Language Learning 2.0

Think about how long it takes to read 100 words. What about 1,000? What about 100,000? Linguists, the researchers who study language, often deal with millions of words at a time in their datasets, requiring advanced technology to handle such large amounts of information.
Demand for professional computational linguists — those who combine data science with linguistics to process language data — is growing in all sectors of industry, and this fall, Florida State University’s College of Arts and Sciences is launching a new track in its Interdisciplinary Data Science Master’s Degree Program to prepare students to step into these roles.
The computational linguistics M.S. track in IDS harnesses expertise from departments across campus to use computational and machine learning techniques to research large amounts of language data. Supported by faculty from the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, the track trains students with previous education in fields like math, computer science, linguistics, psychology, and scientific computing for opportunities in computer and information research involving the analysis of language and communication, driving career potential across industries — think language-learning apps like Duolingo or Babbel and tech firms like Amazon and Apple.
“As linguists, we gain key insights about our research that would be difficult or impossible to achieve without incorporating data science and computations into our work,” said Tom Juzek, assistant professor of computational linguistics. “In the last few decades alone, our understanding of language acquisition and children’s language acquisition, for example, improved greatly after using computational methods to analyze many language datasets, similar to datasets students will encounter in their computational linguistics courses.”
The new track, the only master’s degree offering of its kind in Florida, draws on fundamental concepts in data science including computer science, mathematics, statistics, philosophy and ethics, and it employs computational methodologies in the scientific study of language and its sounds, structures and meanings.
“Computational tools are helpful to linguistics research as they open new avenues for research and allow us to analyze larger amounts of data, analyze data in different ways, and analyze data more efficiently,” said Antje Muntendam, associate professor of linguistics. “These tools are used in linguistics research to build visual representations of historical linguistics, analyze large amounts of written text to answer linguistic questions, model word recognition, support psycholinguistic models based on experiments and more.”
Students in the track will complete a series of core courses required for IDS, including machine learning and artificial intelligence, data ethics, applied research methods and more, alongside electives covering topics such as text analysis and deep learning, corpus linguistics, lexical processing, eye-tracking methodology, reinforcement learning and high-performance computing.
“Rapid developments in artificial intelligence have highlighted the critical importance of analyzing spoken and written language as well as other forms of communication,” said Reinier Leushuis, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics chair. “This new track is a perfect example of how interdisciplinary efforts lead to cutting-edge and innovative research that has exciting real-world implications.”
Computational linguists also develop technological tools and computer systems that process natural language and relevant linguistic data, requiring a strong background in computer programming. Skills developed in the computational linguistics track are essential across various sectors, especially those in which AI is taking on an increased role, including government, health care, education and business.
“AI software that uses voice recognition, such as Apple’s virtual assistant Siri, are developed by computational linguists using natural language processing engineering,” Juzek said. “They also contribute to literacy programming, language localization, translations, speech data analysis, knowledge engineering, voice interface design, language documentation and revitalization. Their skills are highly sought by government intelligence services and tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Duolingo.”
Students in the computational linguistics track will engage with world-class instructors inside and outside the classroom through opportunities such as the FSU Scientific Computing Artificial Intelligence Seminar in Tallahassee, the annual Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Expo hosted by IDS, colloquia and technological resources at the FSU Innovation Hub and more. While this track has no thesis requirement, students can pursue research opportunities with a program faculty member via Directed Individual Study and will have access to laboratories such as the Visualization Laboratory in the Department of Scientific Computing and the Language Processing and Eye-tracking Laboratory in the Diffenbaugh Building.
Full-time and part-time study is available, as are funding opportunities such as tuition waivers for university and state employees, so officials are hoping to draw interest from working professionals in addition to students pursuing graduate study immediately after earning a bachelor’s degree.
“In creating this program track, we envisioned increasing the intellectual collaboration and cross-disciplinary work among linguistics and other units on campus,” Muntendam said. “The inclusion of computational linguistics in our programs broadens the scope of training available to our students and creates more opportunities for our students in virtually every sector of today’s global marketplace.”
To learn more about the new computational linguistics track in the FSU Interdisciplinary Data Science Master’s Degree Program, visit fla.st/8XDN7YGK.
McKenzie Harris is a two-time FSU alumna who earned a master’s degree from the College of Communication and Information in 2022 and a bachelor’s degree from the Department of English in 2020.