the same year. If an application is submitted by the end of September, the examination shall be completed by the end of April in the following year. Except under special circumstances, a scheduled examination shall not be canceled. None of the items such as floppy disks, optical discs, computers, data, mobile phones or other storage devices are allowed during the examination.
3. The Reading List Exam should be held on two consecutive days, with the core subjects in linguistics (Semantics, Syntax, and Phonetics and Phonology) scheduled for the first day and basic subjects in teaching (Foreign Language Teaching and Language Acquisition) scheduled for the second. The examinee is required to answer two of three questions designed for each of the five subjects. The total test time is four hours each day. A score of 100 for the test of each subject shall be identified as a full mark and an average score of 70 or above as passing. Those who fail to pass the examination shall retake tests on failed subjects.
4. The department chair shall appoint the advisor and two or more professors to form an examination committee. Tests in the examination shall be designed and graded by at least three committee members.
5. The applicant shall be allowed to take tests on failed subjects for a second try.
6. Doctoral students are required to complete the qualifying examinations within the first five years of enrollment. Those who pass the qualifying examination are entitled to apply for Ph.D. candidacy.

Publication Requirements
1. To be qualified for the dissertation defense, Ph.D. students need to have at least two publications, with the applicant as the first author. Among them, at least one paper must be published in a peer-reviewed journal of a national university, a journal included in the official MOST ranking list, or an international peer-reviewed journal; the other can be a paper presented at an international conference.
2. Publications shall be reviewed by the Linguistics faculty committee, at their monthly meeting, in terms of relationship of research topics and journal ranking before applicants are approved to have completed publication requirements.
3. An application for publication review shall be submitted with the following documents:

• (A) an offprint, or (B) a letter of acceptance with the final draft
• Documents indicating journal ranking or its academic significance.

Doctoral Dissertation and Oral Defense
1. Doctoral students must complete the qualifying exams before they submit their dissertation proposal. They shall receive approval from their dissertation advisor on a selected research topic and submit a dissertation proposal, written in English, including research questions, literature review, methodology, anticipated results and bibliography.
2. Upon submission of the proposal (in three copies) to the department office, a review committee, consisting of the dissertation advisor, and two or more faculty members in the related field appointed by the department chair shall meet to organize an oral defense of the proposal. No defense shall be scheduled for a date during a winter or summer break. An application for a proposal defense shall be submitted one month before the scheduled date during a regular semester. A proposal defense shall be completed no later than half year before the dissertation defense.
3. Doctoral students must complete a proposal defense before beginning dissertation writing. Upon completion of a dissertation, they must pass the dissertation defense to qualify for Ph.D. degree conferral.
4. Before the dissertation defense, doctoral students are required to make a dissertation presentation in a graduate student seminar scheduled for December in the fall semester and May in the spring semester.
5. A master’s degree thesis shall not be a part of a doctoral dissertation. Material from published papers may be modified and included in a doctoral dissertation, within a maximum of one third of the full text. The inclusion shall be specified in the acknowledgement and the titles of related sections.
6. The dissertation defense shall be administered by a committee of at least five members, recommended by the dissertation advisor, including the advisor and two or more extramural members. Doctoral students shall provide the names, affiliations and specialties of committee members in a written report to the FLLD master’s and doctoral program committee.
7. The dissertation should be typed and completed in a minimum of 54,000 words according to the Publication Manual of the APA or the Language Style Sheet adopted by Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America. For other related formatting specifications, please refer to the webpage of the NCKU Library at http://cid.acad.ncku.edu.tw/var/file/42/1042/img/3133795.pdf.
8. A dissertation defense is administered in English as a public examination. A candidate shall modify the dissertation based on the comments of committee members. Upon completion, the candidate shall receive approval from the advisor before submission of the dissertation and application for graduation.
9. Candidates shall submit an online application two months in advance for the dissertation defense, which shall be completed within two months after submission. Candidates are allowed to apply for the dissertation defense starting, at the earliest, in the third week of class each semester (applicable to those officially enrolled for the semester), but no later than December 5 in the fall semester and May 5 in the spring semester. Upon completion of the online application, candidates shall submit to the FLLD office a package of documents including:

• a completed checklist of graduation qualifications 
• a completed application form for degree examination (signed by the advisor)
• a transcript
• a printed draft of the dissertation
• a list of publications with related documents
• a certificate of qualifying exam results.

10. For other related matters, please refer to the NCKU Enforcement Rules for Doctoral and Master’s Degree Examinations.
11. FLLD students shall not commit violations of academic integrity. If a thesis, dissertation, creative writing, performance, written report or technical report is found to have involved plagiarism, ghost authorship, double submission or other such acts, a grade of zero will be given to the work in question. In addition, the FLLD will consider the severity of violation based on the NCKU Regulations on Student Rewards and Penalties (國立成功大學學生獎懲要點) to decide whether to publicize the incident, to expel the violator from school or to enact any other appropriate punishment. It should be noted that a doctoral degree could be revoked as a result of a grave violation of this nature.
12. Before applying for a dissertation defense, the applicant shall submit “one report on thesis/dissertation originality from the online plagiarism system” and “one affidavit for applying for graduate degree examination.” The thesis/dissertation originality check mechanisms recognized by the program include (1) Turnitin, (2) iPlagirism, and (3) iThenticate, which are subject to change from year to year. Please confirm on the application of the designated mechanisms.

Dissertation Advising
1. Doctoral students shall choose a professor from the FLLD fulltime faculty to serve as a dissertation advisor. If a doctoral student needs an adjunct or fulltime faculty member from NCKU specializing in a specific discipline to serve as a dissertation co-advisor, the principal advisor is entitled to recommend one.
2. A dissertation advisor must be confirmed by the end of the second academic year. The dissertation advisor will then provide the advisee with guidance on his/her academic performance and research writing.
3. Should the need arise for a change of dissertation advisor, students shall make an application according to the FLLD-designated regulations for thesis/dissertation advising. A completed Application Form for Change of Thesis/Dissertation Advisor (更換指導教授同意書) shall be submitted with a written report, which shall be approved by both the original and new advisors, and the department chair before the change takes effect.