any suggestions for what to specify in?

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

Hello fellow Lings,

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for what I might narrow my focus to for when I go to grad school. I'm graduating this December with a bachelors in Linguistics (minor in Philosophy). I go to a pretty mediocre university--Florida Atlantic. I have a 4.0 gpa in my major and 4.0 overall. Unfortunately, in my opinion, my school seems to be focused on many interrelated subfields (socioling, 2nd language acquisition, bilingualism, TESOL, applied ling, psycholing). I learned a lot in these subfields, but they aren't really my interest. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to learn anything in the field of computational linguistics. Of all the classes I've taken in linguistics (about 12) my favorite would have to be the branches--phonetics, phonology, morpho, syn, etc. And within those branches, the things I enjoyed most, I guess you could say, were sort of math-based. My three favorite things doing were trees in syntax (x-bar theory primarily), narrow phonetic transcription in phonology, and the little bit of logic equations we did in semantics (I also took a logic class as part of my Philosophy minor). I don't know too much about computational linguistics so I don't know if I would lack the computer science knowledge and complex math ability to handle it. I guess, if I had to choose which area I could go on to study, at this moment I would have to say Theoretical Linguistics or General Linguistics. If anyone could give me any insight I would definitely appreciate it.

Edited June 9, 2012 by JoeyBoy718

[mq1]

phonology is the real deal. Syntax is too.

personal suggestion

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

phonology is the real deal. Syntax is too.

personal suggestion

I agree. I enjoyed phonology and syntax the most. Only problem is there aren't really any grad programs dedicated strictly to those. Basically the fields I've seen are computational, socioling, psycholing, forensic, TESOL, applied, theoretical, general, and maybe a few other subfields. I'm trying to figure out which one suits me best.

[radiowires]

If you are more into phonology and syntax than the other subfields, I'd suggest looking into programs with a more theoretical bent.

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

If you are more into phonology and syntax than the other subfields, I'd suggest looking into programs with a more theoretical bent.

Yeah, I'm really leaning toward theoretical. I want to learn more about the six branches of linguistics, rather than doing something very specific. Another thing I would consider is computational linguistics, but I really don't know much about exactly what it entails. Hopefully I'll get some more information this week when I meet with a few of my professors to discuss grad options.

[fuzzylogician]

I agree. I enjoyed phonology and syntax the most. Only problem is there aren't really any grad programs dedicated strictly to those.

There are several excellent theoretical linguistics programs. They will not let you fully ignore the other subfields, but they will certainly allow you to focus on Phonology and Syntax. You should read more about these subfields so you have a better idea of what studying them in grad school would be like; you don't sound like you quite know what you'd be interested in yet so it's hard to suggest specific schools.

[kateausten]

If you'd like to get a taste of computational linguistics, there are some Natural Language Processing courses online:

https://www.coursera.org/course/nlp (looks like they might not have a session planned for the near future)

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-864-advanced-natural-language-processing-fall-2005/

[snarky]

I had a colleague who got an MA in Computational Linguistics. He said his program was more oriented towards computer science than linguistics, i.e. the most important skill you develop is programming, in the context of language-related applications. I also worked closely with someone with a PhD in computational linguistics who worked on automatic speech recognition, who was incredibly smart but surprisingly seemed not to be familiar with the IPA (!). I think it would be a cool field to get into, especially if you already have somewhat of a computational background, and the career prospects/salaries are a LOT better than for regular linguistics, but the focus would probably be quite different from what you're used to (if what you're used to is general/theoretical linguistics).