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Frequently Asked Questions about Linguistics
Why major in Linguistics?
The Linguistics Society of America (LSA) answers: Why major in Linguistics?
Read more about their answer to this question and others.
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Download PDF version of Linguistics Majors brochure
Why major in Linguistics? Powerpoint PDF
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What is Linguistics?
Contrary to popular myth, Linguistics is not about the ability to speak many languages. Linguistics is the science of the structure of language. It studies the development and patterns of language. The discipline looks at language in two ways: (1) the historical conditions that develop and maintain particular languages in social groups and (2) the biological conditions that support language learning and production in the individual.
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What do linguists do?
Linguists identify complex patterns found at all levels of linguistic analysis and in all languages of the world. For instance:
Historical Linguists detect systematic phonetic and morphologic changes that permit the reconstruction of proto (i.e. prehistoric) languages.
Syntacticians capture regularities that occur at the sentence level.
Sociolinguists describe phonetic, lexical and syntactic patterns found in particular speech communities.
Discourse Analysts compare and contrast discourse strategies as they vary among speech communities.
Neurolinguists map neurological patterns related to language both in normal-functioning brains and in those that manifest either congenital or acquired aphasia (language loss).
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What can I do with a Linguistics major after graduation?
Linguistics Orientation:
Therapeutics: speech pathology and therapy
Private Industry: speech synthesis and speech recognition technology
Public Sector: translating, gisting, cryptography, lexicography, forensic linguistics, graduate school and teaching
Non-Linguistics Orientation:
Medicine: diagnostics
Business: market analysis, stock brokering, commodities trading, computer programming
Public Sector: criminal forensics
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A linguistics major serves any profession that requires good pattern-recognition skills. |
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