Linguist Llama

Hi, I think I'm interested in studying Linguistics at university for reasons I'm too tired to go into - it is genuinely a very interesting field which I am passionate about - and I was wondering how realistic such an option is. I have no clue what I want to do with a degree in Linguistics: career-wise. I've always wanted to go into academic research, namely sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and metalinguistics. Again, I don't now how realistic such an idea is. Can you give me any advice/experience?

— asked by Anonymous

I certainly cannot give you personal experience, but I will advise you to explore this option! Studying Linguistics at university is fantastic and most certainly realistic, especially if you’re passionate about it.

Before considering careers, definitely check out your college choices beforehand for good Linguistics departments. The benefit of knowing what you want to study is that you can choose a school that caters to that particular interest.

After that, it’s really difficult to give advice because it’s hard to pin Linguistics (or really, even sub-fields) to just a few major careers. Here are two posts from this blog that will, hopefully, help you discover some options: one, two

[Picture: Background: 8-piece pie-style color split with alternating shades of blue. Foreground: Linguist Llama meme, a white llama facing forward, wearing a red scarf. Top text: “Allomorphs” Bottom text: “There can be only one”] 

This is a bit of a special post, perhaps one that is self-serving and overly specific, but I’m really excited about finally meeting these people in person next week!

If anyone else at NYU this year is interested, LOLS has a Welcome Week event scheduled for Tuesday, Aug 28, 2pm at 10 Washington Place. Come meet me and a couple of truly fantastic people! …and grab some more free food because you know you want it.

Is she her own grandma?

[Picture: Background: 8-piece pie-style color split with alternating shades of blue. Foreground: Linguist Llama meme, a white llama facing forward, wearing a red scarf. Top text: “Adjunct: Daughter of X-bar, Sister to X-bar” Bottom text: “Incestuous syntax?”]

I think this one is Austronesian!

[Picture: Background: 8-piece pie-style color split with alternating shades of blue. Foreground: Linguist Llama meme, a white llama facing forward, wearing a red scarf. Top text: “ Finds new interesting word” Bottom text: “To the etymobile!”]

Thanks, guys! This really means a lot.

I’m sorry I haven’t been creating many of my own memes lately. I’m still checking the Quickmeme page for new ones occasionally, but everything moves faster if you submit them yourselves!

I just found your blog, and I have to say, it's quite wonderful. I too am someone who aspires to study linguistics, and I'm thinking of majoring in linguistics or sociology. What first got you interested? What part of linguistics most interests you? It was so wonderful to find someone who's interested in the subject. Are there other blogs you would recommend?

— asked by crazyrobin7

Thank you very much!

I’d say my interest was first piqued when I found constructed languages (I can’t remember if I came across Lojban or Esperanto first). I, of course, always knew about other languages, but I never thought about communication solutions other than just having a bunch of people learn multiple languages. But with auxlangs it raised the idea of intermediate languages. I’ve since disillusioned myself to the realism of using these intermediary languages for international and inter-language communication, but I’d say the idea is what opened the linguistics door for me. From the idea of conlangs I started thinking, what truly constitutes a language? I suppose that to make one up from scratch, you really have to understand all the different aspects of linguistics.

As for what part most interests me particularly… I’m not quite sure. Perhaps I’m currently most intrigued by Semantics. I know it’s a broad field, but I love the idea that particular values of words are defined by how they contrast with other words in their respective semantic fields.

Other blogs? To be very honest with you, I’m not sure. I peruse the linguistics tag and a couple others and just hope for the best. I usually find some pretty interesting things. Off of tumblr there’s also the Language Log and reddit’s /r/Linguistics. Other than that, I mostly just bumble around. I’m more of a stumbling finder than a loyal visitor. :D

Now say it again…into the mic

[Picture: Background: 8-piece pie-style color split with alternating shades of blue. Foreground: Linguist Llama meme, a white llama facing forward, wearing a red scarf. Top text: “I’m not mocking your grammar mistakes” Bottom text: “It’s plain scientific curiosity”]

[Comic. Yoda riding Luke Skywalker’s back, as in the scene from Star Wars. First panel — Luke: “Dude, why do you talk backwards all the time?” Second panel — Yoda: “Backwards-talking I am not. English-centric view of grammatical structure, you have.”]

Source.

"Just saw the question about majoring in Linguistics. I had the same question going into it, but despite being unsure of the future, I loved it too much to pull myself away. While I’m now pursuing a master’s in speech language pathology (an obviously common path, as you noted) I can say that my degree in Linguistics did get me hired at Google (with offers from some other killer companies as well) straight out of college before I decided to pursue a different path. Though my job wasn’t directly related to linguistics, I definitely capitalized on the analytical, problem solving, and hypothesis testing skills that I learned studying linguistics. Not sure if you want to pass this on, just want to give a a high five to those who love linguistics (or any other field that doesn’t have a clear career path, for that matter) and encourage everyone to find ways to apply their passions in every endeavor. Good luck."

sarahdel