Official Study Guide for Germany
Linguistics, literature, interpreting and translation
Study programmes in the field of Linguistics, Literary Studies, Interpreting and Translation deal with different facets of language.
Overview of the academic discipline
In contrast to degree programmes that only deal with one language, this field of study takes a transnational or comparative approach. Degree programmes in this field specialise in certain topics within linguistics and literary studies or, like interpreting, deal with the faithful transfer of content from one language to another.
Which topics are included in the curriculum?
- Historical-comparative linguistics usually deals with a comparison within the Indo-European language family or with the reconstruction and correction of defective textual traditions that serve as a source for other disciplines. Examples of this are study programmes such as historical linguistics or Indo-European studies.
- General linguistics is concerned with living languages and the given language systems in phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and text-critical terms. One important discipline is communication research, which deals with interpersonal communication. Psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and pragmalinguistics have emerged as special areas of research.
- Degree programmes such as computational linguistics deal with the processing of natural language in computer systems. There are overlaps here with computer science and information science. Text technology deals with the technological processing and information enrichment of texts.
- Language teaching research, e.g. the Foreign Language Didactics degree programme, deals with the conditions and possibilities of learning and teaching foreign languages and their communicative use.
- Speech science, rhetoric and phonetics deal with the conditions of human communication from the point of view of spoken language utterances. This includes human speech and hearing, as well as pedagogical, communication theory and speech therapy aspects of speech.
- Translation and interpreting degree programmes focus on the faithful translation of speeches, conversations or written texts, including literary texts, into other languages. As a rule, a combination of two foreign languages is chosen for these degree programmes.
What are the requirements?
In-depth knowledge of the following school subjects is an advantage for studying in this field: German, English, French, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish, politics/social studies and history.
Depending on the university, a local selection procedure may also be used. As a rule, knowledge of several foreign languages is required, including at least two living languages and sufficient knowledge of Latin, which in some cases must be proven by written tests.
What study programmes are there to choose from?
The degree programmes in this field are usually offered at undergraduate and postgraduate level. The names of the degree programmes include ‘General Linguistics’, ‘Comparative Linguistics’, ‘Phonetics’, ‘Language Sciences’, “Linguistics”, ‘Indo-European Studies’, ‘Computational Linguistics’, ‘International Communication and Translation’, ‘Specialised Translation’, ‘Translation Studies’ or ‘Rhetoric’. Some degree programmes are also offered in the form of combined degree programmes.
Linguistics and speech sciences have close interrelationships with the respective neighbouring disciplines of education, anthropology, ethnology, logic, philosophy, computer science, psychology and therapeutically oriented degree courses.
What job opportunities are there after graduation?
Linguists and speech scientists find employment in research and teaching, libraries, archives, documentation centres, publishing houses, radio and television stations, ministries (federal and state), international authorities and adult education institutions. With a corresponding specialisation, they can also work in therapy-related fields or in the performing arts.
Computational linguists also work in software development companies and translation agencies.
Interpreters and translators work primarily in interpreting and translation agencies or larger companies in all sectors of the economy. In addition to pure translation work, they often take on tasks in project management, order processing, corporate communications or customer care. There are also job opportunities with international organisations, administrations, authorities, interpreting schools, language associations, adult education institutions and (usually freelance) as a literary translator.