Linguistics is a major that gives students insight into one of the most intriguing aspects of human knowledge and behavior. Majoring in linguistics means that you will learn about many aspects of human language, including sounds (phonetics, phonology), words (morphology), sentences (syntax), and meaning (semantics). At Tulane, we look at how languages change over time (historical linguistics); how language varies from situation to situation, group to group, and place to place (sociolinguistics, dialectology); how people use language in context (pragmatics, discourse analysis); how to model aspects of language (computational linguistics); how people acquire or learn language (language acquisition); and how people process language (psycholinguistics, brain and language).
The array of courses offered by the Program allows linguistics majors to master the basics of the discipline. Linguistics majors develop valuable intellectual skills in analytical reasoning and critical thinking, lucid communication, and the use of research methodologies.
Career opportunities for linguistics majors are: publishing, computer industry, foreign language education, advertising, national security, translating/interpreting, speech and language pathology.