DE - I DON'T THINK I KNEW THAT JOEY WAS A DOUBLE MAJOR. BECAUSE OF THAT, I NOW UNDERSTAND WHY HE WILL PROBABLY EXCEED THE 120-UNIT REQUIREMENT FOR GRADUATION.

IF HE GRADUATES IN 3 YEARS, YOU WILL STILL BE SAVING A YEAR'S TUITION.

HE COULD CHOOSE TO TAKE SOME CREDITS DURING THE SUMMERS. HOWEVER, IT APPEARS AS THOUGH HE HAS A FULL PLATE ALREADY.

NEWS ALERT: YES, 20 IS STILL A KID TO ME, TOO!

I DON'T KNOW IF HE'LL BE MILES BEYOND WHERE YOU WERE AT THAT AGE, AS THE APPLE HAS TO FALL FROM THE SAME TREE, IN THIS CASE.

AND HE'S TAKING JAPANESE? OMG!!

IF HE NEEDS ANY HELP, HE'S GOING TO HAVE TO GET A TUTOR. I KNOW I CAN'T HELP HIM!!

Why Major in Linguistics?

By Monica Macaulay and Kristen Syrett

If you are considering becoming a linguistics major, you probably know something about the field of linguistics already. However, you may find it hard to answer people who ask you, "What exactly is linguistics, and what does a linguist do?" They might assume that it means you speak a lot of languages. And they may be right: you may, in fact, be a polyglot! But while many linguists do speak multiple languages—or at least know a fair bit about multiple languages—the study of linguistics means much more than this.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Many topics fall under this umbrella. At the heart of linguistics is an understanding of:
•the unconscious knowledge that humans have about language
•how children acquire language
•the structure of language in general and of particular languages
•how languages vary
•how language influences the way in which we interact with each other and think about the world

What exactly do we mean by this?

When you were born, you were not able to communicate with the adults around you by using language. But by the time you were five or six, you were able to produce sentences, make jokes, ask questions, and so on. In short, you had become a fluent native speaker. During those first few years of your life, you accumulated a wide range of knowledge about at least one language, probably with very little conscious effort. If you studied a foreign language later on, it’s likely that you discovered that it was not nearly as easy.

Speakers of all languages know a lot about their languages, usually without knowing that they know it. For example, as a speaker of English, you possess knowledge about English word order. Perhaps without even knowing it, you understand that Sarah admires the teacher is grammatical, while Admires Sarah teacher the is not, and also that The teacher admires Sarah means something entirely different. You know that when you ask a yes-no question, you may reverse the order of words at the beginning of the sentence and that the pitch of your voice goes up at the end of the sentence (for example, in Are you going?).

However, if you speak French, you might add est-ce que at the beginning, and if you know American Sign Language, you probably raise your eyebrows during the question. In addition, you understand that asking a wh-question (who, what, where, etc.) calls for a somewhat different strategy (compare the rising intonation in the question above to the falling intonation in Where are you going?). You also possess knowledge about the sounds of your language—for example, which consonants can go together in a word, and how they go together. You know that slint could be an English word, while sbint and lsint could not be. And you most likely know something about the role of language in your interactions with others. You know that certain words are “taboo� or controversial, that certain contexts might require more formal or less formal language, and that certain expressions or ways of speaking draw upon shared knowledge between speakers.

Yes, linguistics is a science!

Linguists investigate how people acquire their knowledge about language, how this knowledge interacts with other cognitive processes, how it varies across speakers and geographic regions, and how to model this knowledge computationally. They study how to represent the structure of the various aspects of language (such as sounds or meaning), how to account for different linguistic patterns theoretically, and how the different components of language interact with each other. Linguists develop and test scientific hypotheses. Many linguists appeal to statistical analysis, mathematics, and logical formalism to account for the patterns they observe.

Do linguists know lots of languages?

Many linguists do fieldwork, collecting empirical evidence to help them gain insight into a specific language or languages in general. They work with speakers of different languages to discover patterns and/or to document the language, search databases (or corpora) of spoken and written language, and run carefully-designed experiments with children and adults in schools, in the field, and in university labs.

By now you can see that while linguists may be better informed if they know multiple languages, the work of a linguist actually involves learning about Language, rather than learning different languages.

What will I study as a linguistics major?

Linguistics is a major that gives you insight into one of the most intriguing aspects of human knowledge and behavior. Majoring in linguistics means that you will learn about many aspects of human language, including sounds (phonetics, phonology), words (morphology), sentences (syntax), and meaning (semantics). It can involve looking at how languages change over time (historical linguistics); how language varies from situation to situation, group to group, and place to place (sociolinguistics, dialectology); how people use language in context (pragmatics, discourse analysis); how to model aspects of language (computational linguistics); how people acquire or learn language (language acquisition); and how people process language (psycholinguistics, experimental linguistics).

Linguistics programs may be organized around different aspects of the field. For example, in addition to or instead of the above areas, a program might choose to focus on a particular language or group of languages; how language relates to historical, social, and cultural issues (anthropological linguistics); how language is taught in a classroom setting, or how students learn language (applied linguistics); or how linguistics is situated in the cognitive sciences.

Although linguistics programs in the United States may vary in their emphasis and their approach, they tend to have similar requirements. You will most likely be required to take an introductory course in linguistics, and to take one or more courses in the core theoretical areas of linguistics. You may also be required or encouraged to have proficiency in at least one language besides English in order to help you understand how languages vary and how your native language fits into the bigger picture and informs your judgments.

In addition, you may be encouraged to complement your linguistic studies with courses in related areas, such as cognitive psychology, cognitive science, philosophy, anthropology, computer science, or communication sciences. You might choose to double major and make your linguistic work part of an interdisciplinary program of study. A secondary specialization in one of the areas just mentioned complements a linguistics major nicely, and can enhance your training and marketability. You may also choose to engage in independent research, such as working as an assistant in a language laboratory, spending time studying and/or traveling abroad, or doing fieldwork. Taking advantage of these opportunities allows you to be more well-rounded and better informed, and will open more doors for you after graduation.

What opportunities will I have with a linguistics degree?

Students who major in linguistics acquire valuable intellectual skills, such as analytical reasoning, critical thinking, argumentation, and clarity of expression. This means making insightful observations, formulating clear, testable hypotheses, generating predictions, making arguments and drawing conclusions, and communicating findings to a wider community. Linguistics majors are therefore well equipped for a variety of graduate-level and professional programs and careers. Some may require additional training or skills, but not all do.

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/why-major-linguistics