I am currently studying in std.9th and I would love to choose linguistics as my career. I love studying languages and studying about languages. So, I just wanted to know what options of education should I choose in the future to become a linguist.
Thanks in advance!
A proud Indian,
A Russia-loving teen,
Rajdeep. (Vijay)
What do you mean by ‘linguist’? Do you mean somebody who studies linguistics, or do you mean somebody who knows a load of languages?
My next post will be the 1000th!
@Colin - well, don’t keep me waiting! I wanna see whether bells, whistles and sirens go off, and coins drop…
Professor Google suggests the following sites (among others):
Hope they help.
ColinJohnstone, I mean one who studies linguistics.
linguistics programs vary a lot depending on the country. In France, for example, linguistics tends to be more what we would call semiotics. I don’t know the situation in India.
But most people in linguistics either choose a theoretical orientation (phonology, semantics, etc.), or they focus on one language or group of languages. So you’ve got theoretical linguistics vs. Comparative/Historical Linguistics. There are lots of people in comp/hist linguistics who don’t have a really in-depth theoretical background, so if theoretical linguistics isn’t your thing, that’s still ok.
If you’re mostly interested in language learning, you can study applied linguistics, but that’s generally offered at the MA level as a teaching degree. You don’t need any background in linguistics for that.
I would start by just taking a wide variety of linguistics courses at undergrad, both theoretical and comp/historical. You’ll figure out what you like. Most people in theoretical linguistics end up in either phonetics/phonology or syntax. For whatever reason, most people have a natural inclination towards one or the other. Mine was towards phonology.
Does it means that translation can be perceived as a branch or a part of applied linguistics? And the translators are a kind of linguistists in narrorow sense.