Linguist Liz Marasco brings a conversation analytic approach to the consent conversation.
Scholars in conversation analysis have known for a long time that we try to avoid using the word ‘no’. We rely on a number of other linguistic resources to ‘say no’ in order to save face. So why is this word necessary in one very specific, high-stakes situation? Liz Marasco has Master of Arts in Linguistics from CU Boulder where she specialized in conversation analysis. She believes opportunity and vulnerability exist in every interaction. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Mackenzie Price talks with us about how she works as a researcher and discourse analyst in the work that she does with the FrameWorks Institute, where she helps advocates tell more powerful stories about their issues, or as she puts it “guide them through a process of thinking about how the language that they use is interpreted.” As she explains, she comes to everything that she does thinking about language as a system, and thinking about interpretation as a process and the fact that any cue can be interpreted multiple ways depending on past knowledge, experiences, and current schemas in place. And by way of illustration, she shared an example that was hot off the presses – a mere three hours old!
Many lessons from her discussion of impact are quite applicable to us linguists, especially that circumstance she describes of the implications of not having the importance of your work be understood.
My favorite quote from the interview is my new tagline: “Linguists. We have something to say about everything that has ever happened!”
Additionally, Mackenzie is a professor in a business school, and she shared with us a bit about what her linguistic skills look like in that institutional context: one where (like any other setting) a linguist can investigate the language of things like power, identity construction, and professionalization. She describes how in her Research Methods course, her linguistics training is evident even in how she teaches her students how to understand what’s going on in their workplaces!
Thank you Mackenzie for sharing your energy and evident passion for your work with us here at the campfire!!
To connect with Mackenzie, find her on LinkedIn here
Catch up on any stories that you have missed by going to the stories around the campfire page here on Career Linguist. Linguists’ skills and training can be brought to the challenges of our time – listen to hear what pressing questions these folks address in their work and where they see more opportunities for linguists in future. If you would like to recommend someone for the series (including yourself), contact Career Linguist.
Hannah gives great perspective for anyone embarking on a new career, from the perspective of someone who has just started a new job herself, not just 4 months ago. The conversation begins with a glimpse of a day in the life on the Bixby project at Samsung Research America – whose goal is to have users to be able to do anything with their phone through voice that they could do through touch – and then moves to charting the “wise wandering” that has comprised her multifaceted and rich career path. Ever wondered how linguistics could show up in work as a bartender? Or as part of educational work in a prison?
She graduated with her MA from San Francisco State (go Gators!) just 4 years ago, but has done work in fiction writing, framing, teaching, and bartending since then, and translation / interpretation, localization, and project management before then.
Drawing from the breadth and depth of her perspective, we touch on themes of “making it” professionally, the importance of trying things out, and the idea that putting yourself out there is the way to get where you are going (there’s no other way!)
Thank you Hannah for sharing a wonderfully detailed picture of herself at work!
Catch up on any stories that you have missed by going to the stories around the campfire page here on Career Linguist. Linguists’ skills and training can be brought to the challenges of our time – listen to hear what pressing questions these folks address in their work and where they see more opportunities for linguists in future. If you would like to recommend someone for the series (including yourself), contact Career Linguist.
Thank you Julia for sharing a beautifully inspiring story of “leap and the net will appear.”
Our conversation began with some great insight into the day-to-day of data analysis. Julia shared some concrete examples which demonstrate the value of social listening – a subset of the textual analyses involved in market analysis – including some popular case studies and examples from her own analyses. We then turned to a discussion of bringing linguistics to thinking about career drawing from Julia’s background as the Director of PhD Career Services at Michigan State University.
As she shares in the interview: “everything about the idea of career transition is about language.” Typically the central challenge for academics is not that of lacking the appropriate skills – it is how to translate what we know – and how we know what we know – to an audience that isn’t familiar with academese. Sometimes it’s just as simple as talking about teaching experience on a resume as “training” or knowing that someone won’t necessarily know that you bring experience in public speaking or being able to recognize some of the ways that our own rhetorical practices get heard and interpreted so that we learn to talk about our expertise in ways that enable others to truly hear and to trust our expertise!
Among my favorite moments in the conversation was Julia’s declaration “linguists are uniquely situated to be really good resume writers because its really all about manipulating language and figuring out ‘what does this person want to hear?'” Her enthusiasm for the textual practices and processes of applying for jobs is contagious, so I hope you will take a listen, and then share with us here at Career Linguist what she inspires you to get on out there and do!! Thank you again Julia, can’t wait to see what comes next!!
Catch up on any stories that you have missed by going to the stories around the campfire page here on Career Linguist. Linguists’ skills and training can be brought to the challenges of our time – listen to hear what pressing questions these folks address in their work and where they see more opportunities for linguists in future. If you would like to recommend someone for the series (including yourself), contact Career Linguist.
Our guest next Friday at the campfire will be Mackenzie Price, telling us about her work at the FrameWorks Institute, where she works with social change advocates to change the public conversation about their issues!
this is how she describes the work on LinkedIn:
As an experienced strategic communications researcher, trainer, and consultant, I work primarily with non-profit organizations to translate experts’ perspectives on social issues and better engage the public. I use my background as an Interactional Sociolinguist to help partners look beyond dissemination efforts, and use social science research methodology to anticipate how the public will interpret their messaging.
Linguists are bringing their skills and training to address the challenges of our time – tune in weekly to the Career Campfire to hear folks talk about what pressing questions they address in their work and where they see opportunities for linguists.
Thank you to Serena and to guest host Jen Polk of From PhD to Life for a wonderfully elucidating campfire conversation. We began with an exploration of localization, or work in culturally relevant translation! Serena gave us some great illustrative examples and in-depth exploration of the skills that are needed to work as a linguist in this professional context. Big ups to her efforts at broadening the definition of Applied Linguistics to include the application of all linguistic theory. And I hope you write your book Serena, I would buy it!!
Help Serena get the word out:
“Do you guys realize that if you love linguistics, this industry exists!”
Catch up on the stories that you have missed by going to the stories around the campfire page here on Career Linguist. Linguists’ skills and training can be brought to the challenges of our time – listen to hear what pressing questions these folks address in their work and where they see more opportunities for linguists in future. If you would like to recommend someone for the series (including yourself), contact Career Linguist.
Our guest next Friday at the campfire will be Mackenzie Price, telling us about her work at the FrameWorks Institute, where she works with social change advocates to change the public conversation about their issues!