becoming linguist theory linguistics attracted many us field ranges humanities hard sciences majority subdisciplines falling general area social sciences spoken many linguists started scholarly lives scientists chem istry physics wanted something seemed like humanities discipline often european sense sciences humaines disciplines deal people many others including started foreign languages literatures found wanted something scientific literary analysis think secondlanguage learning component important suggested posting read today always difficulty learning language rather desire keep working language form without literature personal note clearly remember relief undergraduate discover linguistics comparative romance course meant majoring french made sense even sartre nt margaret