2016 Linguistics Careers Evening Notes

1. David Hartaker: Journalist

- David is journalist of Australian Broadcast Cooperation,
Middle Eastern correspondent, completed Honours Degree
in linguistics.
- He became speech-writer for television programs 60
Minutes and Four Corners.
- He criticized that journalists nowadays are not confident in
writing because they focuses on how to write more
reactively without considering certain appropriate style and
system of language.
- Linguistics is important discipline because it allows
experiencing variety of language systems, deepens the
understanding of communication styles in different
contexts and circumstances.
- If you are considering on becoming journalist, focus on the
words and system of language rather than reactiveness
and excessive facts. Also, perceiving the precise concept,
writing and oral communication style is critical because
language is a human essence and needs to express clearly
and evocatively. Show care for language.
- Linguistic opens the world
- Journalism can change one persons life.
2. Dr Terry Royce: Forensic Linguist
- Forensic linguist, part of forensic linguist firm.
- Dr Royce took discourse and conversational analysis
disciplines.
- During completing Master of Applied Linguistics at the
University of Sydney, he learnt functional linguistics.
- Forensic linguistics works closely in crisis management,
negotiation, interpreting legal documents such as status
and court system.
- Forensic linguistics involves discourse analysis of
environments, images, gestures, speech patterns, which
narrows down psychology and characteristic of the offender
- Crucial to focus on the language of readers and listeners to
draw exact analysis.
- Forensic linguistics requires analysis of both
communications and actions.
3. Associate Professor Tricia McCabe: Speech Pathologist
-

Speech pathology is all about applied linguistics and

psychology.
using linguistics knowledge to help the linguistic
development of preschool children

when a child is using an incomplete form of language,

people impoverish their language environment even
further by talking to them at a lower level
hard to know if a child from a different background has a
speech disorder or if they are speaking a different dialect
important to ask parents
showed us a speech ultrasound!
Some typically developing people have neurological
disorders that prevent them from pronouncing sounds
correctly
Speech pathology also covers pragmatics some people
with brain injuries use the wrong language register to talk
to policemen and other authority figures which ends up
getting them into more trouble
Stephen Hawking has kept his out-dated computergenerated voice because it has become his identity,
however speech pathologists work with him to make sure
the technology is working
Speech pathologists also use psychology and anatomy
Also works with people with swallowing disorders
There is ample work for people with Masters degrees in
linguistics, and especially for speakers of foreign
languages. Also needs to do Masters of speech pathology.
It is a special skill to work with people who cannot
communicate for themselves
The working environment is people focused, either one to
one or in small groups so resilience and flexibility require.
Requires background knowledge of phonetics and
phonology is compulsory

4. Appen: company
- A company provides speech and search technology
services.
two main division:
- Content relevance- improving engines and analysing usergenerated content.
- Language resources: collect speech data and send to the
commercial clients
o Data collections: acquiring data from multi-media
sources, internet etc
o Transcription: conducts transcription of a certain
language data working with remote transcribers and
native speakers,
o lexicon: phonetic transcription of words stored in the
database. Then, translate with native bilingual
speakers
o Translation: working with remote translators,
- Primary roles:
o Project specialist: collect speech data

o Linguistic Project Manager: project translation

o Associate Linguistics Project Manager: provide
assistant
o Project Engineer: python, computational linguistics,
HMTL.
Key skills:
o Strong linguistics background:
Phonetics, phonology, syntax
Passionate about in language and ability to
learn
Identifying possible language errors are crucial.
Translation experience also a plus
Good academic transcript
o IT skills:
Python
Excel
Regular expressions,
Bash
UNIX
o Organisational Skills:
Manage a project to quality, budget, timeline
o Communication skills:
Work with a culturally diverse team both inhouse and around the world
Approach to any others with
o jwalker@appen.com
Australian English recording project: $75, 3 hours, currently
recruiting 3000 members.

5. Nick Enfield
Academic field consists of administrations and teaching
- Benefits: teaching helps developing research.
- General Working condition: varies depends on the
specialisations.
- University working condition: 26 weeks of teaching time,
seminars during the teaching periods, holidays are given and
separate research break too.
- Academia field is highly competitive. Limited space and needs
to possess broad spectrum and specific specialisations, able to
coordinate and teach all undergraduate and postgraduate
programs.
- Knowing your academic career aim and find admission cut off
line for further study to set your goal clearer.
- Participate in linguistics conference and network with other
academics and participants. Linguistic