Why CS + X: Linguistics — Revolutionizing Language’s Digital Frontier
Written by: Emma Maxwell
In a world where Siri schedules our meetings, Google Translate is our best friend when we travel, Alexa controls our lights, and ChatGPT is everything from a conversation partner to a programmer’s rubber duck, the work of computational linguists impacts the daily lives of almost everyone around them. The intersection between technology and language science is one of the most relevant areas in technical growth and research today.
The field of computational linguistics is widespread and ever-growing. Popular subfields include natural language processing, which involves teaching computers to understand and manipulate human language, and machine translation, the automated process of translating one language to another.
The Curriculum
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has offered a degree in computational linguistics since fall 2014. Students will receive a more general education in both computer science and linguistics before delving into the ways in which they intersect. First and second year computer science courses include Java and C++ programming, discrete mathematics, data structures, and statistics. Early linguistics training includes coursework in syntax and semantics and pragmatics.
After students have established a solid foundation in both computer science and linguistics, computational linguistics coursework becomes an option. All CS + Linguistics students take LING406: Introduction to Computational Linguistics, which covers parsing, natural language processing, finite-state methods, computational semantics, and more. The linguistics department also offers courses in computational morphology, computational syntax, speech signal processing, computational semantics, and machine translation. The computer science department offers coursework in machine learning, artificial intelligence, applied machine learning, and natural language processing.
On-Campus Opportunities
In addition to the wide variety of coursework pertaining to computation linguistics, CS + Ling students also have the option of exploring their interest through a variety of campus opportunities.
Linguistics is a ubiquitous subject that can be applied to a variety of other topics, and research in these areas is widespread at the university. Students interested in the intersection between linguistics and psychology can apply to be research assistants in the Language Acquisition Lab, which studies how children learn their first language, or the Language and Learning Lab, which makes use of large corpora to study the ways people learn language.
Pure linguistics research can be pursued through any of the 3 laboratories under the linguistics department. The Phonetics and Phonology lab researches the ways in which linguistic sound is produced, processed, and patterned by humans; the Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Lab focuses on the differences in how the mind works with its first versus its second language; the Electrophysiology Lab studies the neural processes underlying language production and processing.
The computer science department has a massive research area focused on artificial intelligence, with many faculty focusing specifically on computational linguistics and natural language processing. In addition to all these amazing labs, students can always contact professors and other faculty who are working in their areas of interest!
Beyond research, Illinois is home to hundreds of student groups for any and all interests. The League of Linguists (LOL) is a registered student organization (RSO) in the linguistics department that hosts socials, lab tours, and seminars for anyone interested in the field. SIGNLL is a special interest group housed under the Association of Computing Machinery that guides students through small group projects in natural language processing. The university is home to many other computer science organizations (including WCS!) and language conversation groups, as well as RSOs for almost any passion a person can dream of!
Post Graduation
A degree in computational linguistics opens numerous doors. For students interested in entering the industry, products like Duolingo, ChatGPT, Google Translate, QuillBot, and many others require the expertise of a computational linguist. Large Language Models are all the rage, with dozens of leading tech companies racing to develop the most sophisticated chatbot. Almost every retailer and service provider with a website has some form of automated customer support; why shouldn’t you be the one to make it better? New technologies are constantly in development for real-time translation earpieces to better facilitate global communication; they rely almost entirely on speech signal processing and machine translation experts.
In addition to these highly specialized fields that require the knowledge of a computational linguist, CS + Ling graduates are prepared to enter into the technology industry with in almost any capacity with their technical training; graduates of the computer science department are well prepared to pursue consulting, software engineering, data analytics, web development, and more.
Undergraduate training can also lead to a very successful career in academia. The University of Illinois is one of very few universities in the United States that offers an undergraduate degree in computational linguistics. Students that choose to pursue a graduate degree in the field will enter with a strong foundation not only in both pure linguistics and computer science, but in the unique ways they intersect. Research in artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and more is growing every single day. Just this summer, a University of Illinois Professor was announced to be leading a team with 5.8 million dollars in funding. Research in this field is in very, very high demand, and that demand will only grow as the capabilities of this groundbreaking technology continues to advance and can be applied to more and more areas of daily life.
Advancements in computational linguistics touch lives in so many ways. Machine translation allows for global connections without the concerns of language barriers. Preventing bias in artificial intelligence technologies becomes increasingly necessary with every passing day. Improvements in human computer interaction reduce barriers for making use of groundbreaking technology. Text to speech systems and synthesizers increase accessibility and improve the quality of life for people across the globe. This field is changing the world. Don’t you want to be a part of it?
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