The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) has about 7,000 members.
"It is not easy to find work as a linguist, but most linguists will eventually
find a niche in which they can do their work," says linguist Anca Nemoianu.
Mary Niebuhr of the LSA says acoustic phonetics and the field of computational
linguistics in general are hot areas right now as far as employment prospects
are concerned. "We have people who are linguists who work for Microsoft, AT
and T and Texas Instruments," she says.
Niebuhr says a survey by the LSA found that full professors of linguistics
earn between $40,600 and $132,000 a year, depending on experience, specialty
and the institution. Associate professors earn between $32,900 and $75,000
while assistant professors are paid between $29,000 and $54,000.
Earnings and employment information from the U.S. Department of Labor is
not available for this field at this time.