Why study linguistics?

Five reasons why it's a great subject to study, five reasons why you might want to stay away. Find out if linguistics is right for you!

[ameliazhang]

Thank you for this intro video. I am already a linguistics graduate. But I still find it's so comforting and reassuring to know that an openminded linguist expresses the pros and cons clearly and honestly, in an unbiased way.

[jamesvarrone]

I'm at the other end of career planning. I'm in my late 60s and my original major was Linguistics. Not being convinced that there were a lot of career opportunities back in the 70s, I decided to change my major to the teaching of languages. (French and Arabic). Even though I often wonder where a linguistics major may have taken me, I had a very fulfilling career teaching, translating, and just enjoying reading, studying just about every area of linguistics. It's kept my fascination all my life! I look forward to viewing your videos!

[anastasia]

Great video! I'm a high school student who is very interested in studying linguistics in college and it's helpful to get a better picture of what to expect. I promise that if I do end up becoming a linguist and doing my own research I'll try my best to write something interesting for future classes of linguistics students!

[LinnKelly]

The cons made me laugh - my linguistics textbook this past semester was indeed terrible (and I did hunt down the previous year's textbook to cross-reference!) and trying to get my head around shifting terminology was frustrating. The irony of language nerds messing up language they need to describe it is not lost on me. But I'm a lost cause for the study of linguistics, I love it :)

[LanguageandCognition]

This is nice and clear introduction of the field - linguistics. How can you remain so disinterested or impartial after doing much work in linguistics? It is one one of the linguist's qualities: not to favour something, but to analyse objectively and describe as it is.

[程茵-qh]

I’m so appreciated for this video. I just got my master degree on foreign language education. And I’m so confused if I need to keep on linguistics . This short video make me clear about the position where I am. I’ll think about your question and give myself the answer.

[dejavudvora]

I studied African linguistics and mainly focused on sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. I remember that when finishing school I had no clue about linguistics in general. Fortunately I was interested in language learning and thereby more or less slittered into the field of African languages and cultures without knowing where that would end up.

During my BA and MA I Iearned so much about topics that are closely related to linguistics and so inspiring and important to those who are interested in intercultural studies and living realities. African studies namely include critical postcolonial studies, you learn the importance of questioning the origin of Africanistic research, (it began as a colonial discipline), you learn to question and criticize the superiority of the Western science and the underestimated role of the Global South in the world's leading academic fields, rethink linguisitic concepts of language boundaries and differentiation (where does one language end and the other one start!?), reconsider the impact of intercultural language contact, questions of power and equality, of cultural representation and bias whereever cultures and languages clash and intermingle.

I for myself had another discipline besides African linguistics than general linguistics and must admit that since I aim to follow an acadamic career regretted to not have studies general linguistics as one of my subjects, because ever since I feel like I lack a lot of understanding of these core terms that were exemplified in this video so wonderfully :)

So I guess if you finish school and you are interested in humanity, in social relations, in languages and cultures, in intercultural communication and mediation, I would recommend you to combine linguistics with a cultural studies of your choice (be it African studies or Asian studies, or Latin America, and so on...).

Language is everywhere in our life! It is a fascinating discipline and there is great potential to combine it with other disciplines.

Finally: Wonderful video! I am so greatful to all professors and scientists around the world who take time to share their knowledge and experience on scientific topics on Youtube!
Some years ago this platform was so superficial and useless to me, and now I find more and more University lectures and inspiring discussions on academic research and discourses, even for free!

Thank you so much Prof. Hilpert for sharing your advice and keep on going!

[claudiabernalgarcia]

Mr Hilpert, I really appreciate your time investing on sharing this invaluable information. I am an Emergency physician in Mexico, and I love Science. But I would say one of my passions ever has been foreign languages. Two years ago, I decided to go back to university, but this time I went for Foreign Languages. When we began to study Linguistics, that's when an inside conflict initiated. I began to inquire my professors and myself a whole lot of stuff regarding Linguistics. I cannot stop thinking as a doctor, I mean, I know exactly what goes on in our brains and the human vocal apparatus at the time of speaking and interpreting what we hear or read, which is way fascinating. So, Linguistics seemed too poor to my mind to be considered a science. And I agree with you about the difficulty to catch the actual ideas on the Linguistics text; especially Saussure's. In my country, doctors are the best paid professions of all, but still, I'm convinced that following your dreams ando doing what you really enjoy can be better than money and I confess I'm falling in love with Linguistics, or becoming literally mad about it.

[lastprince]

To study Linguistics is not solely to study human language. It is to approach one natural wonder of the universe, the human mind. For those who watched this video, if you were a true linguist, your breath would have been taken away as you watched this human wonder in action. You should be puzzled that how on earth with such finite number of sounds this professor expressed meaningful statements some of us might never heard them before!. How on earth he managed to cause changes in our thoughts even though he is not physically next to us nor the talk is happening now! Instead of calling it a wonder, some linguists call language a mystery of nature. It has always been a mystery that human took for granted for thousands of years. To understand the properties of such wonderful human capacity and explain how beautiful it is at work you need to study Linguistics. Come on and join the club.
Thank you Professor

[ludad]

Thank you very much for this video. It's difficult to choose a branch when everything is so passionating in linguistics.

[wiliwalagordon]

I wish I watched this video before. I've always thought that studying linguistic is more like the humanities side. Instead, it's a kind of applied science. After entering uni to study linguistics, it totally subverts my original thoughts about linguistics lol. But I wouldn't say I regret about major in linguistics, it's still an interesting subject.

[guytemberggeraldsonjean]

I am a medical student. But i love languages, I know 4 languages (creole haitian, french, English and Russian). Almost everyone said to me that I should study linguistic, because I study languages easily.

[tlnthelastnomad]

So far the most realistic and practical advice I've heard. Thank you Prof. Martin.

[maelstrom]

Thank you for the clarity and your honesty! I've been considering learning about linguistics at university next year but I'm sure now I won't even if it is tremendously interesting. So I'll continue to watch your videos instead!

[rem]

Great video! I am trying to decide between linguistics and Montessori learning. It’s really difficult to decide since it’s two different fields. I am currently a major in English and would like to study further... so there’s still time. I have linguistics as a module as well so I have an idea of what it about. Next academic year, I’ve decided to also continue with two linguistics modules.

[zaidanwar]

Hii sir.I'm Linguistics student at Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh India.literally its too helpful video ryt now for us and I humble request to you that plzz upload that types of Video, I was waiting for that videos from a lot of times.I m taught these topics in UG program at my college ryt now and I m studying this in 1st year.Thanks (ZAID ANWAR BA Hons Linguistics student at AMU Aligarh India)

[MeowgiMan]

This was an absolutely fantastic video. The con section actually made me more interested in Linguistics than the pro's. Especially con #2 & #5.

[dudacmarchesi]

I'm a current economics major and I'm dying to change to English. This video just made me want even more, thanks for it!! (The titles of the masters dissertations were really so confusing yet so fascinating/intriguing, we should deff ask liguistics postgraduates to write book covers lol)

[emmabiondo]

I'm a student in UniFR, thank you for sharing a brilliant and honest explanation about the field of English linguistics!

[spacecat]

Hello! I'm studying philology, however we do have a lot of linguistic subjects and I'm trying to get myself to ~fall in love with linguistics~ in order to pass my exam better soon! Your video helped me a lot with that, thank you ☺️