What can you do with a degree in linguistics?
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This document provides career advice for linguistics students and discusses how to frame job searches. It recommends identifying skills, interests, and dream jobs. It also suggests focusing a job search on networking, applying, and researching career paths that suit individual values and abilities. The document emphasizes using stories effectively in job search texts, interviews, and other contexts to showcase skills and claim agency over career outcomes.
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What can you do with a degree in linguistics?
- 1. Write out 2 Skills 2 Interests 2 Dream Jobs
- 2. Anna Marie Trester Department of Linguistics Georgetown University
- 3. What’s in a frame? Q: “You study linguistics?”
- 4. 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!!
- 5. 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.
- 8. 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
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- 12. 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.)
- 13. Source: Karen Newhouse Beyond the Ivory Tower
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- 17. BRIGHTEN
- 18. “business”
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- 23. Research
- 25. Internships
- 26. MY internship!
- 27. 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
- 28. Government
- 30. FBI
- 31. Census Bureau
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- 35. Verilogue
- 36. Technology
- 39. 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.
- 40. Non-profits
- 43. NETWORKING Prof. associations /Informational interviews The job search process APPLYING RESEARCH Figuring out what you want to do
- 44. 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
- 45. Some contexts to think about
- 46. Texts that comprise the job search Resume Written “spiels”: Cover Letter LinkedIn profile Oral “Spiels”: Elevator pitch “Pocket example” narratives TMAY
- 47. Academic job search CV Written “spiels”: Cover Letter Academia.edu profile Oral “Spiels”: Elevator pitch “Pocket example” narratives TMAY
- 49. From: “I want this job” To: “This is why you need me” Cover Letters
- 50. Networking
- 51. 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
- 52. Deploying your stories Informational Interviews Elevators External Events JOB FAIRS! Job Interviews YOUR STORIES
- 53. Job interviews
- 54. 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
- 55. 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
- 56. Metaphor Re-frame Deictic Shifts Focus on Narrative Why? Because THEY need you! Claiming Agency!
- 57. “Tell Me About Yourself”
- 58. And stay in touch! amt23@georgetown.edu
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- 60. mlc.linguistics.georgetown.edu Your career center (help them help you) Alum from your dep’t Something to do NOW: get in More Resources
Editor's Notes
- Job is something you BUILD! You learn by doing - Think in terms of tasks, responsibilities and duties; skills, interests and values
- 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".
- Story about an orgnization
- Story about a job
- 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.
- Achieving some analytical distance!!
- Conceptualmetaphor of a well-packed suitcase
- 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.
- What were my pocket examples today?
- 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
- 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
- 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