Career Opportunities

The primary job market in pure linguistics is academic, for those with Ph.D.s, and is rather limited. However, training in linguistics can be valuable for those specializing in any field in which language is at the center of attention, such as communications, communication disorders and speech and reading therapy, information retrieval, natural language processing, language preservation and revitalization, language policy, foreign language teaching, law, philosophy, pre-school and elementary education, psychology, and teaching English and other languages. Notions from linguistics have been influential in a number of other fields in recent years, especially in the study of literature, and in the social and behavioral sciences. There are considerable opportunities currently in the development of computer processing of text, both spoken and written. In general, the field provides an excellent opportunity for training both theoretical and observational powers, by practice in the development of techniques of analysis, and hypothesis formation and testing, all applied to data which can be collected readily by the student.