Linguistics Careers

The analytical skills linguists learn are at the heart of what data scientists do.  Organizing data, discovering patterns, formulating concise explanations for those patterns, and communicating one’s findings to others is central to both linguistics and data science.  The Linguistics Department at the U offers a Computational Linguistics certificate for students interested in this kind of career.

Any time people interact with a computer, whether through ChatGPT, Alexa, or a simple Google search, the computer must understand and produce human language.  Linguists make this happen, and companies interested in improving this technology need linguists.  The Linguistics Department at the U offers a Computational Linguistics certificate for students interested in this kind of career.

With a deep understanding of the neurological, physiological, and psychological systems behind language, linguists have the tools to contribute to both research on and clinical services for speech pathologies.

Want to live abroad and teach English?  Want to stay close to home and help immigrants adjust to life in an English-speaking country?  Linguists are ideally situated for this work, and the Linguistics Department at the U offers classes and a certificate on this topic.

With a deep understanding of how languages are structured and how the architectures of different languages relate to each other, linguists make ideal foreign-language teachers.

Linguists have a long history of helping actors sound authentic, whether they’re learning another dialect or speaking an artificial language like Klingon or Dothraki.  Linguists can even contribute to the creation of these artificial languages!

A grounding in linguistics puts you in prime position to pursue a career in the law.  Forensic linguists are often hired by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to examine evidence and testimony, and courts are increasingly employing the tools of linguistic analysis in interpreting statutes, often relying on linguists to figure out the most appropriate reading of a law.

Intelligence agencies like the CIA must sift through and decipher large amounts of written and audio communication in many different languages.  Linguists make this possible.

Linguists know that a high-quality translation from one language to another requires more than just a word-for-word translation.  For this reason, linguists’ skills are highly valued in this field.

At universities, linguists produce cutting-edge research that intersects with fields such as psychology, computer science, communication, sociology, anthropology, education, and more.

Linguists make substantial contributions to marketing, where product names and advertisements must sound appealing to consumers.

The vast majority of the world’s languages are poorly documented.  Many linguists spend their careers traveling the globe to document languages and the cultures where they are spoken.