Career Pathways in Linguistics
There are many exciting career pathways open to Linguistics students. While many of the popular options require advanced credentials beyond a bachelor degree, other pathways are readily available for newly graduated alumni.
SFU staff at Career and Volunteer Services can guide you in exploring the options that best suit your individual needs:
- Career experience: Career tips, roadmap, resources, and events for FASS students
- Job search tips: Learn how to develop your online presence, improve your interview skills, and more
- Canvas courses: Self-directed courses on topics such as resumes, cover letters and networking skills
- Speak with an Advisor: One-on-one appointments (including virtual) to get custom-tailored advice for your career
- Workshops and events: Including the ever popular drop-in sessions with Ask Albert as well as hot topics such as networking
Audiologist
Diagnosing, managing, and treating balance, hearing, and ear-related problems for people of all ages.
Behaviour analyst
Evaluating the environmental factors that affect actions and designing data-driven plans to help people build positive skills and reduce challenging behaviours.
Civic engagement linguist
Applying the scientific study of language to foster public participation, bridge communication barriers in democracy and support community-driven Indigenous language revitalization.
Communicator
Managing an organization's public image, crafting strategic messaging, and handling media relations to connect a brand with its target audience.
Computational linguist
Using computing science and AI to analyze, model and process human written and spoken language.
Editor
Reviewing, shaping and improving written, visual or digital content to make it clear, accurate, engaging and ready for publication.
Forensic linguist
Applying scientific language analysis to criminal investigations, legal proceedings, and the interpretation of legal documents.
Immigration associate
Legal professional helping clients and senior attorneys to manage immigration applications, visas, compliance matters and legal paperwork.
Jurilinguist
Specialized legal and linguistic professional working to ensure that translations of legal texts, court judgments and legislation convey identical legal meaning to the originals text.
Language instructor
Teaching a new language to students by building their skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Language proficiency evaluator
Formal testing of English-language proficiency required for purposes such as immigration, academic acceptance and professional certification.
Librarian
Selecting, developing, organizing and maintaining library collections while providing programs and advisory services for users.
Linguistic analyst
Evaluating language patterns, customer interactions and data to improve communication, localization and AI systems.
Multilingual data analyst
Collecting, processing and interpreting linguistic datasets across multiple languages to support international business decisions and cross-cultural operations.
NLP specialist
Using natural language processing (NLP) to develop large language models (LLMs) in order to build, scale and optimize advanced text-based applications.
Occupational therapist
Helping people of all ages gain or regain the skills they need to safely and independently perform everyday activities.
Public relations linguist
Using scientific analysis of language structure, tone and audience psychology to craft clear, persuasive public messages and manage an organization's public image.
Speech-language pathologist
Diagnosing and treating people of all ages who have communication, voice or swallowing problems.
Technical writer
Conveying complex information in simple terms to the general public, such as for user manuals, repair instructions and assembly guides.
Terminologist
Itemizing and defining niche terms connected to a highly specific field of activity, then finding equivalents in another language.
Text analytics specialist
Assessing how language, culture and communication patterns influence consumer behaviour and market trends to help brands connect with global or multilingual audiences.