Ask & Answer: India's Largest Education Community

A degree in linguistics can be of great value in the pursuit of careers in education, publishing, media, social services, communication, computer languages, voice analysis research, communicative disorders and other language related fields. In recent years, there has been a surge of demand from various industries for competent linguists. This is due to developments in artificial intelligence, communication sciences, and computer applications in natural language processing and understanding, information sciences and other high-technology activities. There are also developing fields in bilingualism, literacy, linguistic problems of ethnic minorities, and other topics in applied linguistics. Teaching is one of the best options, which is provided by linguistics studies. There are openings in schools, colleges and other institutions that carry out foreign language training/teaching programmes. Several government agencies hire linguists to supervise language-training programme. Others have linguists to carry out research on various languages, or to work in specialised fields such as, the determination of geographical names for mapping and other purposes. Lexicographers are involved in the publishing of dictionaries (electronic as well). They are concerned with such matters as pronunciation, the definition of grammatical terms, various languages dialectical variation, and etymology. Other areas of publishing in which linguists are involved include foreign language textbooks, editing, consulting and planning elementary and secondary programmes in reading, writing and spelling (curriculum designing). .