Linguistics jobs - Interview with a Speech Pathologist
Occasionally on Superlinguo you’ll see a cameo from Speech Path Annie. I’ve been pestering her to be part of our Linguistics jobs interview series, and she kindly agreed. Annie and I became friends in Honours year at The University of Melbourne. We collaborated on some of my earliest gesture work - actually it’s some of my earliest academic research - so Annie has been putting up with me for a long time!
What did you study at university?
I did a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Linguistics and Swedish and a diploma in French, and then honors in Linguistics looking at first language acquisition.
I fell upon linguistics by accident: when I was first considering subjects, I had thought the real challenge would be choosing between anthropology and psychology for a major. I picked my first linguistics subject because I had a spot on my timetable to fill. My sister had taken a single subject in linguistics and told me the odd fun fact from it and I figured it would be fun to collect some more fun facts of my own. After that first subject, I knew I was going to keep going. Throughout my degree, it almost felt a little bit decadent, doing something so fun and interesting for a major.
In the last year of undergrad, I started to think about what I would do after linguistics. I had a friend doing speech pathology whose passion for it convinced me to apply, and after taking a year off after honors, I did a two year Masters of Speech Pathology.
I’m a speech pathologist (also known as a speech and language pathologist, or a speech and language therapist, or, by those in the know, a speechie). I work in six schools doing assessments and therapy with primary school age kids, working with their parents, and working with teachers to make schools more inclusive for children with speech, language and literacy needs.
How does your linguistics training help you in your job?
Linguistics is a part of any speech pathology degree, but I certainly appreciated the breadth of knowledge I entered my masters with. Now, on any given day, I might be analyzing a language sample from a child, explaining linguistic concepts to teachers, or helping a group of children build their phonological awareness so they can learn to read and write.
Before working as a speechie, I admit to being apprehensive that there actually wouldn’t be much linguistics to it, especially with the kids. I feared that the speech side would focus on motor skills and the language side would be looking how quickly a kid learned a list of fifteen morphemes. And yes, I definitely do have to know and consider motor skills and tick off a morpheme checklist from time to time. But that is a very small part of what I do. In fact, language difficulties tend to be a lot more subtle and sly than an overtly misused morpheme. More often, the difficulties mean a person finds it hard to control and manipulate their language so what they say doesn’t fulfill their pragmatic intent or fully express their thoughts and ideas. Similarly, many speech and literacy difficulties link straight back to phonological rather than motor difficulties, in all phonology’s dramatic complexity. So my fears were allayed: there is definitely real, complex and gritty linguistics to speech path work. And one of my favorite parts of the job is the chance to explain the grittiness to a whole range of people.
Do you have any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?
I’ve always been lucky that I have had very wise people around me who have always given me very wise advice. Advice like: everyone stuffs up. When you stuff up, no one cares that much that you stuffed up. What they really care about is how you resolve the stuff up. Or: people can only judge you by what they understand. They have no idea if the expert advice you are giving them is right or wrong – if they did, they wouldn’t need to ask – but they do know straight away if something is late or has a typo in it.
One piece of advice I have for uni is: if you’re really not sure what you want to do after uni, and you are going to do a Masters or further study, do something where, at the end, you know the exact search term you’ll use to look for jobs in the area. I sort of did this by accident but am incredibly glad I did! And even if it doesn’t end up being the best fit, remember that every job, and every uni course, no matter how specific, has transferable skills.
Any other thoughts or comments?
Language, communication and literacy difficulties and differences are far more prevalent than most people would imagine, and their impacts have profound effects on people’s lives. Unfortunately, a lack of knowledge in the world about both areas means these impacts tend to be negative. I highly recommend reading up on language, communication and literacy difficulties and differences, and the social model of disability.
Superlinguo posts featuring Speech Path Annie:
Childhood flashback: Cued articulation
“Sorry, wug is not an acceptable word”
Interview with a computational linguist
Interview with a language revitalisation program director
Interview with a media language researcher
Interview with an editor and copywriter
Interview with a humanitarian aid worker
Interview with a high school teacher
Interview with an interpreter
Interview with a journalist
Interview with a data analyst
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