1.  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.

 

2.  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).

3.  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

Non-Linguistics Orientation:

Medicine: diagnostics

Business: market analysis, stock brokering, commodities trading, computer programming

Public Sector: criminal forensics

A linguistics major serves any profession that requires good pattern-recognition skills.