A comparison between the words “profession” and “specialty”

Question

Edited:

Imagine there is a task which requires lots of practical or scientific / academic knowledge. A master of that field wants to claim that this is a professional task and what he can do because of the relationship between his / her profession and specialty and the task. I would appreciate it if someone could let me know which one of the flowing self-made sentences works in this sense? If no one of them sounds idiomatic, then please let me know what a native speaker would say in a natural way to indicate exactly the same message:

This task is within my profession.

This task is within my specialty.

I have made this question to make sure whether these words differ in meaning or not.

Answer 1

Firstly, the words specialty and profession are used quite differently.

Profession

a [particular occupation, business or vocation] requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science.

Specialty

a special subject of study, line of work, area of interest

A profession is very broad, you can be a policeman, a doctor or a software engineer. A profession requires knowledge and study, but is very broad. A general understanding of computers is rarely described as 'a specialty'. Also a profession can be even broader such as "technology".

A specialty is very specific, for example a homicide detective, a neuroscientist or a java developer. This is a doctor that "specializes" in neuroscience.

then please let me know what a native speaker would say in a natural way to indicate exactly the same message.

Both are valid, however I would probably use something like:

I can do this because it falls within my area of expertise

I can do this because I am qualified to do so

My training qualifies me for this task.

The reason that I would use phrases such as "area of expertise" is that this is indicative of a human ability. "Profession" is quite broad, but you could say that "I can do this because it is my job, I am used to doing it". "Specialization" is very narrow and not really used colloquially "I can do this because it is my specialty" is grammatically correct but I've never heard it used. I think perhaps because it is a fundamentally academic word, you specialize in medicine, and this is used frequently in an academic context.