Career as a Female Linguist: 5 Ways for Fulfillment

Are you considering a career as a linguist or want to know how you can use a degree in this field to advance your career? Read on for today’s post from Amy and how being a woman in this field can be both challenging and rewarding.

Here are five tips that are going to help your career as a female linguist. They are tips that are born in the real world and not the politically correct world that so many people confuse with reality. Using these five tips, you will find it easier to get a job, keep a job and move up within your chosen career.

1 – Make it clear what you have learned with your degree

Why is it that so many women are great at listing their finest qualities when comparing themselves with men, and yet when it comes to writing a CV, application or attending an interview they are suddenly terrible at it? When you did your degree, you learned a number of things. You learned skills, techniques, and built foundations in a number of thinking systems. If you are still struggling, then here is a short list to get you started. If you have a qualification in linguistics, then you most likely have all or most of the elements listed below.

• Language Development
• Slavic Linguistics
• Morphology
• Language and Power
• Semantics and Pragmatics
• Structure of Russian Syntax
• Phonological Analysis
• Sociophonetics
• Linguistics
• The Language of Deception and Humor
• Syntactic Analysis
• Introduction to Syntax
• Dynamic Semantics
• Indo-European Linguistics
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Language Variation and Change
• Mathematical Foundations
• Hittite Linguistics

Don’t forget that these are only the things you learned when you did your degree. These do not even touch on the soft skills and traits that you may have such as honesty, reliability, punctual, etc.

2 – Tell employers what qualities your degree has instilled in you

The list below is not limited to your degree. The list below shows things that you have learnt through your education and through your life and work experiences. The list below shows a few qualities that your degree, education, and experience have instilled in you. When you are having your interview and are being asked what makes you so great, tell them a few of the qualities listed below. When you are writing your CV, add some, if not all, of the qualities listed below and come up with a whole batch of new ones too.

• Familiarity with a wide range of languages
• Ability to construct abstract grammatical models
• Ability to meet tight deadlines
• Ability to think critically
• Ability to create and test alternative hypotheses
• Facility in dealing with linguistic data, regardless of specific language‌
• Qualitative researching abilities
• In depth knowledge of language structures
• Ability to recognize quality information
• Time management skills
• Written and verbal communications skills

3 – Pursue the type of job you feel suits you the best

The most obvious job you can work in is one in interpreting and translation. Strong language skills may help you negotiate business deals, courtroom settings, personal meetings and much more. The computer industry has openings with all kinds of work, from speech synthesis, and artificial intelligence to text synthesis and search engine tuning. You can work to teach language and linguistics and there are plenty of jobs in Law for linguistics degree holders. There is also work to be found in academic teaching and research. Finally, you may like to pursue a career in the editing and publishing industry, as they too need linguistics graduates.

4 – Stay trim, stay attractive and always make the effort

One could say that men are the reason that women earn less and have less respect in the business world. One could say that if it weren’t for the fact that women will spend months executing a plan to undercut, undermine and outright destroy other women within the business. You are judged by your cover as well as you are your knowledge. This happens for men too but to a far lesser extent.

You can cry about this sort of thing, you can start another woman’s movement, and you can complain until you are blue in the face, but the fact is that your outward appearance will have an effect on your career. If you want to live in a world where it doesn’t, then take a look at yourself. Answer a few of these questions:

Do you find it hard to respect the fattest woman at work?

Have you ever said a bad thing about a woman you don’t know personally?

Would you talk about your boss if she arrived at work with knotted hair?

Have you ever wished the worst on a woman at work?

Do you work harder than all the women at work?

If you answered yes to any of the questions listed above, then you are part of the problem. But, even though you know this unfair problem of image and attractiveness exists in the workplace, it doesn’t mean you cannot exploit it. All you have to do is stay trim so that other women find it easier to respect and/or like you. Do not say bad things about other women. Take care of your appearance so that you are attractive and well turned out without it looking as if you tried too hard. Do not wish that other women will fail, and do not complain about the other women at work. Stay trim, stay attractive and always make the effort with your appearance and you will do a little better at work as a result.

5 – Every week you should plan and execute self-improvement

This means finding ways to improve your skills, knowledge, your appearance and yourself in general. If you want to compete in the business world then you have to try the hardest, and that means improving yourself on a weekly basis. You may also like to work on your attitude. You can be the woman that is naturally good at her job and easily solves problems in a crisis, or you can be the woman that acts more like a man and comes across as cold and hard to tangle with. It is up to you, but why not read the Judge Judy books before you make your decision as to your attitude, as she has had to learn how to survive in a man’s world the hard way.

Author bio:

The article is written by Amy Cowen. She works as a freelance editor and writer at Aussiewriter. Amy often provides career advice for college students.

 

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