What can you do with a degree in linguistics?

Anna Trester
Anna TresterStoryteller at Language of Storytelling
Write out
2 Skills
2 Interests
2 Dream Jobs
Anna Marie Trester
Department of Linguistics
Georgetown University

What’s in a frame?
Q: “You
study
linguistics?”

 not really “what can you do
with a degree in linguistics?”,
but “what do you want to do”
and let’s think about how
linguistics can get you there!
Reframe!!

OK, well, it’s really two
questions…..
Career Education
 Learn where others
have found
professional expression
of their skills and
training
 Where the linguists are
Professional self-
presentation
 Bring your awareness
of language and
communication to the
texts and interactions
that comprise the job
search
 Resume
 Cover letter
 LinkedIn profile etc.
What can you do with a degree in linguistics?

Build a career

 Skills (identifying those which are transferrable)
 Stories (Finding, Listening and Telling them)
 Testing things out….(make the best decision with
data you have at the time)
…..and all of this is really all about:
It’s about three things
What can you do with a degree in linguistics?



Linguist, know thyself!
 Skills and Abilities you possess
 Your Values and Interests
 Type of work you might like to do (work
environment, job
tasks, colleagues, schedule, routine, etc. etc. etc.)

Source: Karen Newhouse Beyond the Ivory Tower



BRIGHTEN

“business”




Management Consulting

Research

Frameworks Institute

Internships

MY internship!

 Verilogue, a healthcare communication research
firm:
https://www.smartrecruiters.com/VerilogueInc/75
766594-linguistic-intern-
Gap International, a management consulting firm
(founded by a linguist)
contact me if interested
More internships

Government

Smithsonian Institution

FBI

Census Bureau

General way-coolness


Healthcare
Communication

Verilogue

Technology

Social Media strategy

Entrepreneurship

entrepreurship
Communication in the workplace
or other institutional setting
plays a crucial part in how that
organisation functions, and when
things go wrong, they can go
wrong in a big way. Planes can
crash, patients can die, suspects
can escape because of
miscommunication. I want to
help you eliminate these
potentials for error. As a trained
linguist and anthropologist, I can
look at the way your
organisation works, and offer
suggestions and advice for
improvements and alterations, to
help you work better.

Non-profits

Education Research
What can you do with a degree in linguistics?

 NETWORKING
 Prof. associations /Informational interviews
The job search process
 APPLYING
 RESEARCH
 Figuring out what you want to do

 NETWORKING
 Prof. associations
/Informational
interviews
STORIES & the job
search process
 APPLYING
 RESEARCH
 Figuring out what
you want to do
Story
finding
Story
listening
Story
telling
Some contexts to think about

Texts that comprise the
job search
Resume
Written “spiels”:
Cover Letter
LinkedIn profile
Oral “Spiels”:
Elevator pitch
“Pocket example”
narratives
TMAY

Academic job search
CV
Written “spiels”:
Cover Letter
Academia.edu profile
Oral “Spiels”:
Elevator pitch
“Pocket example”
narratives
TMAY
What can you do with a degree in linguistics?

From:
“I want this job”
To:
“This is why you need me”
Cover Letters

Networking

Pocket examples
 Little stories that
SHOW you exhibiting
qualities you are telling
them you possess
 For any job
interview, you want to
have at least 5 prepared

Deploying your stories
Informational
Interviews
Elevators
External
Events
JOB FAIRS!
Job
Interviews
YOUR STORIES

Job interviews

 I advocate for beginning with a specific moment. A
moment when you made a decision, or had a
realization, or an interaction that set you on a path, that
motivated a journey.
 For linguists, this could be how you discovered
linguistics, or the reason you decided to become a
linguist.
 My stories: how I came to take my first class in
linguistics, when I was told not to pursue the subject it at
the graduate level because there were no jobs, how I
convinced my employer to pay for my MA, my first job as
a linguistic consultant, or my employment post PhD.
Some thoughts about
stories

 Look at the major turning points in your narrative Find a
way to present agency, that positive outcomes were the
result of your:
 Decision
 Knowledge, Skills, or Abilities
 Strength of character
 Steadfast intention
 NOT
 Luck
 Accident
 Someone else’s help (at least not wholly)
In your narratives

 Metaphor
 Re-frame
 Deictic Shifts
 Focus on Narrative
Why? Because THEY
need you!
Claiming Agency!
“Tell Me About Yourself”
And stay in touch!
amt23@georgetown.edu


 mlc.linguistics.georgetown.edu
 Your career center (help them help you)
 Alum from your dep’t
 Something to do NOW: get in
More Resources
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What can you do with a degree in linguistics?

Editor's Notes

  1. Job is something you BUILD! You learn by doing - Think in terms of tasks, responsibilities and duties; skills, interests and values
  2. Marc Okrand (born 1948; pronounced /ˈmɑrk ˈoʊkrænd/) is an Americanlinguist and is most notable as the creator of the Klingon language.BiographyOkrand worked with Native American languages. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1972. His 1977 doctoral dissertation from the University of California, Berkeley, was on the grammar of Mutsun, a dialect of Ohlone (a.k.a. Southern Costanoan), which is an extinct Utian language formerly spoken in the north central Californian coastal areas from Northern Costanoan down to 30 miles south of Salinas (his dissertation was supervised by pioneering linguist Mary Haas). He taught linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara before taking a post doctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., in 1978.[1]Okrand took a job at the National Captioning Institute, where he worked on the first closed-captioning system for hearing impaired television viewers. While coordinating closed captioning for the Oscars award show in 1982, Mr. Okrand met the producer for the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.[1] He was hired by Paramount Pictures to develop the Klingon language and coach the actors using it in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek: The Next Generation. His first work was dubbing in Vulcan language dialogue for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, since the actors had already been filmed talking in English. He has since consulted for the 2009 Star Trek film in their use of the Romulan and Vulcan languages.[citation needed]Okrand is the author of The Klingon Dictionary, first published in 1985, and all its addenda. He has also co-authored the libretto of an opera in the Klingon language: 'u', debuting at The Hague in September 2010.The tlh sound that he incorporated into Klingon, unusual to English speakers, is common in North and Central American indigenous languages, in which it is usually transcribed as tl, tł or ƛ (a voiceless alveolar affricate with lateral release); this is the sound at the end of the word "Nahuatl".
  3. Story about an orgnization
  4. Story about a job
  5. I’ve consulted with governmental organisations and major international airlines to help them improve communication, update practices, and identify issues which could contribute to negative consequences as a result of miscommunication.
  6. Achieving some analytical distance!!
  7. Conceptualmetaphor of a well-packed suitcase
  8. Finally, returning to the concept of “shifting your deictic center” I illuminate the need for a deictic shift in cover letters frequently seen which state “I want this job” or “this job would be a great opportunity for me because it will help me do X, Y,Z.” I analyze the consequences of this “noisy not” in not making the assumption that your employer already knows that this opportunity will benefit you, and shifting perspective instead to show why their investment in you will help them. I illuminate the discourse analytic motivations for the formula of showing “how your unique skills, interests and abilities are a great fit for the current needs and goals of the organization + enthusiasm!” to understand its effectiveness.
  9. What were my pocket examples today?
  10. From the pov of the interviewerFrom the point of view of the intervieweeAn opportunity for cultivating empathy!Different assumptions – John Gumperz, Iben JensenDepartment of Communication,University of Roskilde, Denmark
  11. Pay attention to the timescales of your thinkingPast Present FutureIn informational interviews, focus more on the past of the individual Spend some time envisioning your future self doing whatever job it is that you are going for, so that you can start to talk about this future in the present tenseThink about your past and your present as they project into the future
  12. Pay attention to the timescales of your thinkingPast Present FutureIn informational interviews, focus more on the past of the individual Spend some time envisioning your future self doing whatever job it is that you are going for, so that you can start to talk about this future in the present tenseThink about your past and your present as they project into the future