Tools of the trade

Something I’ve noticed during my first month of grad school is that linguists use a lot of tools. What I mean is that it’s not enough to become grounded in the theory of the various sub-fields within linguistics. One has to get proficient with the tools in order to do much of anything. So far I’ve started using Praat for phonetics, R for statistical analysis, LaTeX for scientific typesetting, and Python for programming. And I’ve just begun to scratch the surface of what each one is capable of doing. (As an aside, all four are completely free and open source!)

My professors tell us routinely about the “dark days” before these tools were available (not that long ago actually). I’m reminded that recent advances in technology – hardware as well as software – have played a major role in pushing comp ling from the fringes into the mainstream. It really is a great time to be in this field. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next five years.

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October 19, 2005 | Filed Under Linguistics 

Comments

One Response to “Tools of the trade”

  1. Ben on October 21st, 2005 7:11 pm

    This article scares me a bit.

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