Computational linguistics is a field that was founded by linguists, but more recently is the domain of more computer scientists than linguists. Use of data driven and machine learning methods for computational linguistics applications is now more common than handwritten linguistic rules. In order for a linguist to enter the field, it is essential that he or she be familiar with methods and techniques from computer science. The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to serve as a linguist\u27s introduction to concepts from outside of linguistics that are used in computational linguistics. The second purpose is to illustrate the use of linguistic features for a specific task known as sentiment analysis. This task involves determining the sentiment of a piece of text. By way of examining linguistics within sentiment analysis, this paper will begin to gesture at the potential role for linguists in the modern field of computational linguistics as a whole. The goal is to encourage and enable linguists to reengage with computational linguistics by providing a suitable introductory work
