My undergrad doesn't offer Linguistics ughhh

[galateaencore]

So, last semester I read my very first Saussure, and I was like,

 

 

Long story short, now linguistics is yet another utterly unemployable area of study that I'm deeply enthused about. However, as my undergrad offers maybe one course in the theory of linguistics once every three years, and so on as the title suggests, I was looking for advice as to how to further and enhance this interest of mine. I've read Stephen Pinker and like maybe one half of one essay by Chomsky, but from these I understood that modern linguistics is far removed from Saussure. What else would you recommend? Should I just read, or is it like the natural sciences and some social science fields, where it's imperative that you get an internship/coop/research position in undergrad to like ever hope for anything?

 

Also, what do linguists major in? I guess, everything, but what majors would be most helpful? I'm a lit/econ double atm, formerly statistics, and I just love everything about theory; the methodology, especially econometrics, is hard, but I try my best and just afgadjsk. 

 

And yeah, you could say I'm interested in grad school. Unfortunately.

[funchaku]

Hi galataencore. Check this thread out for some beginner book recommendations:

 

Linguistics has certainly come a long way since Saussure. The first step, of course, would be to get a bit more familiar with the field to make sure it is something you are interested in, etc. The book recommendations in the thread above should help. There might be other schools in your neighborhood that does have a Linguistics program, and you can email professors and ask if you can sit in on their classes. I doubt anyone would say no. It is common for Linguistics grad applicants not to have majored in Linguistics, since it is a relatively small field. Computer Science, Math, Psychology (Cognitive focus) or Philosophy might be considered relevant other fields. If you are seriously considering grad school (in my opinion, you need to know a lot more about the field before you make that decision), then research experience can be critical. You might be able to find relevant labs in your school, or you can send emails to professors in neighboring schools asking if they are taking undergraduate RAs. 

Edited January 29, 2013 by funchaku

[Tanner]

Here are a few suggestions of things you might consider doing. 

 

1. Study abroad - Figure out which institutions abroad your university has exchange programs with. Study there for a semester or two. Try to make connections while you are there and impress faculty members. Attend workshops and lectures. Many universities western Europe have good linguistics departments and active research communities.

2. Attend summer schools - The biannual LSA Summer Institute is in Michigan this summer, which is one month of instruction. (By the way: does anyone know if NASSLLI is happening this summer? From the utter lack of web presence I infer that the answer is possibly no.)

3. Look at faculty web pages - linguists at your institution might be hiding in other departments. Possibilities include the psychology, computer science, and philosophy departments. They might supervise an independent study, a thesis, etc., 

4. Volunteer in a psychology/neuroscience lab - This of course requires you to have acquired enough background to be considered as an applicant, but even if the lab's research is not on language processing or acquisition, getting familiar with experimental techniques such as EEG and fMRI would potentially be useful, depending upon what research interests you develop.

5. Take useful courses - Your university may not have linguistics courses, but that doesn't mean the courses aren't valuable whatsoever. Computer science (and programming) has a range of applications in linguistics, not only in NLP. Classes on formal logic, abstract algebra, and proof theory would be useful for formal semantics. Knowledge of linear algebra, discrete mathematics, and computer science is useful for cognitive science in general, including theoretical linguistics. The psychology and biology departments likely have courses which bear on psycho- and neurolinguistics.

[galateaencore]

thank you muchly, tanner and funchaku for the reading list and the very helpful and clear suggestions!

 

i've taken some of the math courses you mention, and am probably going to continue with linear algebra in particular. how useful is statistics, by the way? and the philosophy department does indeed have one token linguist. 

 

could anybody elaborate on strong linguistics departments in europe? i am in a position where i don't need to study abroad to spend a lot of time in europe, so any leads would be great. 

[Tanner]

I am not the best person to ask, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I have had some interaction with graduate students and researchers in Europe. What follows are my impressions.

 

There are a number of good universities in Germany. I studied for a semester at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In my experience, the faculty is willing to help and engage in discussion, even with students who aren't in their courses. The University of Potsdam has also been recommended to me. Though I have not had direct experience with the faculty there, I understand their focus to be rather experimental. If you are proficient in German, these may be places to consider.

 

The Amsterdam area is also well-regarded. The University of Amsterdam is among the best institutions for the study of logic, and so for the more logically inclined student of semantics and pragmatics, this might be a good place. From my interaction with researchers and graduate students, I gather that the area has a very vibrant linguistics community. Leiden University might be a good place to look into.

 

The University of Edinburgh has been recommended to me by graduate students of syntax from the UK. I don't know much about it, however.

 

Hopefully this gives you some ideas.

[fuzzylogician]

For big departments in Europe, here is what I know:

In Germany, I have worked with researchers at the Humboldt university in Berlin and at Potsdam university, as well as with researchers at ZAS in Berlin. There are great people working on syntax/semantics in all of those places (I know less about phonology). There is great work being done in Tuebingen as well.

In the Netherlands: check out Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht.

In the UK: Edinburgh, UCL.

In Norway: Tromso.

[fuzzylogician]

To answer your other question, statistics and computational methods could be extremely useful if you ever want to do experimental work, corpus studies or simulations/modeling/learnability. I'd definitely look into that in addition to Tanner's suggestions, and once you've taken funchaku's advice and really spent the time to be sure that you want to study linguistics. From the way it sounds now, while you're enthusiastic it's premature to decide you want a graduate degree and/or a career in linguistics. Take the time to learn what modern linguistics is all about, then you can make an informed decision. Good luck!

[lzs]

Anthropology also includes some linguistics stuff, and sometimes specific language majors offer a linguistics track or at least some linguistics classes ("French Linguistics," "Structure of Modern Hebrew," that sort of thing). Plus, if you do end up going to grad school in linguistics, there's a good chance you'll be required to have or obtain substantial proficiency in at least one non-English language, so if you major in a particular language, that will come in useful. Many linguistics majors wouldn't want to do that because they only like the grammar part of language classes, not the literature part, but since you're a lit major already I don't imagine that will be a problem for you.

 

There's also a blog run by a linguistics grad student who posts a lot of resources for people who want to learn about linguistics but can't study it at school yet: http://allthingslinguistic.tumblr.com/post/52820680363/protolinguist-master-post