Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It is the structure of particular languages and language in general, knowledge about how languages vary, the search for unconscious knowledge that humans have about language, and how language influences the way we interact with each other and think about the world.
The Linguistics major at the University of Georgia exposes students to several languages as part of the curriculum. Courses are available in phonetics, morphology, semantics, history, discourse, and text to provide an understanding of speech sounds, words, and their arrangement. Students build skills in analytical reasoning, critical thinking, clarity of expression, hypothesis testing, argumentation, and observation, choosing from one of four specializations: Formal Linguistic Theory, Second Language Acquisition, Language Variation, or Historical Indo-European Linguistics.
Linguistics majors are well-equipped for a variety of graduate-level and professional programs from Linguistics and Communication Sciences to applied fields such as language instruction or interpretation. Careers are available in advertising; journalism; governmental agencies such as the Foreign Service, FBI, CIA, or NSA; or the computing industry where linguists operate in speech recognition and analysis, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence.