💰 PAID summer research opportunities in Linguistics

It's the middle of winter here in DC but some of you may already be planning how you’ll spend your summer, and wondering if Linguistics can be a part of it! I’m here to tell you about a couple of excellent opportunities that have crossed the DUS Desk, open to undergraduates from any institution. 

Penn MindCore is a paid 10-week program at the University of Pennsylvania which matches Summer Fellows with select MindCORE faculty in interdisciplinary mind and brain studies, who mentor Fellows through a research project. The application deadline is coming up soon - January 15th - so click that link to learn more about the program and potential faculty mentors!

The Michigan Diaries Project at Michigan State University is also offering full-time, paid research experiences for undergraduates this summer! This one’s for anyone interested in sociolinguistics and/or oral histories. MI Diaries will hold an informal webinar via Zoom on Wednesday, January 18 at 4pm, where you can meet the professors and graduate student mentors, and learn more about what the summer research experience will be like. Go to the links in this paragraph for more info about the project and the summer experience, and to register for the webinar.

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Of course, undergraduates at Georgetown have access to their own in-house set of Summer Research Fellowships to support projects, including the Kalorama, The Lisa J Raines Fellowship, the Provost’s Distinguished Undergraduate Research Fellowship, and the Summer Mentored Undergraduate Research Fellowship. The deadline for all of these is February 1st, so now's the time, Hoyas, to start thinking through your applications (and if relevant, possible faculty mentors for your project)!

Linguist career paths

Rudimentary image-doctoring is just one of the many skills I have honed as a linguist

Today I’d like to address one of the most common questions we get here at DUS Headquarters: What kind of job can I get with a linguistics degree?

I mean, what kind of job CAN’T you get with a linguistics degree? As a major in Linguistics, you’ll build lots of skills that will serve you well in nearly any career you might pursue:  you’ll be able to critically assess research in a subject area, to write in a way that builds an argument from evidence, and to deploy a variety of qualitative and quantitative analytic methods, for starters.

::whispers:: this is essentially true of any liberal arts degree, whatever the major - that’s the whole point of the liberal arts, to make you a well-rounded person with critical thinking skills and pluripotent competence who can take on whatever the world gives you!!

“OK Dr DUS”, I hear you say, “I get it, you ~love~ the liberal arts,  and I know my linguistics major will equip me with various skills which IN THEORY will prepare me for numerous hypothetical jobs. But EMPIRICALLY SPEAKING, what actual, specific things do linguistics grads go on to do?”

Fair enough! We can certainly look to some data. The Cawley Career Center’s Post Graduation Outcomes survey, for example, shows that Georgetown’s 2021 Linguistics graduates currently work in industries such as Scientific and Technical Consulting, K-12 Education, Management Consulting, Accounting, Advertising/PR/Marketing, Defense, and International Affairs, holding job titles such as Analyst, Development Assistant, Researcher, ELL Teacher, Senior Associate, and Associate Strategic Planner. It’s hard to know what some of those titles really mean in terms of your day-to-day tasks (Richard Scarry BusyTown jobs, they are not), but fortunately, there are resources that can give you fuller, more narrative senses of what those with linguistics training do with their lives. Here are just a few:

• Dr Lauren Gawne's Superlinguo Job Interviews. Dr Gawne co-hosts the Lingthusiasm podcast and blogs at Superlinguo. Over the past 7 years she has interviewed over 60 people with degrees in Linguistics about their jobs, which span quite a range - even just looking at the list will give some ideas about possible career paths.

• Dr Anna Trester's Career Linguist site is geared specifically towards those with linguistics background who are looking for jobs - read her career profiles in linguistics as well as her list of 50 Linguist-Friendly Organizations.

Finally, for those studying at Georgetown, check out our Masters in Language and Communication (MLC) program. You don't need to be IN the MLC to attend its programming, which includes guest speakers, networking events, and panels designed to introduce students to a range of careers.

Hellaur, have you ever wanted to learn more about accents?

[from https://sarahcandersen.com/]

You don’t need a degree in Linguistics to notice that people have accents - that is, specific ways of pronouncing* the words and sounds of a language, usually associated with a particular social group. Some accent features draw more attention that others; some, like Australian o, even get turned into memes. This cute lil comic is just the most recent example to come across my social media feeds.

I’m amused by the point the comic makes (“Australians sound so different!”) and the way it conveys this point (the unconventional aur spelling), but I’m also interested by the differences it obscures. A Hello said by an American and a hello from a Brit will actually sound quite different, in their o sound and in other ways (and it’s even more complicated than that: both Americans and Brits vary how they say their o's depending on where they are from within their respective regions!). What’s going on with all this accent variation - how can we characterize accent differences more accurately and helpfully, and why are some differences more noticeable or remarked-upon than others?

Here’s where the degree in Linguistics comes in handy! Linguists can gain expertise in fields such as phonetics (the study of how speech sounds are articulated, realized acoustically, and perceived), phonology (which deals with how those sounds pattern into larger units like words and sentences), and sociolinguistics (which examines how people use language in a way that reflects social structures and identity).

Linguistics majors at Georgetown have lots of opportunities to learn about accents in their coursework. In LING 001 (Introduction to Language), you’ll become acquainted with the tools linguists use to study language at all levels of structure, including the International Phonetic Alphabet, which allows us to capture fine-grained differences in sounds more consistently. In LING 215 (Sounds of Language), you’ll learn more about how a range of sounds across languages and dialects are articulated and how to actually measure these differences acoustically. LING 283 (Language and Society) will reveal some of the complex social reasons why people use (or avoid) certain accents or accent features, and the social meanings that attach to specific pronunciations. If you want MOAR ACCENT CONTENT beyond that, we’ve got other electives and higher-level courses to scratch that itch, such as LING 414 (Sociophonetics), LING 447 (American Dialects), and LING 481 (Sociolinguistic Variation) - as well as courses in other FLL departments (such as SPAN 396, Spanish Sociolinguistics) that can satisfy Linguistics elective requirements.

*It’s important to point out that signed languages (like American Sign Language) also have accents! In signed languages, the variation occurs in features like hand shape and position, rather than pronunciation of vowels and consonants.

Fall semester internship at the Linguistic Society of America

The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) seeks a student intern for Fall semester (September - December). This job would probably be a bit much for a first year or sophomore, but a junior or senior Linguistics major with good time management who wants to gain experience working in professional organizations/non-profits might want to check this out! Deadline is at the end of this week, so you’ll have to hustle. From the full listing on the LSA website:

Interns will gain experience with writing, research, database management, social science policy, and a variety of administrative tasks. Please see the position description below for additional details. The position is open to undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in programs leading to a degree in linguistics or a related field.

This part-time position involves 18 hours of work per week, with a stipend of $3500 for the duration of the semester. Our preference is that the intern spend a portion of their work week in the LSA's office in Washington, DC. The remainder of the work may be performed virtually from a remote location of the intern's choosing. Currently, most LSA staff are working a hybrid of remotely and in-person on selected days.

Please submit a cover letter, resume, and contact information for three academic/professional references to: lsa@lsadc.org, subject line: “LSA Internship Application.” The deadline for full consideration is August 7, 2022.

P.S. the LSA hires a student intern in every semester and during the summer, so if this sounds interesting to you but Fall is not the right time, keep an eye out for their future calls!

New blog: The DUS Desk

Welcome to The DUS Desk! As the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) in the Georgetown University Department of Linguistics, I help guide undergraduates through our Linguistics program and regularly draw their attention to jobs and other opportunities for LING majors. It occurs to me that some of this information might be interesting to people besides the declared majors on my email list - for example, potential linguistics majors at Georgetown and elsewhere, prospective students, and their family members.

Some categories/topics I anticipate posting about:

• Jobs: specific job and internship opportunities for current undergraduates or recent alums

• Careers: more general information about potential career paths for Linguistics majors

• Grad School: tips and programs for those contemplating graduate study in Linguistics

• Conferences: undergraduate-focused (or -friendly) conferences in Linguistics

• Extra-curricular: Linguistics podcasts, articles, memes, and other fun items 

Stay tuned!