Exploring Linguistics As a Profession

Are you part of the many who does not know what Linguistics is all about or probably you have a wrong idea about it, well this little article is composed to explore linguistics as a profession and also give you the right idea about linguistics, just sit right back and enjoy the tour!

      Only few know who really a linguist is, or what linguistics as a field is all about. Linguistics as a field employs scientific method to study the various human languages of the world. A person who studies linguistics is referred to as a linguist. There are a lot of speculations and controversies that a linguist is someone who understands and speaks as many languages as possible, this in turn give people the belief that a linguist is a polyglot  (someone versatile in many languages). It should therefore be clearly noted that, a linguist is not necessarily someone who is competent in speaking different languages, we also have monolinguals (someone who speaks only one language) who are great  linguists.

Moreover, a clear distinction should be made between a linguist and a polyglot. Who is a linguist? What do linguists do? What does language mean to a linguist as animals is to a zoologist or plant to a botanist?

Language is the tool with which linguists operate. According to Noam Chomsky, there are three things a linguist is concerned with when it comes to language, these include:
Theory of language structure,
Theory of language acquisition,
Theory of language use.

Why then do linguists employ scientific method in studying Languages? Note that, by scientific method, it does not necessarily imply the adding together of chemicals to see it reaction nor does it involve examining the human anatomy. Every solid science regard the following processes;
Observation
Reporting of observation
Stating hypothesis
Calculations
Predictions
Verifying predictions through observation.

And so when it comes to how linguists handle languages, several questions gears up and in providing answers to these questions they employ the scientific method. It is quite possible for linguists to want to provide answers to questions like, what do all human languages have in common? Is there any connection whatsoever between all human languages? And in so doing they employ scientific method.

As listed above, the various processes involved in scientific study, picking observation as a process, the language with which a linguistics works on must be observable. Also, when a linguist investigate any language, the investigation must be empirical that is testable not based on intuition or any form of speculation, this is also related to the sciences.

Another misconception people have about who a linguist is, is that, they see linguists as prescriptive grammarians. Prescriptive grammarians are known for stating what is right or wrong in a particular language, they criticize literary texts, they state what is correct and what is incorrect in a language. Linguists on the other hand are descriptive in nature, instead of telling a language speaker what to say, that describe what they say as they say it without any subjection.

Zooming away from misconceptions people have about linguists, linguistics interrelate with various fields of studies in the sciences and social sciences. We have fields like Mathematics, Computer science, Geography, Biology, Anthropology etc.

Wondering how linguistics interrelate with these fields and various others? Then anticipate as we unleash the explanations and other unimaginable things you probably don't know about linguistics in the next article.

Dedicated to All Linguists!!!