It’s my PhD birthday this week. Can you believe it? My baby PhD is one year old!
I don’t remember exactly why I didn’t start a PhD when I finished uni the first time around; I suspect it probably had something to do with needing to "get a real job". Unfortunately this also implies I had some sense that “doing a PhD” was Indulgent and “being a linguist” was Not Very Important In The Grand Scheme Of Things.
("
Oh, do not repeat what I said then!")
As it turns out, studying languages all day
is indulgent. But I am also now quite convinced that doing a Phd and becoming a linguist are Very Or At Least Quite Important In The Grand Scheme Of Things things.
Partly I am convinced of this because governments keep cutting funds for universities in general and for supporting Australian Indigenous languages (the focus of my phd) in particular, and if a government is cutting your funding you know you’re doing something worthwhile
But also, for your consideration, and in no particular order:
An (Incomplete) List Of Very or At Least Quite Important Things that Linguists Do
You might know that up to 90% of the 6000 languages spoken worldwide are predicted to become extinct (or dormant,
depending on your point of view) by 2100. Linguists document and
describe these languages, and work with communities to help maintain and
revitalize them. Languages preserve
thousands of years of human knowledge and are strongly linked to people's sense of culture and self; as if that wasn't enough, there’s also emerging research to link language revitalization with
positive health outcomes in Indigenous communities.
Forensic linguists provide expert analysis of audio recordings used in the
legal system. Did you know that it’s really easy to make errors about
what someone is saying in a recording, and even be wrong about who is saying it? I’m not even
clickbaiting you,
GO WATCH THE VIDEO on Dr Helen Fraser's website. (I’ll wait.) Unfortunately, this analysis isn’t usually done by an independent expert
but by detectives on the prosecution team. You can imagine how that might
cause some difficulties for a fair and just legal system.
Forensic linguists also analyse things like orthography (spelling) and word choice to determine authorship. I don’t know enough about forensic linguistics one way or another to comment on the following example but I think this suggestion that the @RoguePOTUSStaff twitter account is
actually a bogus account authored by Russians is an interesting read. The twitter user who came up with this analysis has (quite
sensibly) made their account protected, so I hope you can still see their archived link. Part of the analysis asks 'how would a native English speaker abbreviate the word 'vacation' in a tweet?' For those of you who are playing along at home, the answer is
vacay, obvs; only a non-native speaker would write 'vakay'.
Linguists
promote language learning to decrease xenophobia, by teaching cultural competence and tolerance of ambiguity. (It just makes sense that learning another language makes you a more tolerant person - once you experience trying to learn and communicate in a second language, you suddenly have mad respect for anyone who can throw half a sentence together in your own.)
Remember that time we all got excited and judgey about the way some
young women use ‘vocal fry’ when they speak? Yeah, it turns out that men
use vocal fry as well and no one cares. Funny that. Linguists say:
stop policing young women’s voices and actually listen to what they have to say, omg.
Linguists raise awareness of different communication styles in the legal system, as for example
the work Diana Eades did to put Aboriginal English ‘on the map’ in Australia. This includes things like understanding different uses of silence (do you interpret silence as an admission of guilt, or as simply thinking about the question?), and uses of the word ‘yes’ (’yes’ doesn’t always mean agreement; it can also be used to mean that you’ve understood the question).
Sociolinguists study different varieties of English (e.g. African American
Vernacular English, Aboriginal English) to show that, much like a
‘Standard English’ variety, these varieties are complex and quite
logical. There’s nothing incorrect or wrong with the different ways that
people speak English; there is something wrong with
a jury discrediting a witness statement because of it
Finally - linguists tell you
how to make the best protest signs. And you're gonna need them.
*
As in my PhD, so in the real world - this year is going to be hard, hard work. I don't have any words of wisdom or inspiration; all I want now is the audacity of hope.
