Do sounds, words, structures, and meanings, and linguistic origins of words interest you? If they do, then you should consider knowing more about the scientific study of language, which is called linguistics.
Do sounds, words, structures, and meanings, and linguistic origins of words interest you? If they do, then you should consider knowing more about the scientific study of language, which is called linguistics.
Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow- Noam Chomsky.
In an article earlier, we looked at languages and how studying different languages and pursuing a course in modern languages can open up a plethora of job opportunities and a sense of history. Now let’s dive deep into the science of languages.
Linguistics is a branch of study which looks at human language as an object of scientific investigation. It explores many different aspects like phonetics (how humans produce and perceive sounds), pragmatics (language in context), syntax ( arrangement of words in sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (the study of the forms of things), and phonology (studies how languages or dialects systematically organise their sounds) which make up a human language and these are an integral part of the study. It doesn’t stop there, studying linguistics provides an understanding of the following things as well :
There are many misconceptions related to linguistics; many people think that linguistics is about learning as many languages as possible, and a linguist is someone who works as an interpreter or as a language teacher. There is no such requirement to know more than one language or multiple languages to pursue a linguistics course or become a linguist. Linguistics is also not about being a ‘gramma Nazi’ and prescribing correct and incorrect grammar. People often think of polyglots and linguists being the same, but, while many linguists are polyglots, the main focus of linguistics is on language in general, the structure of the language, and the psychology of the language.
The field of linguistics covers a wide range of different subfields. It has an intellectual connection with many other disciplines like social science, psychology, computer science, engineering, health science, language pedagogy, philosophy, literature, physics, life science, and even sociology. Here are the main branches of linguistics which overlap with other disciplines:
This branch of linguistics can be fascinating as it analyses the neural mechanism in the brain that controls the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.
This branch of study combines linguistics and psychology and shows how both disciplines are very closely related. The main focus of this branch is on the psychological processes involved while using the language.
This is a significant branch of linguistics that deals with society and language. This branch explains why we speak differently in a different context and also looks at how language can differ based on social factors like social class, gender, cultural norms and ethnicity.
Computational linguistics is considered as the future of linguistics as this branch of linguistics uses the techniques of computer science to analyse and synthesis language and speech. Application of this can be seen in almost all the search engines and websites that we use every day, from speech recognition systems to text-to-speech synthesisers and even in interactive voice response.
Now that we are aware of the subfields and significant components of a linguistics degree , let us look at the top universities to pursue a degree in linguistics. Here are the top 10 universities globally to study linguistics as listed in the QS World Ranking.
| Serial No. | University | Country |
| 1 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States |
| 2 | University of Massachusetts Amherst | United States |
| 3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
| 4 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| 5 | The University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom |
| 6 | Harvard University | United States |
| 7 | Stanford University | United States |
| 8 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | United States |
| 9 | University of Maryland, College Park | United States |
| 10 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | United States |
Linguistics majors are well equipped for various career opportunities. This course helps them acquire valuable skills applicable for many jobs, including analytical reasoning skills, problem-solving, attention to detail, argumentation, intellectual skills, formulating, clarity of expression, generating predictions, and communicating to a larger audience.
Some of the sectors in which a linguistics graduate can work are as follows :
| Destination | Percentage |
| Employed | 64.2 |
| Further study | 12.1 |
| Working and studying | 10.7 |
| Unemployed | 6.2 |
| Other | 6.8 |
Graduate destinations for linguistics
| Type of work | Percentage |
| Marketing, PR and sales | 17.1 |
| Business, HR and finance | 12.9 |
| Secretarial and numerical clerks | 12.6 |
| Education professionals | 12.4 |
| Other | 45.1 |
Types of work entered in the UK
We have always thought of robots taking over our jobs, especially in the education and language sector, but the reality is totally different from what we thought it would be. With the application of automation and artificial intelligence in almost all sectors and fields, people with language and linguistics degrees are in high demand. Companies that work closely with artificial intelligence are turning to those people with linguistics degrees for product development, voice recognition, searching engine automation, language translation, and customer service. Such companies consider the combination of linguistics and programming as the ideal one.
At MIT, there is research taking place which collaborates linguistics with electrical engineering, computer science, and cognitive sciences, such studies explore the way in which syntax can inform machine learning for languages that lack extensive bodies of textual material.
There are universities offering Ph.D. courses in linguistics and machine learning as companies like google and yahoo are currently looking for people with a combination of linguistics and machine learning. This unique combination will help to represent the human language in a way that complex computing systems can recognise and understand. Even the chatbots that we use on a website are the result of linguistics, language, and machine learning, every day, these chatbots are being trained for better accuracy and better interaction, and this training requires the help of a linguistics graduate.
Computational linguistics plays an essential role in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning, currently, there is a shift from text to voice. People are now using voice recognition instead of using text, and all the companies that work in this field require a language expert to make their search engines and software work better. So the future of linguistics is bright, and the time is right if you have the interest and the inclination.
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