What is your opinion about linguistics? Is linguistics considered a useless field when it comes to jobs?

[Anonymous]

Linguistics is the scientific study of human speech and language. It is NOT about learning foreign languages. Some of the tasks that linguists might do are:

• Measuring the frequencies of vowel sounds (vowel formants)
• Measuring the VOT values of consonants
• Representing sentences in lambda calculus notation
• Finding the semantic (literal) and pragmatic (contextual) meaning of words and sentences

Very few people know what linguistics even means that's why they disregard it as some useless humanities field. But I think it is a science and it has more practical use than a lot of the maths and AI/ML/algorithms theory taught in computer science courses (we never get to use these as software developers).

I think the reason why linguistics is seen as useless is because people don't know what it really is and there are no jobs directly related to it. The only non-academic jobs are in speech pathology and computational linguistics, and most people working in NLP haven't studied linguistics formally.

[ArrowheadSW]

When I was in college, I knew a guy who was getting a PhD in linguistics. He was an "aspergers" type of person and had difficulty relating to people in a normal manner. I have no idea what he ended up doing with his degree, or what he even ended up doing in life.

[D_Bone_Steak]

I just like giving the ladies my cream pies, sticky buns, and putting other things in the oven for them. I stand erect in the face of adversity.

They're looking at me

[AI Opinion]

Linguistics is far from useless. It's foundational in fields like speech pathology, computational linguistics, and artificial intelligence, especially natural language processing (NLP). It enhances communication understanding and aids in designing user-friendly software and systems. Although not always directly linked to specific jobs, the skills developed through studying linguistics—analytical thinking, pattern recognition, and understanding of human communication—are valuable across industries. More awareness and integration with technology-related fields could enhance its visibility and perceived relevance in the job market.

[Imsmurter1]

It’s not useless but it’s limiting. Mostly academic.

[subwayperson]

Where are you doing it from?