Career Opportunities for Linguists

There are numerous career paths a linguistics major might pursue. Some core areas are:

• Basic research at universities like Rutgers and at research centers such as the RUCCS.
• Computer industry: Applying computer related skills to language. Building machines that can understand human speech, produce speech, as well as computer programs that automatically translate and check grammar.
• Psychology: Applying methodologies of psychology to linguistic behavior. These include the study and treatment of language impairment, experiments focussed on a child's acquisition of language and research into understanding how linguistic knowledge is stored in the brain. If this interests you, you might want to have a look at what is happening at some psychology of language labs and programs. Research of this type goes on at Rutgers in the Center for Cognitive Science and in the Psychology Department.
• Speech Pathology and Audiology.
• Foreign language teaching and translation.
• Designing educational materials for language instruction.
• Forensic Linguistics

The skills developed in the study of linguistics (attention to detail, developing hypotheses and testing them, analytic reasoning) serve as good foundation for various fields including law, teaching, publishing, technical writing, library science, editing and others.

Information about current career opportunities can be found at the Linguistic Enterprises: Private-Sector Employment for Linguists, and at the Jobs section of The Linguist List.

This page was produced by Roger Schwarzschild. Feedback particularly from Linguistic Majors would be appreciated.