What it’s about:

As a linguistics major, you learn what makes human languages special: how they are spoken, written, and understood. You’ll also examine many of the world’s languages-how they are related and how they have changed over time-as well as methods of analyzing languages for their characteristic and distinctive properties.

What the study of this major is like:

Linguistics focuses on the similarities among the world’s languages, as well as on the unique characteristics of individual languages, in order to understand those traits and the people who speak the languages. The major usually beings with an introductory course, followed by courses in phonetics and phonology (the study of speech sounds), morphology (the structure and function of words), syntax (the way words combine to form phrases or sentences), and semantics (meaning and use of words).

In addition, the major may include the study of specific languages, or families of languages, and the communities or societies that speak them. You might undertake comparative and historical studies of both well-known and little known languages and dialects. You might explore how children acquire language; how people produce and comprehend written, spoken, and signed language: how language disorders are diagnosed and treated; how languages can be taught most effectively; how the use of particular languages and dialects has been fostered (or discouraged) by government policy, and how computers can be programmed to recognize and produce language.

Most students find linguistics intellectually challenging-in a word, hard. In introductory courses, you will most likely be given samples from languages you don’t know and be asked to describe the languages. Once you get the hang of it, you will probably enjoy such exercises and be ready for the next stage of training, in which you’ll explore linguistic theories and their explanation of observed data. At first, this approach may be frustrating, because you won’t understand how the theories work. But once you feel comfortable doing a linguistic theories experiment, you might begin a project for an advanced course or an undergraduate thesis. You may, in fact, find yourself working on cutting-edge studies while still an undergraduate.

There are two major approaches to the study of human language: formal and functional. Formal study emphasizes the structure of languages and requires good data-handling and reasoning skills. Functional study emphasizes the use of language and may involve laboratory or field research and statistics. Most linguistics programs stress one or the other of these approaches. A few (mostly larger) departments combine them successfully.

Career options and trends:

High school language teacher*; college professor*; translator; consultant.

The linguistics major can also prepare you for jobs in international business, government service, public relations, software design, marketing, publishing, advertising, English as a second language (ESL) teaching and research, health-related professional professions (speech pathology and language disorder), industrial research and development (speech recognition, text analysis and interpretation, electronic dictionary preparation, artificial intelligence, and speech synthesis), and law. Some of these fields require graduate study.

Linguists are playing a prominent role in high-tech industry, primarily in information retrieval and analysis and in speech technology. While technology has made this work easier in some ways, it will never replace the need for individuals with strong language skills. As business and commerce become more international in the global economy, opportunities are expected to increase for translators and interpreters. Good language teachers are always needed in the United States and overseas (especially English teachers), as are speech and language therapists.

Source: CollegeBoard 2012 Book of Majors