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Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics

Field of study · CIP 2020

Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics is one of the fields of study in the U.S. Department of Education's Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP). It contains 84 detailed programs and, through the official CIP–SOC crosswalk, connects to 6 occupations employing about 1,395,160 workers, with a median wage of $77,640. The crosswalk shows which jobs a field of study is related to — not a guarantee of entry.

What the occupations pay

Median annual wage across the occupations this field of study leads to, from BLS OEWS (national, cross-industry, May 2024). The middle range is the 25th–75th percentile of those occupation medians — it describes the field, not any one job or graduate.

Median occupation wage $77,640
Middle range (p25–p75) $67,688 – $78,435
Occupations with wage data 6 of 6

AI exposure of this field of study

Two published studies estimate how exposed each occupation is to today's AI. The OpenAI "GPTs are GPTs" study rates the share of an occupation's tasks a large language model (with tools) could speed up by half or more; averaged across the occupations this field of study leads to it is 60% — 96th percentile of all fields of study. The independent Felten/Raj/Seamans AI Occupational Exposure index averages 1.28 here.

Computed across the 5 of 6 occupations this field leads to that carry a published exposure score.

The most-exposed fields of study lead to knowledge, language and analytical work; the least-exposed lead to physical trades and hands-on production. Exposure measures where AI could assist tasks, not a prediction that these jobs will be automated; high exposure most often means augmentation. Bands are comparable across the cluster, education, job-zone and field-of-study tiers (same two studies, same percentile method).

Where this field of study leads

The largest occupations connected to this field by the CIP–SOC crosswalk, by employment. Wage and employment describe the occupation, not an individual.

Occupation Workers Median pay
Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education 1,072,540 $64,580
Postsecondary Teachers, All Other 151,530 $78,490
English Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary 59,590 $78,270
Interpreters and Translators 53,360 $59,440
Social Scientists and Related Workers, All Other 36,970 $100,340
Foreign Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary 21,170 $77,010

Programs in this field

A sample of the detailed CIP programs within this family. The full family contains 84 programs.

  • 16.0201 African Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
  • 16.0404 Albanian Language and Literature
  • 16.1001 American Indian/Native American Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
  • 16.1601 American Sign Language (ASL)
  • 16.1699 American Sign Language, Other
  • 16.1103 Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
  • 16.1202 Ancient/Classical Greek Language and Literature
  • 16.0105 Applied Linguistics
  • 16.1101 Arabic Language and Literature
  • 16.1801 Armenian Language and Literature
  • 16.1401 Australian/Oceanic/Pacific Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
  • 16.0401 Baltic Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
  • 16.0704 Bengali Language and Literature
  • 16.0408 Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian Languages and Literatures
  • 16.0405 Bulgarian Language and Literature
  • 16.1403 Burmese Language and Literature
  • 16.0907 Catalan Language and Literature
  • 16.1301 Celtic Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
  • 16.0301 Chinese Language and Literature
  • 16.1200 Classics and Classical Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, General
  • 16.1299 Classics and Classical Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, Other
  • 16.0104 Comparative Literature
  • 16.0406 Czech Language and Literature
  • 16.0503 Danish Language and Literature
  • 16.0504 Dutch/Flemish Language and Literature
  • 16.0300 East Asian Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, General
  • 16.0399 East Asian Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, Other
  • 16.1404 Filipino/Tagalog Language and Literature
  • 16.0101 Foreign Languages and Literatures, General
  • 16.9999 Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, Other

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

Data compiled June 3, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

Cite this page
Plain

Singulariki. "Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; CIP-2020 2020; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/programs/foreign-languages-literatures-and-linguistics

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/programs/foreign-languages-literatures-and-linguistics

BibTeX 
@misc{singulariki-foreign-languages-literatures-and-linguistics,
  title  = {Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; CIP-2020 2020; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/programs/foreign-languages-literatures-and-linguistics}
}

Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.