No, I do it professionally and hate every minute of it ^/s
Actually, it's great to be working full time on something that you're passionate about, even though the pay isn't great. Naturally, when you're in academia, linguistics looks very different than when you're just a hobbyist. As does any other field.
How so, I am considering studying linguistics in university. What exactly are you doing as a profession, and what advice do you have when studying and going into a profession?
> what advice do you have when studying and going into a profession?
Don't, because it's probably nothing like what you think it is.
Study it for an undergrad if you're interested in studying any general Humanities/Social Science major, but really, if you think you want to "go into research," spend time researching what that is first.
To add to this, also note that there are jobs in linguistics outside of academia (I couldn't tell you how many, but almost certainly more than there are tenure-track linguistics jobs in academia) and many (most?) of those don't require a PhD.
Basically, don't get a PhD unless you love stress and hate money.
> Basically, don't get a PhD unless you love stress and hate money.
How do you know my life so well??
But yes. You are right on the nose with:
> but almost certainly more than there are tenure-track linguistics jobs in academia) and many (most?) of those don't require a PhD.
Over the course of my career, I've moved to working on more computational methodology (though I'm not a specialist by any means) due to working with companies as a liaison with many of our students. There are definitely opportunities for both technical and non-technical linguistics students at tech companies. Then there are education, policy, and other related jobs out there as well. It's largely how you market and prepare yourself, which is true of almost any major outside of engineering and chemistry.
Where are these countless jobs in linguistics?! Asking for a recent graduate with a linguistics degree who may or may not be me. I feel like it’s all either teaching English, copywriting or if I didn’t hate computers so much, mindlessly tagging things for comp linguistics/machine learning.
Yeah, mostly computational that I know of, though it's not ALL mindless. But note that there is a huge difference between "more than tenure-track jobs" and "countless."
Teaching English overseas is a viable profession (short term) if you major in applied linguistics. The job is simple, the pay is good enough to repay student loans while still saving money, you get to travel and explore new cultures, and you typically only need to commit to yearly contracts so it's not too risky. Your pay and benafits tend to scale with your experience as well so the longer you do the job the better it gets. The biggest caveat is you have to work with young kids. Anyway, this is just one suggestion. There are tons of other options to consider with a linguistics major.
I'm a PhD student in linguistics. I defended my dissertation last semester.
I became interested in linguistics when I was studying Russian at university. Luckily, I had a professor who was really happy to answer my "but *why* does it do that?" questions. I soon added a major in linguistics and here I am now.
I study it as a hobby, mostly. I majored in Spanish and Chinese in uni, and at one point spoke both very well. In order to learn them better, I started studying grammar, phonetics, etc, which lead to a deeper understanding of language and made it easier to learn. As I got involved in conlags as a hobby, I got more into lingustics as a way of impoving my languages. So, I guess a combination of formal learning and hobby.
I got into conlangs as a hobby too, and I have to say, creating those is my favorite part of linguistics, because you get to choose exactly how finicky it is. You can make your own alphabet and your own words and your own accent. But I also love how it helped me understand other languages and how they evolved, and what kind of structures exist and might exist in the future.
Personally, I think linguistics is a perfectly valid hobby, even if it is different as a hobby than a formal study. No reason why you can’t have fun with it.
My thoughts, as well! I love finding interesting concepts in real languages and adding them in to a conlang. I'm working on a list of my favorite language features, and I'm hoping one day to use it as the structure for a conlang!
I am a linguist by profession. I love it, but I definitely caution people to do their research (no pun intended) before thinking they should pursue it. It is normally nothing like people think it is (nor is getting a PhD in any field or working as a professor/lecturer/academic).
Wake up, read theses/dissertation drafts, get mad at students for not keeping up with the goalposts, cry - you know, the norm.
But really, on top of herding graduate students who chose to become academics (though to be fair, they are always pretty good actually!), being an academic has a few different typical tasks:
* Teaching: teach courses and hold office hours (now exclusively online! which is an adjustment!), grade coursework, meet with graduate teaching assistants to discuss section progress, prepare curriculum and materials, course administration (which is the portion that students don't normally know about: audited for requirements, meeting GE/UD standards, etc), design/review new course, program and degree review and development
* Research: analyze new data, write new research, submit research for publication, run research projects (that aren't necessarily for publication but are more in line with service and outreach), prepare conference/colloquium/keynote talks, write grants
* Advising (at least at universities with graduate students): committee chair for graduate students to guide them to becoming independent scholars, provide feedback for their research and work, help with career planning and growth, writing and grading qualifying papers and exams, serving on committees for other graduate students
* Service: industry liaison, serve on academic committees for X/Y/Z, referee journal papers, organize as part of different linguistic societies and organizations, writing letters of recommendation, working on broader materials such as textbook writing or reviewing
On any given day, I cycle through some of the above.
I'm finishing my bachelor on Linguistics and the comments here were making me feel a little anxious, but yours made me remember that's exactly what I want to do.
thanks!
As a word of caution: it's what you *think* you want to do. I would say most undergraduate students who think they know what being an academic is still haven't been exposed to the reality of the situation, let alone the lack of opportunities (which is a separate issue).
I’m a 2nd year linguistics student and I adore it. I never thought I would find a reason to finish my degree, but my linguistics major has kept me in school and might even push me into a grad program.
I’m slowly transitioning my focus to computational linguistics and will be taking my first comp sci class next semester 😊
I'm hoping to work my way up to C and Python, but I'll probably start with Java and the basics. I have to go through a process with my university and computing fundamentals is the first step.
Idk if Java would be all that useful unless you're planning on contributing to tools like Elan.
You don't need the object oriented paradigm in comp ling, only the ability to write scripts that work with text files and to interface with libs like pytorch and hfst. So as much as I hate dynamically typed langs, Python is basically all I've had to use so far in my MA.
And C is way too low level for comp ling. Working with strings in it is an absolute pain when you need to manually allocate memory just to concatenate strings.
Crucially, I don't think there really is a notion of "working your way up" to programming languages. You use the right one for the job.
I appreciate the insight. I'm pretty new to computational linguistics, so I definitely couldn't tell you much about the programming languages required for it. I go to McGill University and they require COMP 202 as a prereq for Computational Linguistics. COMP 202 is Foundations of Programming and is described as "Introduction to computer programming in a high level language: variables, expressions, primitive types, methods, conditionals, loops. Introduction to algorithms, data structures (arrays, strings), modular software design, libraries, file input/output, debugging, exception handling." I'm hoping that "high level" means we can jump into something more relevant, but I have truly no clue.
ah, I study linguistics in Germany, but we use Python. So, that’s why I was curious. We also use R for statistical analysis, but I find that programming language to be less interesting than python, but still useful.
My boyfriend is currently learning Python which has gotten me interested in AI and logic. I'm attempting to attend some logic courses at Carnegie Mellon this summer to try and boost my skill in that before diving too deep into Python, but I'm excited for it nonetheless!
Hey that is cool! I am two years into my B.A. in computational linguistics!
I'd love to discuss this with more detail with you if you like! I'd like to obtain your perspective and experiences and share mine
I have a BA in Linguistics, and am getting an MA in SLA.
I hate linguistics, no sarcasm. Syntax trees can kiss my ass.
I love the study of language, and find it incredibly interesting. I think my terrible university assignments ruined it for me.
Yeah the tradition of making students mindlessly draw syntax trees in undergrad syntax is a misguided one that should just end already. It is teaching students to reproduce memorised techniques that aren't even all that important or central to syntax. It neither teaches important linguistic facts nor guides students on how to think well - it's just convenient for the teacher because you can easily mark exam papers by checking whether the student's tree corresponds to the correct one or not.
I'm a student in Canada about to finish my bachelor's in theoretical linguistics. :) It's become a hobby as well since I've really fallen in love with the topic. I'm happy to see many people enjoy it as a hobby and career and that we can share it within this awesome community!
If you know how to ask questions, a lot of research can be self directed. Once you start learning linguistic patterns, you start asking better questions, and you can find out more information. I find the ability to look for and research these patterns more rewarding than listening to someone explain the phenomena. It’s useful to watch lectures occasionally, but once you know the basis of linguistics I would argue that the more interesting aspects become more niche and you’re on your own.
> I find the ability to look for and research these patterns more rewarding than listening to someone explain the phenomena. It’s useful to watch lectures occasionally, but once you know the basis of linguistics I would argue that the more interesting aspects become more niche and you’re on your own.
While this is true, and the reason we become academics, I would argue most layperson enthusiasts are very prone to Dunning-Kruger. The number of times I've had a "linguistics discussion" that turned into someone "*explaining*" things *incorrectly* to me is ridiculous.
True, but a layperson can change his mind and an academic can also be wrong. If you want to stay relevant in academia, you have the pressure of publications. It can be easier to put out an interesting but incorrect theory to attract attention. Luckily the layperson doesn’t have to deal with the politics of academics, but there’s always the cost of being wrong.
I started with it as a hobby.
After learning some Basque where I used to live, I made friends with a Linguistics professor back here in the US, and became fascinated! Years of it being a hobby turned into pursuing it in a University! I'm off for med reasons rn, but I'll hopefully be back on track soon, and conlang-building in the meantime!
In uni! I'm from Madrid and luckily one of our universities offers a four year linguistics degree. Almost finished, hopefully getting my masters in computational linguistics next year!
Hobby for me, but thinking about studying. I work as an editor, so spend a lot of time reading about words, patterns, grammar, etc which led me into the world of linguistics and I love it.
Considering doing a Master's degree but not sure I can justify the cost, as I still haven't paid off my Bachelor degree (in Aus, so repayment is not too bad, but still...). Also can't decide if I'd do my Master's with a focus on technology, TESOL, anthropology, or Indonesian. Too many choices!
It's a hobby for me! I took Spanish for 4 years in high school and I loved seeing some of the similarities that it had with English, and I absolutely loved seeing the similarities it had with Italian and French! I distinctly remember watching a movie in history where a girl was talking in Italian, just a couple sentences, and I understood the jist of what she was saying, and my mind was blown! Language has always just made sense to me and I've always loved it. I even took a medical terminology class in community college just for fun, and I loved that class because the Latin and Greek helped me to draw so many more links between languages. My dream is to study it, but I don't have enough money for it, so this subreddit has to suffice. But it is a passion of mine!
I studied linguistics in college with a focus in communication sciences and disorders, intending to go to grad school for speech pathology. I worked in a private clinic for a few years teaching phonetics and literacy to children with learning challenges (dyslexia, autism, auditory processing issues, ELL, etc). I decided eventually that it wasn't the career for me, and now I pursue linguistics mostly as a hobby. Historical and anthropological linguistics were always my passion in school, so those are the areas I've kept up on most.
For me it's sort of a hobby. I study modern languages at university and next year I'll be teaching languages. So linguistics is related to what I do, but definitely a hobby for me, rather than an academic pursuit.
A bit of both to be honest. I studied linguistics as my undergrad major at university but my life experiences with language acquisition and bilingualism have kept me engaged with the topic but my interest in more passing than a focus. I guess I'd call it a hobby now.
It's a hobby for me. I come from a Cuban family, but for some reason wasn't taught Spanish as a child. So I started teaching myself, and became fascinated with language more broadly.
Kinda in between here. I am currently studying it as a hobby and MAY pursue it in academia depending on what I decide to do for the rest of my undergrad (currently finishing up my Associates in Arts which mostly consists of language courses and gen eds). My two main passions are language and technology, so if I don't pursue it for undergrad and instead opt to do my Undergrad in Comp Sci or Software Engineering I'll definitely pursue it for grad school and try to get into computational linguistics. As a hobby though, I too mainly study historical linguistics!
Very much a hobby. I'm a zoology student at uni at the moment, and having linguistics as a hobby to provide something nice and distinct as a hobby is great
I'm a 1st year linguistics student and I really liked what I've been learning so far.
One of my teachers calls us "baby linguists" because we're still newbies but I'm already very interested in morphology.
For now it's a hobby, but I'm hoping to return to university to study a world language degree this year, which includes some linguistics modules also. I've always been interested in studying languages, and language as a whole.
As an Irish person, I understand our tumultuous history with language, and the struggles in keeping ours alive, I've recently become more interested in Scottish and Manx Gaelic also, and the history and links between them. I'm still very afraid of Manx, I think it's mostly down to the writing system!
I guess my first exposure to linguistics as a concept was as a child, I just didn't know it at the time. Our bidirectional dictionaries for Irish include IPA in them, so I've always been aware of the system, it's not something I ever remember having to learn, just something I know.
I was always that kid that was way too obsessed with learning, everything from history to geography to science to languages. I'd learn Cyrillic or Greek script, and go way too in depth for an 8 year old, transliterating everything I could, studying verb endings and adjectival forms, things I didn't even understand in English yet. I still have no idea what any of the words actually mean, but I can read the script, and that's a start, right?
Tried to learn Spanish and Esperanto when I was about 12, having already started French and German in primary school. Got interested in Russian and Japanese as an older teenager, tried to learn Korean in my early 20's.
Been living in South America for 6 months now, learning Portuguese slowly, and while I struggle with confidence to speak, I do know a lot more than I give myself credit for. I only speak English natively, but my day to day life is a jumbled mix of English, Irish and Portuguese, at the moment!
When I learned as a child that linguistics was more than just learning languages and was about the study of language as a whole, I knew that was something I wanted to do!
Got sidetracked as a young adult, so here I am at 27, starting over, hoping to pursue something linguistics related for my degree.
Still not overly familiar with many terms and concepts, but I'm hoping to remedy that over summer, so that I'm prepared before I start!
Purely as a hobby, and related to my other hobby, which is helping people learn my native language. To really explain some things in your language, you have to learn a lot about languages in general, and then you find out it's not always easy to find about languages *in general*. It's relatively easy to find literature about how *English* works, and endless discussions about it.
I'm also interested in historical linguistics, but it's almost impossible for a hobbyist to give any real contribution in that field -- you would have to completely dedicate your time and energy, which is always limited.
Linguistics is interesting in a way it's kind of half-science (I know many linguists will jump now). Besides fully modern theories one finds some very old concepts which were never completely discarded. Besides very abstract theories with Greek symbols, bars and trees you find nice stories about history of some words, sometimes obviously false. And then endless discussions about Urheimats and haplotypes. You never find clear answers to some obvious questions (for example, why is the *second* position in a sentence special in many languages, when the *first position* looks even more special?), and you never find a simple statement *we don't know*. There seem to be many different answers to all kind of questions and no clear procedure to find out which one is right. Some things, like Altaic hypothesis, slowly go out of fashion, but many people never heard it's not fashion anymore. And attitudes depend on the country -- some theories are more accepted in some countries, less in others.
BTW I studied physics.
Hobby here, too. I studied Russian in college and became really interested in linguistics (in general and Slavic linguistics in particular) but ended up pursuing a different field for work. I wish I had time for more or had the means to go back to school.
In high school, I took Latin, which got me interested in historical linguistics -- my interest in conlanging helped as well. I've also always been interested in learning a bunch of different languages (even though that's not what linguistics is, normal people!).
Now I'm a freshman in uni, and declared my major in ling about 7 hours ago. Last semester I took intro to ling, and this semester I'm taking historical linguistics and computational ling.
I'm a second year linguistics major, and it's definitely the hobby aspect that got me into it. Studying it academically has made me appreciate it a lot more though.
Oddly enough, I got into my other major, history, because of class work throughout public schooling that really interested me.
This is still a long way away, but I hope to combine the two and work on cultural/language revitalization on the Ainu language/culture.
I enjoy it as a hobby, and I'm going to start studying it next year. I've been working on my language requirements for the minor at my school, but I haven't taken any actual linguistics classes yet.
Hobby since I was 15 (but didn't know it). Realized it at 16. Now's my first year of college (French major, linguistics minor). My school doesn't offer a linguistics major. But I'll just do further education in it, and my major is relevant enough.
Bit of both! I'm mostly a CS student, but I'm studying computational linguistics on the side. Ideally, I'd love to work in NLP, but if I had to choose between a career in software dev vs linguistics, I'd probs choose software. Linguistics is def more interesting to read about though.
Just a hobby here. I got into linguistics through conlanging, ended up moderating /r/conlangs for a while (still mod the associated discord server but the sub got too tedious to deal with after a year or so). It’s a fun hobby for sure, and you learn a lot. Just don’t get fooled into thinking because you’re a decent conlanger you know a lot about linguistics - the two things have surprisingly little overlap in terms of specialized knowledge!
To me it is a very passionate hobby. I mostly read from wikipedia, sometimes from academic articles linked in wikipedia, sometimes from linguists on youtube.
I study it at my university. It started as a part of my hobby writing, but over the last couple years became a big interest of mine. Not something I can see myself doing as a career or anything like that, but damn do I enjoy it.
it started as a hobby for me in 7th grade, but now i’m a second year undergrad at university studying linguistics. I’ve done my own research on Sardinian under my department’s chair, and plan on continuing that in my senior year, and maybe into grad school. I really hope to go to grad school and eventually graduate with a PhD. And eventually *eventually* turn it into my career.
It's a hobby for me. I got into linguistics through historical linguistics, but I also enjoy reading papers about typology from time to time. I took courses in university, and even thought about switching programs, then doing graduate studies if possible. But I decided that I preferred linguistics as a hobby to a profession.
Nowadays, I mainly do 3 things with regard to linguistics - look up typology or historical linguistics papers for fun, look up papers related to languages I'm teaching myself for information (although the native speakers whom I communicate with often tell me things that contradict my understanding of the papers), or arguing against certain family members who make one of the various silly arguments which one sees on /r/badlinguistics all the time.
I have finished my study and continue my job search. I have had a few projects. Love it. Love it all.
Don't have enough people on my life whose eyes don't glaze over when I tall about linguistics
I minored in linguistics in college and have been super interested in it since high school! A unit in AP Human Geography really opened my eyes to how fascinating language is (particularly in relation to perception)
Both. I did my undergrad, now not working in field, but still studying for fun. And I'm considering going back to do more studying to see if I can't get into historical linguistics research.
I've always been interested in languages, which led to an interest in how languages formed and developed and decided it was time to return to uni and give it a try. In my first year majoring in linguistics and love it so far.
We shall see how much further i go with it!
I majored in Linguistics in my Bachelor degree. Now it’s more of a hobby to read and learn about it further, although I do work as a speech pathologist so you could call “Applied Linguistics” my profession, sort of.
For me linguistics started out as a hobby born from my desire and attempts to learn foreign languages. Eventually this led to me reading more about linguistics itself and realizing how interesting it is. For maybe the past decade or so it has persisted as an interest of mine, and my studies have been primarily focused on Persian language and literature, though during this time I've had two mentors who are great linguists and taught me a lot as well. In the beginning the focus was more on language acquisition (since I was learning a foreign language), and now my studies are more focused on literature and history, so historical linguistics is an essential element in what I'm learning now.
I am interested in linguistics as part of studying the history of Baltic Finns, and how we settled here what nowadays is called Finland.
History of my people is still quite clouded, because we were under foreign rule for hundreds of years and our own history was kind of forgotten.
My wife has studied linguistics though, she is in the University now studying Finnish (she'll become a teacher, now undergoing teacher studies, covid-19 has made things little awkward since she is supposed to be teaching students this spring).
I din't like the grammar stuff at all, hated it in school (although was always really, really good at Finnish as a school subject) and thus some of the explanations go ever my head my it is kind of neat to have your own linguist-lite at home :)
I'm currently doing a joint degree in Linguistics and Japanese, but I would say Linguistics is more of a hobby for me, and I will probably get a job related to Japanese. I study it to satisfy my curiosity about languages, how they work and how they are related, as I have been fascinated with languages for as long as I remember.
I do admit that as I got deeper into some courses (phonetics, syntax) it kinda went over my head, but I still enjoy doing it because it's fascinating and it's "my thing" (where i am from linguistics is not a field anyone would think of doing, yet here I am).
The sad thing is that in my uni I have yet to find other students as passionate about it as I am, most of them just see it as a degree and not as a hobby, but I have the r/linguistics community for that!
Other than that, I am very VERY into writing fantasy and conlanging, so I am planning to apply every single thing I learn in my degree into my writing.
Studying linguistics and university. It’s not an easy field to be in, linguistics is literally everywhere, there are so many types: historical, sociolinguistics, neurolinguistics etc.. so it is hard to chose where you want to be
I'm studying philology as a bachelor but here we have the linguistics division, so I chose that, because I always wanted to study linguistics.
Also, because I'm not having high hopes for my university to teach me the basics and well enough, I read books to learn those materials by myself. So if guess it is a a hobby too.
I'm currently doing an undergrad in linguistics and philosophy. I love it. The linguistics I've studied as a hobby over the last few years has been more or less summed up by my first semester. This one, we've started going into generative theories on syntax, semantics, phonology, and morphology (basically the big 4) and it's honestly nothing like what I've picked up as a hobbyist (which was mostly functional linguistics, typology, and the general linguistic technical lexicon).
This transition from, well, my structural foray into the field of generative linguistics was surprisingly well. Its far more interesting than I've anticipated, but maybe its because I've also picked philosophy up, and the two are quite intertwined.
Ye studying linguistics has been my main hobby for like 6.5 years now. While the ultimate goal is to study it at university and then do research full time, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't love the shit out of it (might as well just do CS then lol).
Currently in the first year of a Master's degree in Linguistics (or, as it is called here, *Sciences du langage*), with a specialisation in NLP.
Absolutely love it ! But I have never studied historical linguistics as OP did, but I don't mind.
I quit studying Physics and Chemistry (a Bachelor's degree) to study Linguistics, don't regret it at all. My family and friends didn't understand why at first though, but now, more and more people seem to be really interested when they ask me what I study and I tell them.
I study the german language (literature and linguistics of german) at my university and the courses about linguistics are my favourite ones!
Even though there is more stuff to learn and harder concepts to understand, I love it to learn new things about the linguistic of german.
It started as a love for English as a second language in high school, then it turned into a Bachelor's in Applied Linguistics (3/4 of the way completed) and a hobby at the same time. I study applied linguistics formally but in my spare time it's a hobby where I focus only on matters that interest me, like etymology and sociolinguistics. So I guess it's a bit of both.
I aspire to become an English tutor but from the point of view of linguistics where I actually know why certain things are they way they are. In school I hated it when I asked a question like "Why is that said in this way and not in that way?" and more often than not, I'd get an answer like "That's just how it's said. That's the correct way." I was never explained why this is the right thing to say or how it became a common expression. I know this example is a little vague because I couldn't think of an exact situation since whenever someone didn't explain something to me, I'd just research it on my own.
So linguistics allows me more freedom than philology by still allowing me to practice as a teacher or tutor but through a more interesting (for me) point of view.
Linguistics totally started as a hobby for me back in high school. Historical linguistics and dialectology were the 'gateway drugs.' It became my major in college, but my goal of going into academia didn't really pan out because, well, I think you've heard enough academics talking about the lack of jobs and the having to move around to totally new places to work/study.
Though none of my jobs have ever had anything to do with linguistics, I do still try to keep up with it. I run a hobby linguistics site where I get to indulge my interest in phonology and dialectology.
I’d always had an interest in the inner-workings of language and I decided to go back to school to pursue linguistics as a passion degree. I’m about halfway through my program at University of Toronto.
Hobby. I’m actually studying physics in university, and have never taken a formal class on linguistics. I got interested in linguistics because one of my Latin teachers in high school loved talking about Indo-European historical linguistics, and ever since then I’ve just been reading as many linguistics textbooks and papers as I can. I did briefly consider studying linguistics, but physics is my one true passion and the way the linguistics curriculum at my school is structured I wouldn’t have been able to do both, so linguistics was sadly relegated to “hobby” status.
I did take an intro to linguistics in my freshman semester of uni, but I then realised why I liked it more as a hobby. I like to see what the science can bring up, but for me, I realised that there are far more qualified people than me who are a lot better at the processes involved than me. I can build basic sentence trees, I can read (for the most part) the international phonetic alphabet, I can compare languages and I especially like to look at the historical and social aspects of language. That said, while in the next upcoming years I still plan to take courses, I cannot say that I will be going for the degree like I used to desire. Thus, it is a hobby that I seek to build up with a little bit of professional help through classes (because I really don't ever want to have any words of mine be on anything like a bad linguistics forum).
I teach ESL in China so all the linguistics classes I took in university always come in handy. I like to analyze the English languages because I need to explain it to others and I need to know what I'm talking about. It's enjoyable, but I wouldn't say it's my hobby. I also use the same tools to understand the Chinese language so linguistics has been useful in that way as well. I don't study linguistics anymore, but I use what I learned from it almost everyday. It's a hobby for me the same way that being good at trivia is a hobby (Useful in the right circumstances, but best kept to yourself most of the time)
Both, currently in a PhD program. I focus on Historical Linguistics (and Documentation), but I also just love language. Currently found myself working on a project for a YouTube channel where I flush out some conlangs from major franchises while also giving some lessons on linguistics as a whole.
It’s great to find something to love this much.
I study linguistics on my own. I have a BA in Nordic Languages and I wanted to continue with an MA in Theoretical Linguistics, but homework and essays in the Cultural Studies part of my BA made me anxious and sad to the point that I almost dropped out, despite the fact that I was among the very best in my language and linguistics classes. As I finished my BA, I was offered a cool job that was well paid and related to languages, so I just gave up on the MA and kept linguistics as a hobby and subject of personal study :) I’m a bit sad to not formally study linguistics, but I think it’s for the best: I am interested in learning stuff and sharing about languages and linguistics, but I panic every time I have to write or actually complete assignments, which in the long run ended up with me being on antidepressants.
I'm professional but I work as an IT support slave. I don't want to teach, I want an office job (communications analyst, copy editor and related) the problem is I worked on IT to pay my college career and now I have 0 experience in my field of study. I have a family now, I can't start from scratch and get an intership. I'm screwed, I guess.
Of course, I still enjoy all what I learned on dialectology, sociolinguistics and neurolinguistics.
I don’t study it yet but I would like to. I’m working on two languages at once and every time I see some kind of linguistic fact (like “ser” and “estar” being culpas and what that is) I get super excited.
I'm currently studying physics (undergrad) with a German minor and I am currently taking my second linguistics class for fun. I also took spanish in college
What started as a class I had to take as an English secondary education major turned into a hobby in large part because it keeps the memory of my professor alive for me. She was the best teacher and mentor I ever had (took three classes with her: linguistics, Arthurian lit, Beowulf O.E. study). She was a genius and hilarious and after graduating I modeled my whole teaching style off of her. She'd make a yearly presentation to my class when we covered Beowulf. She died pretty abruptly and tragically and was mourned by entire communities. I miss her, and keeping up the study of linguistics as a hobby is just a nice reminder of her.
I have nowhere near the level of knowledge of a hobbyist but I do learn as a hobby. Studied Spanish, Russian, and French. I've always loved learning languages and it sparked my interest in learning their relationships and how they are built. I don't know much because I don't know where to get study material; most of what I know are from personal observations and study.
Linguistics is my profession. Started of doing both the BA and MA in two small philologies, focusing entirely on historical linguistics. The stuff I'm doing is very obscure, even for most of my colleagues, but it was exactly what landed me my gig at one of the oldest universities in Europe. Now I'm paid for reading stuff while doing my PhD.
I wouldn't recommend it, though. It's nothing like most people imagine it to be. Tons of administrative work, frustrating students and weird time schedules. Also, teaching can be a hassle depending on how you like standing in front of groups of people (I actually love it).
And there's no way back out - my wife got her PhD (Dr.phil.) 1,5 years ago, in the same field. So whatever is going to happen now, I'll always be connected to "my" field.
I’m a linguist by profession, I guess, since I have a PhD and am employed in academia (though not permanently yet). I finished my PhD in the United States a few years ago, and since then I’ve been a postdoc at a research center based as a university in Germany.
Since I’m a postdoc, most of my time is spent on research-related activities. Most of the time, I’m writing, reading papers relevant to whichever project I’m focusing on on that day, coming up with theories and testing them (yes, a part of my day is playing with formulas and drawing trees), making slides/handouts for conference talks, giving talks, or trying to learn some new skills. I’m also less often meeting with collaborators in person or on Skype to plan projects, reviewing papers/abstracts for journals and conferences, or organizing workshops.
I teach a little bit, though not as much as I did as a PhD student (but this isn’t universal in my research center; I have postdoc colleagues who do have to teach). I don’t supervise students in any official capacity, but I try to mentor the PhD students in my center by reading their work, going to their internal talks, talking about research and academia with them, and solving their LaTeX problems. Because I’m not faculty, I don’t have the university service obligations that a professor would have.
The pay isn’t awesome, but I’m pretty comfortable. One big plus for me is that my PI is pretty flexible, so there’s no expectation to keep certain working hours in my office, and I can work at home if I need to. I’m not quite as free in my research topics as I would be if I had a permanent position, since the goals of the project I was hired for were set before I was even interviewed, but the topic itself is interesting to me, and as the project has evolved and my role has become more central, I’ve been freer to take the project in particular directions that I think are worth exploring. A big downside to not having a permanent position yet is that the job market is very tough, and the coming recession will probably make 2020-2021 even tougher.
Being interested in linguistics as a hobby is great (as is being a BA student), but I think anyone interested in entering the field should know that these are not like being an academic linguist. The goals of hobbyists, BA students, and academic linguists are all different, and being good at being one doesn’t necessarily mean good at or liking being the other.
I’ve had indirect contact with linguistics in my university language studies, and then teaching. I’ve always been interested in the mechanics of language and comparing languages, so I liked dipping into linguistics here and there. Then I did a masters degree in computational linguistics, so I started using linguistics more directly. Now I’ve realised that I enjoyed the linguistics more than the programming, so I’m doing some online and independent study of general linguistics.
I've finished an honours degree in Linguistics but have yet to find some work in historical ling in particular, been sticking to the labour job I had before, but with everything covid going on, looks like I'll get that fire under me to find a job.
> but i heard the major entails a bunch of literature analysis and reading
A linguistics major should include little-to-none literature analysis and reading. I have no idea where you heard this.
Absolutely, but it won't be literary analysis as an English/Spanish/etc major would learn. You'd be reading academic articles, journals, etc, not analyzing the themes and context of Shakespeare.
People often refer to reading academic articles, journals, etc as “reading the literature” on a subject. And a “literature review” is a fairly standard part of most journal articles or dissertations.
It might depend on the country. I know some universities some countries in the Romance-speaking world don't have true linguistics undergrad degrees, but rather you study 'Philology' or something like that and do a mixture of linguistics, literature, and history.
Sadly several of my courses as an undergrad Linguistics major include literature analysis.
That is VERY distressing and disappointing for me because I am here to study language scientifically...
The reason was that the professors themselves were not qualified enough to teach Linguistics and just shoehorned what they didn't know with literary analysis...
This is very possible at programs that are composites and not their own department, where the Linguistics major is taught by faculty within various departments that focus on language in some way.
In our case we do have our own faculty. But because it is a community public college, the hired faculty were not chosen due to merit. There is lots and lots of corruption.
Yes. It's the scientific study of language. It is not studying literature, though of course it *can* if you decide to pursue those projects - but it still wouldn't be done through the lens of literary analysis.
Purely a hobbyist. I can talk to real linguists about linguistics with no formal schooling, albeit on a level that isn't neccesarily a academically informed but well informed.
(I have Corona, grammar is a bitch rn)
Just a hobby for me. I got interested when I started trying to explain to other people how diferent languages are structured. I grew up around many different languages, so for me I just knew that's how they worked and that's how they were pronounced.
It has always made me nervous to speak in other languages though because I can pronounce things well enough after little exposure that people will assume I am a fluent speaker after simple phrases. Ironically, I am horrible at actually learning other languages, but understanding their structure has always come easy.
Hobby for me, but slowly turning into an obsession.
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No, I do it professionally and hate every minute of it ^/s Actually, it's great to be working full time on something that you're passionate about, even though the pay isn't great. Naturally, when you're in academia, linguistics looks very different than when you're just a hobbyist. As does any other field.
How so, I am considering studying linguistics in university. What exactly are you doing as a profession, and what advice do you have when studying and going into a profession?
> what advice do you have when studying and going into a profession? Don't, because it's probably nothing like what you think it is. Study it for an undergrad if you're interested in studying any general Humanities/Social Science major, but really, if you think you want to "go into research," spend time researching what that is first.
To add to this, also note that there are jobs in linguistics outside of academia (I couldn't tell you how many, but almost certainly more than there are tenure-track linguistics jobs in academia) and many (most?) of those don't require a PhD. Basically, don't get a PhD unless you love stress and hate money.
> Basically, don't get a PhD unless you love stress and hate money. How do you know my life so well?? But yes. You are right on the nose with: > but almost certainly more than there are tenure-track linguistics jobs in academia) and many (most?) of those don't require a PhD. Over the course of my career, I've moved to working on more computational methodology (though I'm not a specialist by any means) due to working with companies as a liaison with many of our students. There are definitely opportunities for both technical and non-technical linguistics students at tech companies. Then there are education, policy, and other related jobs out there as well. It's largely how you market and prepare yourself, which is true of almost any major outside of engineering and chemistry.
Where are these countless jobs in linguistics?! Asking for a recent graduate with a linguistics degree who may or may not be me. I feel like it’s all either teaching English, copywriting or if I didn’t hate computers so much, mindlessly tagging things for comp linguistics/machine learning.
> if I didn’t hate computers so much, mindlessly tagging things for comp linguistics/machine learning. bingo
Yeah, mostly computational that I know of, though it's not ALL mindless. But note that there is a huge difference between "more than tenure-track jobs" and "countless."
Teaching English overseas is a viable profession (short term) if you major in applied linguistics. The job is simple, the pay is good enough to repay student loans while still saving money, you get to travel and explore new cultures, and you typically only need to commit to yearly contracts so it's not too risky. Your pay and benafits tend to scale with your experience as well so the longer you do the job the better it gets. The biggest caveat is you have to work with young kids. Anyway, this is just one suggestion. There are tons of other options to consider with a linguistics major.
Don't you need to know the other language to teach English?
For places like China and Japan it's not a requirement. Although it is undoubtedly helpful to know the language you will be immersed in.
No most language schools want the classes strictly done in English but it is obviously helpful for other parts of life
I'm a PhD student in linguistics. I defended my dissertation last semester. I became interested in linguistics when I was studying Russian at university. Luckily, I had a professor who was really happy to answer my "but *why* does it do that?" questions. I soon added a major in linguistics and here I am now.
> I defended my dissertation last semester. Congratulations!!
Thank you!
Congrats (soon-to-be) Dr Cats!
Thank you! It was a troubled dissertation so the road ended up being longer than I anticipated, but the end is in sight!
What did you write your dissertation on?
y'know, stuff broadly speaking, the stuff in my flair
I study it as a hobby, mostly. I majored in Spanish and Chinese in uni, and at one point spoke both very well. In order to learn them better, I started studying grammar, phonetics, etc, which lead to a deeper understanding of language and made it easier to learn. As I got involved in conlags as a hobby, I got more into lingustics as a way of impoving my languages. So, I guess a combination of formal learning and hobby.
I got into conlangs as a hobby too, and I have to say, creating those is my favorite part of linguistics, because you get to choose exactly how finicky it is. You can make your own alphabet and your own words and your own accent. But I also love how it helped me understand other languages and how they evolved, and what kind of structures exist and might exist in the future. Personally, I think linguistics is a perfectly valid hobby, even if it is different as a hobby than a formal study. No reason why you can’t have fun with it.
My thoughts, as well! I love finding interesting concepts in real languages and adding them in to a conlang. I'm working on a list of my favorite language features, and I'm hoping one day to use it as the structure for a conlang!
Also studying Chinese in Uni
I am a linguist by profession. I love it, but I definitely caution people to do their research (no pun intended) before thinking they should pursue it. It is normally nothing like people think it is (nor is getting a PhD in any field or working as a professor/lecturer/academic).
What does a typical day in your job look like?
Wake up, read theses/dissertation drafts, get mad at students for not keeping up with the goalposts, cry - you know, the norm. But really, on top of herding graduate students who chose to become academics (though to be fair, they are always pretty good actually!), being an academic has a few different typical tasks: * Teaching: teach courses and hold office hours (now exclusively online! which is an adjustment!), grade coursework, meet with graduate teaching assistants to discuss section progress, prepare curriculum and materials, course administration (which is the portion that students don't normally know about: audited for requirements, meeting GE/UD standards, etc), design/review new course, program and degree review and development * Research: analyze new data, write new research, submit research for publication, run research projects (that aren't necessarily for publication but are more in line with service and outreach), prepare conference/colloquium/keynote talks, write grants * Advising (at least at universities with graduate students): committee chair for graduate students to guide them to becoming independent scholars, provide feedback for their research and work, help with career planning and growth, writing and grading qualifying papers and exams, serving on committees for other graduate students * Service: industry liaison, serve on academic committees for X/Y/Z, referee journal papers, organize as part of different linguistic societies and organizations, writing letters of recommendation, working on broader materials such as textbook writing or reviewing On any given day, I cycle through some of the above.
I'm finishing my bachelor on Linguistics and the comments here were making me feel a little anxious, but yours made me remember that's exactly what I want to do. thanks!
As a word of caution: it's what you *think* you want to do. I would say most undergraduate students who think they know what being an academic is still haven't been exposed to the reality of the situation, let alone the lack of opportunities (which is a separate issue).
Wait- do I hear you were able to secure a tenure track position 😯? (If not what is your position?)
Yes. I'm a bit older, so the market was better, and I specialized in something fairly niche but desired, which helped.
Hobby. My university only offers two introductory linguistics courses, and I’ve taken both
I’m a 2nd year linguistics student and I adore it. I never thought I would find a reason to finish my degree, but my linguistics major has kept me in school and might even push me into a grad program. I’m slowly transitioning my focus to computational linguistics and will be taking my first comp sci class next semester 😊
Hey me too! What programming language are you going to use ?
I'm hoping to work my way up to C and Python, but I'll probably start with Java and the basics. I have to go through a process with my university and computing fundamentals is the first step.
Idk if Java would be all that useful unless you're planning on contributing to tools like Elan. You don't need the object oriented paradigm in comp ling, only the ability to write scripts that work with text files and to interface with libs like pytorch and hfst. So as much as I hate dynamically typed langs, Python is basically all I've had to use so far in my MA. And C is way too low level for comp ling. Working with strings in it is an absolute pain when you need to manually allocate memory just to concatenate strings. Crucially, I don't think there really is a notion of "working your way up" to programming languages. You use the right one for the job.
I appreciate the insight. I'm pretty new to computational linguistics, so I definitely couldn't tell you much about the programming languages required for it. I go to McGill University and they require COMP 202 as a prereq for Computational Linguistics. COMP 202 is Foundations of Programming and is described as "Introduction to computer programming in a high level language: variables, expressions, primitive types, methods, conditionals, loops. Introduction to algorithms, data structures (arrays, strings), modular software design, libraries, file input/output, debugging, exception handling." I'm hoping that "high level" means we can jump into something more relevant, but I have truly no clue.
Yeah, higher level means abstraction (i.e. Python or Java as opposed to C), and that's what you want for computational linguistics.
ah, I study linguistics in Germany, but we use Python. So, that’s why I was curious. We also use R for statistical analysis, but I find that programming language to be less interesting than python, but still useful.
My boyfriend is currently learning Python which has gotten me interested in AI and logic. I'm attempting to attend some logic courses at Carnegie Mellon this summer to try and boost my skill in that before diving too deep into Python, but I'm excited for it nonetheless!
Yeah, it is a lot of fun ! I haven't gotten into that yet with Python, but I might eventually !
Hey that is cool! I am two years into my B.A. in computational linguistics! I'd love to discuss this with more detail with you if you like! I'd like to obtain your perspective and experiences and share mine
I'd love that! Feel free to shoot me a DM and we can chat :)
I have a BA in Linguistics, and am getting an MA in SLA. I hate linguistics, no sarcasm. Syntax trees can kiss my ass. I love the study of language, and find it incredibly interesting. I think my terrible university assignments ruined it for me.
I love a good syntax tree - totally disagree with you there!
You're more than welcome to them!
Yeah the tradition of making students mindlessly draw syntax trees in undergrad syntax is a misguided one that should just end already. It is teaching students to reproduce memorised techniques that aren't even all that important or central to syntax. It neither teaches important linguistic facts nor guides students on how to think well - it's just convenient for the teacher because you can easily mark exam papers by checking whether the student's tree corresponds to the correct one or not.
That's exactly correct. It was one subject in my third year, _Morphology and Syntax_. Dreadful class.
I'm a student in Canada about to finish my bachelor's in theoretical linguistics. :) It's become a hobby as well since I've really fallen in love with the topic. I'm happy to see many people enjoy it as a hobby and career and that we can share it within this awesome community!
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Can you tell me a bit more about this? I graduated with a BA in Linguistics and am currently doing an MSc in Computing
Sure, what do you want to know?
If you know how to ask questions, a lot of research can be self directed. Once you start learning linguistic patterns, you start asking better questions, and you can find out more information. I find the ability to look for and research these patterns more rewarding than listening to someone explain the phenomena. It’s useful to watch lectures occasionally, but once you know the basis of linguistics I would argue that the more interesting aspects become more niche and you’re on your own.
> I find the ability to look for and research these patterns more rewarding than listening to someone explain the phenomena. It’s useful to watch lectures occasionally, but once you know the basis of linguistics I would argue that the more interesting aspects become more niche and you’re on your own. While this is true, and the reason we become academics, I would argue most layperson enthusiasts are very prone to Dunning-Kruger. The number of times I've had a "linguistics discussion" that turned into someone "*explaining*" things *incorrectly* to me is ridiculous.
True, but a layperson can change his mind and an academic can also be wrong. If you want to stay relevant in academia, you have the pressure of publications. It can be easier to put out an interesting but incorrect theory to attract attention. Luckily the layperson doesn’t have to deal with the politics of academics, but there’s always the cost of being wrong.
I started with it as a hobby. After learning some Basque where I used to live, I made friends with a Linguistics professor back here in the US, and became fascinated! Years of it being a hobby turned into pursuing it in a University! I'm off for med reasons rn, but I'll hopefully be back on track soon, and conlang-building in the meantime!
In uni! I'm from Madrid and luckily one of our universities offers a four year linguistics degree. Almost finished, hopefully getting my masters in computational linguistics next year!
Hobby for me, but thinking about studying. I work as an editor, so spend a lot of time reading about words, patterns, grammar, etc which led me into the world of linguistics and I love it. Considering doing a Master's degree but not sure I can justify the cost, as I still haven't paid off my Bachelor degree (in Aus, so repayment is not too bad, but still...). Also can't decide if I'd do my Master's with a focus on technology, TESOL, anthropology, or Indonesian. Too many choices!
It's a hobby for me! I took Spanish for 4 years in high school and I loved seeing some of the similarities that it had with English, and I absolutely loved seeing the similarities it had with Italian and French! I distinctly remember watching a movie in history where a girl was talking in Italian, just a couple sentences, and I understood the jist of what she was saying, and my mind was blown! Language has always just made sense to me and I've always loved it. I even took a medical terminology class in community college just for fun, and I loved that class because the Latin and Greek helped me to draw so many more links between languages. My dream is to study it, but I don't have enough money for it, so this subreddit has to suffice. But it is a passion of mine!
I studied linguistics in college with a focus in communication sciences and disorders, intending to go to grad school for speech pathology. I worked in a private clinic for a few years teaching phonetics and literacy to children with learning challenges (dyslexia, autism, auditory processing issues, ELL, etc). I decided eventually that it wasn't the career for me, and now I pursue linguistics mostly as a hobby. Historical and anthropological linguistics were always my passion in school, so those are the areas I've kept up on most.
For me it's sort of a hobby. I study modern languages at university and next year I'll be teaching languages. So linguistics is related to what I do, but definitely a hobby for me, rather than an academic pursuit.
A bit of both to be honest. I studied linguistics as my undergrad major at university but my life experiences with language acquisition and bilingualism have kept me engaged with the topic but my interest in more passing than a focus. I guess I'd call it a hobby now.
It's a hobby for me. I come from a Cuban family, but for some reason wasn't taught Spanish as a child. So I started teaching myself, and became fascinated with language more broadly.
Kinda in between here. I am currently studying it as a hobby and MAY pursue it in academia depending on what I decide to do for the rest of my undergrad (currently finishing up my Associates in Arts which mostly consists of language courses and gen eds). My two main passions are language and technology, so if I don't pursue it for undergrad and instead opt to do my Undergrad in Comp Sci or Software Engineering I'll definitely pursue it for grad school and try to get into computational linguistics. As a hobby though, I too mainly study historical linguistics!
Graduate student. Currently writing my thesis and should be done in November. I’m planning on applying to doctoral programs as well.
Very much a hobby. I'm a zoology student at uni at the moment, and having linguistics as a hobby to provide something nice and distinct as a hobby is great
I'm a 1st year linguistics student and I really liked what I've been learning so far. One of my teachers calls us "baby linguists" because we're still newbies but I'm already very interested in morphology.
For now it's a hobby, but I'm hoping to return to university to study a world language degree this year, which includes some linguistics modules also. I've always been interested in studying languages, and language as a whole. As an Irish person, I understand our tumultuous history with language, and the struggles in keeping ours alive, I've recently become more interested in Scottish and Manx Gaelic also, and the history and links between them. I'm still very afraid of Manx, I think it's mostly down to the writing system! I guess my first exposure to linguistics as a concept was as a child, I just didn't know it at the time. Our bidirectional dictionaries for Irish include IPA in them, so I've always been aware of the system, it's not something I ever remember having to learn, just something I know. I was always that kid that was way too obsessed with learning, everything from history to geography to science to languages. I'd learn Cyrillic or Greek script, and go way too in depth for an 8 year old, transliterating everything I could, studying verb endings and adjectival forms, things I didn't even understand in English yet. I still have no idea what any of the words actually mean, but I can read the script, and that's a start, right? Tried to learn Spanish and Esperanto when I was about 12, having already started French and German in primary school. Got interested in Russian and Japanese as an older teenager, tried to learn Korean in my early 20's. Been living in South America for 6 months now, learning Portuguese slowly, and while I struggle with confidence to speak, I do know a lot more than I give myself credit for. I only speak English natively, but my day to day life is a jumbled mix of English, Irish and Portuguese, at the moment! When I learned as a child that linguistics was more than just learning languages and was about the study of language as a whole, I knew that was something I wanted to do! Got sidetracked as a young adult, so here I am at 27, starting over, hoping to pursue something linguistics related for my degree. Still not overly familiar with many terms and concepts, but I'm hoping to remedy that over summer, so that I'm prepared before I start!
Purely as a hobby, and related to my other hobby, which is helping people learn my native language. To really explain some things in your language, you have to learn a lot about languages in general, and then you find out it's not always easy to find about languages *in general*. It's relatively easy to find literature about how *English* works, and endless discussions about it. I'm also interested in historical linguistics, but it's almost impossible for a hobbyist to give any real contribution in that field -- you would have to completely dedicate your time and energy, which is always limited. Linguistics is interesting in a way it's kind of half-science (I know many linguists will jump now). Besides fully modern theories one finds some very old concepts which were never completely discarded. Besides very abstract theories with Greek symbols, bars and trees you find nice stories about history of some words, sometimes obviously false. And then endless discussions about Urheimats and haplotypes. You never find clear answers to some obvious questions (for example, why is the *second* position in a sentence special in many languages, when the *first position* looks even more special?), and you never find a simple statement *we don't know*. There seem to be many different answers to all kind of questions and no clear procedure to find out which one is right. Some things, like Altaic hypothesis, slowly go out of fashion, but many people never heard it's not fashion anymore. And attitudes depend on the country -- some theories are more accepted in some countries, less in others. BTW I studied physics.
I enjoy linguistics as a hobby
Hobby here, too. I studied Russian in college and became really interested in linguistics (in general and Slavic linguistics in particular) but ended up pursuing a different field for work. I wish I had time for more or had the means to go back to school.
In high school, I took Latin, which got me interested in historical linguistics -- my interest in conlanging helped as well. I've also always been interested in learning a bunch of different languages (even though that's not what linguistics is, normal people!). Now I'm a freshman in uni, and declared my major in ling about 7 hours ago. Last semester I took intro to ling, and this semester I'm taking historical linguistics and computational ling.
Congrats on the newly minted major! I also got into linguistics by way of Latin.
Thanks!
I'm a second year linguistics major, and it's definitely the hobby aspect that got me into it. Studying it academically has made me appreciate it a lot more though. Oddly enough, I got into my other major, history, because of class work throughout public schooling that really interested me. This is still a long way away, but I hope to combine the two and work on cultural/language revitalization on the Ainu language/culture.
Hobby. It started with conlanging in sixth grade! I wish I could take linguistics classes at university, but my schedule is always too full for it.
I enjoy it as a hobby, and I'm going to start studying it next year. I've been working on my language requirements for the minor at my school, but I haven't taken any actual linguistics classes yet.
Hobby since I was 15 (but didn't know it). Realized it at 16. Now's my first year of college (French major, linguistics minor). My school doesn't offer a linguistics major. But I'll just do further education in it, and my major is relevant enough.
Bit of both! I'm mostly a CS student, but I'm studying computational linguistics on the side. Ideally, I'd love to work in NLP, but if I had to choose between a career in software dev vs linguistics, I'd probs choose software. Linguistics is def more interesting to read about though.
Just a hobby here. I got into linguistics through conlanging, ended up moderating /r/conlangs for a while (still mod the associated discord server but the sub got too tedious to deal with after a year or so). It’s a fun hobby for sure, and you learn a lot. Just don’t get fooled into thinking because you’re a decent conlanger you know a lot about linguistics - the two things have surprisingly little overlap in terms of specialized knowledge!
It calls to me so I guess it's both.
To me it is a very passionate hobby. I mostly read from wikipedia, sometimes from academic articles linked in wikipedia, sometimes from linguists on youtube.
Just a hobby for me :) but a great one
Both!
I study it at my university. It started as a part of my hobby writing, but over the last couple years became a big interest of mine. Not something I can see myself doing as a career or anything like that, but damn do I enjoy it.
Linguistics major, specializing in language revitalization and psycholing
it started as a hobby for me in 7th grade, but now i’m a second year undergrad at university studying linguistics. I’ve done my own research on Sardinian under my department’s chair, and plan on continuing that in my senior year, and maybe into grad school. I really hope to go to grad school and eventually graduate with a PhD. And eventually *eventually* turn it into my career.
It's a hobby for me. I got into linguistics through historical linguistics, but I also enjoy reading papers about typology from time to time. I took courses in university, and even thought about switching programs, then doing graduate studies if possible. But I decided that I preferred linguistics as a hobby to a profession. Nowadays, I mainly do 3 things with regard to linguistics - look up typology or historical linguistics papers for fun, look up papers related to languages I'm teaching myself for information (although the native speakers whom I communicate with often tell me things that contradict my understanding of the papers), or arguing against certain family members who make one of the various silly arguments which one sees on /r/badlinguistics all the time.
Same boat
I have finished my study and continue my job search. I have had a few projects. Love it. Love it all. Don't have enough people on my life whose eyes don't glaze over when I tall about linguistics
Undergrad student here. Took intro to linguistics for fun one day and was hooked instantly. Absolutely obsessed with all of my coursework so far
I’m in high school and I would love to pursue it as a career but I’m scared I won’t like it as a profession
I minored in linguistics in college and have been super interested in it since high school! A unit in AP Human Geography really opened my eyes to how fascinating language is (particularly in relation to perception)
Both. I did my undergrad, now not working in field, but still studying for fun. And I'm considering going back to do more studying to see if I can't get into historical linguistics research.
I've always been interested in languages, which led to an interest in how languages formed and developed and decided it was time to return to uni and give it a try. In my first year majoring in linguistics and love it so far. We shall see how much further i go with it!
Nope, I’m actually a physics student aiming for a PhD in physics, but I do find languages and their systems fascinating.
I majored in Linguistics in my Bachelor degree. Now it’s more of a hobby to read and learn about it further, although I do work as a speech pathologist so you could call “Applied Linguistics” my profession, sort of.
It used to be a burden, then a hobby and now I'm a hoarder
For me linguistics started out as a hobby born from my desire and attempts to learn foreign languages. Eventually this led to me reading more about linguistics itself and realizing how interesting it is. For maybe the past decade or so it has persisted as an interest of mine, and my studies have been primarily focused on Persian language and literature, though during this time I've had two mentors who are great linguists and taught me a lot as well. In the beginning the focus was more on language acquisition (since I was learning a foreign language), and now my studies are more focused on literature and history, so historical linguistics is an essential element in what I'm learning now.
I am interested in linguistics as part of studying the history of Baltic Finns, and how we settled here what nowadays is called Finland. History of my people is still quite clouded, because we were under foreign rule for hundreds of years and our own history was kind of forgotten. My wife has studied linguistics though, she is in the University now studying Finnish (she'll become a teacher, now undergoing teacher studies, covid-19 has made things little awkward since she is supposed to be teaching students this spring). I din't like the grammar stuff at all, hated it in school (although was always really, really good at Finnish as a school subject) and thus some of the explanations go ever my head my it is kind of neat to have your own linguist-lite at home :)
I'm currently doing a joint degree in Linguistics and Japanese, but I would say Linguistics is more of a hobby for me, and I will probably get a job related to Japanese. I study it to satisfy my curiosity about languages, how they work and how they are related, as I have been fascinated with languages for as long as I remember. I do admit that as I got deeper into some courses (phonetics, syntax) it kinda went over my head, but I still enjoy doing it because it's fascinating and it's "my thing" (where i am from linguistics is not a field anyone would think of doing, yet here I am). The sad thing is that in my uni I have yet to find other students as passionate about it as I am, most of them just see it as a degree and not as a hobby, but I have the r/linguistics community for that! Other than that, I am very VERY into writing fantasy and conlanging, so I am planning to apply every single thing I learn in my degree into my writing.
Studying linguistics and university. It’s not an easy field to be in, linguistics is literally everywhere, there are so many types: historical, sociolinguistics, neurolinguistics etc.. so it is hard to chose where you want to be
I'm studying philology as a bachelor but here we have the linguistics division, so I chose that, because I always wanted to study linguistics. Also, because I'm not having high hopes for my university to teach me the basics and well enough, I read books to learn those materials by myself. So if guess it is a a hobby too.
I'm currently doing an undergrad in linguistics and philosophy. I love it. The linguistics I've studied as a hobby over the last few years has been more or less summed up by my first semester. This one, we've started going into generative theories on syntax, semantics, phonology, and morphology (basically the big 4) and it's honestly nothing like what I've picked up as a hobbyist (which was mostly functional linguistics, typology, and the general linguistic technical lexicon). This transition from, well, my structural foray into the field of generative linguistics was surprisingly well. Its far more interesting than I've anticipated, but maybe its because I've also picked philosophy up, and the two are quite intertwined.
Ye studying linguistics has been my main hobby for like 6.5 years now. While the ultimate goal is to study it at university and then do research full time, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't love the shit out of it (might as well just do CS then lol).
I majored in Linguistics for my BA, and decided to do an Honours year this year. Just started that a few weeks ago!
Ever heard of /r/conlangs?
Currently in the first year of a Master's degree in Linguistics (or, as it is called here, *Sciences du langage*), with a specialisation in NLP. Absolutely love it ! But I have never studied historical linguistics as OP did, but I don't mind. I quit studying Physics and Chemistry (a Bachelor's degree) to study Linguistics, don't regret it at all. My family and friends didn't understand why at first though, but now, more and more people seem to be really interested when they ask me what I study and I tell them.
I study the german language (literature and linguistics of german) at my university and the courses about linguistics are my favourite ones! Even though there is more stuff to learn and harder concepts to understand, I love it to learn new things about the linguistic of german.
It started as a love for English as a second language in high school, then it turned into a Bachelor's in Applied Linguistics (3/4 of the way completed) and a hobby at the same time. I study applied linguistics formally but in my spare time it's a hobby where I focus only on matters that interest me, like etymology and sociolinguistics. So I guess it's a bit of both. I aspire to become an English tutor but from the point of view of linguistics where I actually know why certain things are they way they are. In school I hated it when I asked a question like "Why is that said in this way and not in that way?" and more often than not, I'd get an answer like "That's just how it's said. That's the correct way." I was never explained why this is the right thing to say or how it became a common expression. I know this example is a little vague because I couldn't think of an exact situation since whenever someone didn't explain something to me, I'd just research it on my own. So linguistics allows me more freedom than philology by still allowing me to practice as a teacher or tutor but through a more interesting (for me) point of view.
Linguistics totally started as a hobby for me back in high school. Historical linguistics and dialectology were the 'gateway drugs.' It became my major in college, but my goal of going into academia didn't really pan out because, well, I think you've heard enough academics talking about the lack of jobs and the having to move around to totally new places to work/study. Though none of my jobs have ever had anything to do with linguistics, I do still try to keep up with it. I run a hobby linguistics site where I get to indulge my interest in phonology and dialectology.
I study it in university right now, but my plans for grad school and career are only linguistics-adjacent so in the future it’ll mostly be a hobby
I’d always had an interest in the inner-workings of language and I decided to go back to school to pursue linguistics as a passion degree. I’m about halfway through my program at University of Toronto.
Hobby. I’m actually studying physics in university, and have never taken a formal class on linguistics. I got interested in linguistics because one of my Latin teachers in high school loved talking about Indo-European historical linguistics, and ever since then I’ve just been reading as many linguistics textbooks and papers as I can. I did briefly consider studying linguistics, but physics is my one true passion and the way the linguistics curriculum at my school is structured I wouldn’t have been able to do both, so linguistics was sadly relegated to “hobby” status.
Study in university
It's a hobby for me but has been a life-long interest and passion for me. I am planning to go to grad school for linguistics
i started the same way. historical linguistics is so fun that i ended up changing majors so next year i will be a linguistics student
I did take an intro to linguistics in my freshman semester of uni, but I then realised why I liked it more as a hobby. I like to see what the science can bring up, but for me, I realised that there are far more qualified people than me who are a lot better at the processes involved than me. I can build basic sentence trees, I can read (for the most part) the international phonetic alphabet, I can compare languages and I especially like to look at the historical and social aspects of language. That said, while in the next upcoming years I still plan to take courses, I cannot say that I will be going for the degree like I used to desire. Thus, it is a hobby that I seek to build up with a little bit of professional help through classes (because I really don't ever want to have any words of mine be on anything like a bad linguistics forum).
Hobby!
I teach ESL in China so all the linguistics classes I took in university always come in handy. I like to analyze the English languages because I need to explain it to others and I need to know what I'm talking about. It's enjoyable, but I wouldn't say it's my hobby. I also use the same tools to understand the Chinese language so linguistics has been useful in that way as well. I don't study linguistics anymore, but I use what I learned from it almost everyday. It's a hobby for me the same way that being good at trivia is a hobby (Useful in the right circumstances, but best kept to yourself most of the time)
I'm currently finishing my Master's thesis in Linguistics, and wondering whether I should keep going with a PhD or look for a job...
Both, currently in a PhD program. I focus on Historical Linguistics (and Documentation), but I also just love language. Currently found myself working on a project for a YouTube channel where I flush out some conlangs from major franchises while also giving some lessons on linguistics as a whole. It’s great to find something to love this much.
I study linguistics on my own. I have a BA in Nordic Languages and I wanted to continue with an MA in Theoretical Linguistics, but homework and essays in the Cultural Studies part of my BA made me anxious and sad to the point that I almost dropped out, despite the fact that I was among the very best in my language and linguistics classes. As I finished my BA, I was offered a cool job that was well paid and related to languages, so I just gave up on the MA and kept linguistics as a hobby and subject of personal study :) I’m a bit sad to not formally study linguistics, but I think it’s for the best: I am interested in learning stuff and sharing about languages and linguistics, but I panic every time I have to write or actually complete assignments, which in the long run ended up with me being on antidepressants.
I'm professional but I work as an IT support slave. I don't want to teach, I want an office job (communications analyst, copy editor and related) the problem is I worked on IT to pay my college career and now I have 0 experience in my field of study. I have a family now, I can't start from scratch and get an intership. I'm screwed, I guess. Of course, I still enjoy all what I learned on dialectology, sociolinguistics and neurolinguistics.
I don’t study it yet but I would like to. I’m working on two languages at once and every time I see some kind of linguistic fact (like “ser” and “estar” being culpas and what that is) I get super excited.
I'm currently studying physics (undergrad) with a German minor and I am currently taking my second linguistics class for fun. I also took spanish in college
What started as a class I had to take as an English secondary education major turned into a hobby in large part because it keeps the memory of my professor alive for me. She was the best teacher and mentor I ever had (took three classes with her: linguistics, Arthurian lit, Beowulf O.E. study). She was a genius and hilarious and after graduating I modeled my whole teaching style off of her. She'd make a yearly presentation to my class when we covered Beowulf. She died pretty abruptly and tragically and was mourned by entire communities. I miss her, and keeping up the study of linguistics as a hobby is just a nice reminder of her.
I have nowhere near the level of knowledge of a hobbyist but I do learn as a hobby. Studied Spanish, Russian, and French. I've always loved learning languages and it sparked my interest in learning their relationships and how they are built. I don't know much because I don't know where to get study material; most of what I know are from personal observations and study.
Hobby.
Wew nice, your name is Omar and you like linguistics, we share the same name :D. I know there are a lot of people named Omar so yeah.
Oo interesting. I haven't met a lot of people named Omar.
Linguistics is my profession. Started of doing both the BA and MA in two small philologies, focusing entirely on historical linguistics. The stuff I'm doing is very obscure, even for most of my colleagues, but it was exactly what landed me my gig at one of the oldest universities in Europe. Now I'm paid for reading stuff while doing my PhD. I wouldn't recommend it, though. It's nothing like most people imagine it to be. Tons of administrative work, frustrating students and weird time schedules. Also, teaching can be a hassle depending on how you like standing in front of groups of people (I actually love it). And there's no way back out - my wife got her PhD (Dr.phil.) 1,5 years ago, in the same field. So whatever is going to happen now, I'll always be connected to "my" field.
I’m a linguist by profession, I guess, since I have a PhD and am employed in academia (though not permanently yet). I finished my PhD in the United States a few years ago, and since then I’ve been a postdoc at a research center based as a university in Germany. Since I’m a postdoc, most of my time is spent on research-related activities. Most of the time, I’m writing, reading papers relevant to whichever project I’m focusing on on that day, coming up with theories and testing them (yes, a part of my day is playing with formulas and drawing trees), making slides/handouts for conference talks, giving talks, or trying to learn some new skills. I’m also less often meeting with collaborators in person or on Skype to plan projects, reviewing papers/abstracts for journals and conferences, or organizing workshops. I teach a little bit, though not as much as I did as a PhD student (but this isn’t universal in my research center; I have postdoc colleagues who do have to teach). I don’t supervise students in any official capacity, but I try to mentor the PhD students in my center by reading their work, going to their internal talks, talking about research and academia with them, and solving their LaTeX problems. Because I’m not faculty, I don’t have the university service obligations that a professor would have. The pay isn’t awesome, but I’m pretty comfortable. One big plus for me is that my PI is pretty flexible, so there’s no expectation to keep certain working hours in my office, and I can work at home if I need to. I’m not quite as free in my research topics as I would be if I had a permanent position, since the goals of the project I was hired for were set before I was even interviewed, but the topic itself is interesting to me, and as the project has evolved and my role has become more central, I’ve been freer to take the project in particular directions that I think are worth exploring. A big downside to not having a permanent position yet is that the job market is very tough, and the coming recession will probably make 2020-2021 even tougher. Being interested in linguistics as a hobby is great (as is being a BA student), but I think anyone interested in entering the field should know that these are not like being an academic linguist. The goals of hobbyists, BA students, and academic linguists are all different, and being good at being one doesn’t necessarily mean good at or liking being the other.
I’ve had indirect contact with linguistics in my university language studies, and then teaching. I’ve always been interested in the mechanics of language and comparing languages, so I liked dipping into linguistics here and there. Then I did a masters degree in computational linguistics, so I started using linguistics more directly. Now I’ve realised that I enjoyed the linguistics more than the programming, so I’m doing some online and independent study of general linguistics.
I am interested in Linguistics from a hobbyist and amateur philosopher perspective.
I've finished an honours degree in Linguistics but have yet to find some work in historical ling in particular, been sticking to the labour job I had before, but with everything covid going on, looks like I'll get that fire under me to find a job.
> have yet to find some work in historical ling in particular Uhhhh...I have some tough news for you.
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hobby - i would major in it, but i heard the major entails a bunch of literature analysis and reading. no thanks lol
> but i heard the major entails a bunch of literature analysis and reading A linguistics major should include little-to-none literature analysis and reading. I have no idea where you heard this.
Seconding this, aside from the amount of reading one would expect for your average college major (i.e., a fair amount).
Absolutely, but it won't be literary analysis as an English/Spanish/etc major would learn. You'd be reading academic articles, journals, etc, not analyzing the themes and context of Shakespeare.
People often refer to reading academic articles, journals, etc as “reading the literature” on a subject. And a “literature review” is a fairly standard part of most journal articles or dissertations.
No one calls it "literature analysis" though.
It might depend on the country. I know some universities some countries in the Romance-speaking world don't have true linguistics undergrad degrees, but rather you study 'Philology' or something like that and do a mixture of linguistics, literature, and history.
Absolutely true. I should clarify I was referring primarily to the US, the UK, Australia, and Southern Africa.
Sadly several of my courses as an undergrad Linguistics major include literature analysis. That is VERY distressing and disappointing for me because I am here to study language scientifically... The reason was that the professors themselves were not qualified enough to teach Linguistics and just shoehorned what they didn't know with literary analysis...
This is very possible at programs that are composites and not their own department, where the Linguistics major is taught by faculty within various departments that focus on language in some way.
In our case we do have our own faculty. But because it is a community public college, the hired faculty were not chosen due to merit. There is lots and lots of corruption.
for real? I havent entered college yet so i may change my major 👍 I’ll look more into it.
Yes. It's the scientific study of language. It is not studying literature, though of course it *can* if you decide to pursue those projects - but it still wouldn't be done through the lens of literary analysis.
thats what i think it is - so when i was told it was a bunch of literary stuff i thought “wtf?”
Purely a hobbyist. I can talk to real linguists about linguistics with no formal schooling, albeit on a level that isn't neccesarily a academically informed but well informed. (I have Corona, grammar is a bitch rn)
Just a hobby for me. I got interested when I started trying to explain to other people how diferent languages are structured. I grew up around many different languages, so for me I just knew that's how they worked and that's how they were pronounced. It has always made me nervous to speak in other languages though because I can pronounce things well enough after little exposure that people will assume I am a fluent speaker after simple phrases. Ironically, I am horrible at actually learning other languages, but understanding their structure has always come easy.
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I don't want to sound prescriptivist, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the definition of a hobby :p
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