Posts tagged postdoc

I spent the last two years in London as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at SOAS University London, funded by the Endangered Language Documentation Programme. I’m now moving to Melbourne to start a three year project as a David Myers Research Fellow at La Trobe University. The project will bring together my work on Syuba and Yolmo, and expand it to include other languages in Nepal. I’ll be continuing to work with evidentiality and gesture, as well as some phonetics. I’m also excited about moving back to my hometown.

Some UK English I had to get my head around

• Animal Crossing in the UK - Toucans and Puffins and Penguins (oh my!)
  
• ‘Durex’ in the UK and Australia means very different things
• What the heck is a Minster?
  
• Hit and/or miss
• The most English apology ever
  

Some things I did while in the UK

• 2016 fieldtrip to Nepal
  
• LAGB2016 (Linguistics Association of Great Britain)
  
• CoLang2016 (Language documentation and revitalisation)
  
• ISGS7 (International Society for Gesture Studies)
  
• Partnering with Wikimedia UK to improve Endangered Language and Linguistics content on Wikipedia in 2016
  
• Lingwiki SOAS 2015-2016
• Archiving the Langtang documentation
• Digitising and archiving Yolmo cassettes from the 1980s
  

Posts about some of my academic publications from the last 2 years:

• A Sketch Grammar of Lamjung Yolmo (Open Access book)
• Evidential Systems of Tibetan Languages (Gawne & Hill, edited volume)
  
• Mapmaking for Language Documentation and Description (in Language Documentation & Conservation)
• Questions and answers in Lamjung Yolmo
• ‘My name is Maya Lama/Hyolmo/Syuba’: Negotiating identity in Hyolmo diaspora communities
  

I have the good fortune to be able to spend time with lots of graduate students and early career researchers (and I am an ECR myself). I feel like there are some common themes to some of the conversation I have with people, and I wanted to draw some of those themes into one place.

Going through the PhD and navigating postdoc life is different for everyone, and different bits of what I’ve written below will make sense to different people at different times. This makes some of the things I say a little contradictory. Academia isn’t the easiest to stay in, and I know that at some times there will be systemic reasons that people might have problems with some of this advice, or it won’t be appropriate, but these are things I feel like I say to people a lot.

Attend the seminars

If your department has seminars, go. Even when it’s on topics that aren’t immediately relevant to your interests. It helps broaden your experience, keeps you up to date with what others are working on, and at the very worst, helps to remind you why there are some areas of linguistics that aren’t your jam. It’s a low effort way to be a professional.

Have a question ready

If you go to any seminar, have a question ready - even if you don’t end up asking it. This helps you practice your critical thinking, particularly in areas you aren’t well-versed in, shows your willingness to learn, and means that you have practice for when it’s really important, e.g. attending conferences, job interviews or surviving your own defence/viva/completion talk. Also, giving a talk and having no questions is always an awkward experience, so think of it as paying things forward.

Administrative staff are humans

Universities sometimes feel like they just like generating paperwork to distract you from research. Don’t forget that the people who make the university run are the professional staff - they’re often more qualified than you are, and have a much better grasp on how the system works. Whatever bureaucratic title they get in your institution, treat them with respect - and not just because they might help you at some point - because they’re humans and being nice to other humans you work with is a good thing to do.

Use social media

Even at a moderately-sized conference these days, there’s a second conversation happening on Twitter, and it’s amazing. Since moving to Europe, I’ve gone to conferences in the UK, Europe and the USA where I’ve not met people before, and been able to meet up with linguists who I know from Twitter. It can be a great way to talk directly with academics you may not get to meet in real life, or who are quite senior, if you follow some basic politenesses (related: @allthingslinguistic​ post with excellent advice about Twitter/live tweeting).

Don’t confuse social media with work

I love the linguist community on Twitter, and I regularly pop up there, but that doesn’t mean it’s part of my job. Don’t let social media distract you from the task at hand, use an internet blocker if you need to get that thesis chapter or journal article done (I use SelfControl or RescueTime). And don’t confuse people being upbeat on social media with them doing better at academia life than you are - remember we all get to curate our best self for the rest of the world to see.

Volunteer for things

I am (no surprise) a participator. Getting involved in whatever is happening in my department or city has led to some great stuff that I didn’t think about at the start. It allows you to sample a range of skills and ideas that you might not otherwise come across. Resume building is a thing too, but that’s more a nice side effect, if you’re only doing something to build your CV then maybe you’re not building the CV for the job you really want?

Don’t work for free

During your PhD, you’ll want to volunteer for things, but as you get a firmer idea of what you’re doing, and what you’re interested in (see below), it’s ok to become more discriminating. It’s taken a while, but unless I can see a clear benefit to me, I don’t have to say ‘yes’ to everything that comes along. Sometimes the benefit is not financial - I read the work of colleagues who I know I will benefit from sending work to in the future - but it’s ok to step away from doing things for ‘experience’, and that time can come sooner than later. If you’re an opportunity fiend like me, get yourself a couple of people who you can use to talk you down from signing up for another great project when you’ve already got enough to do.

Know your interests

This one doesn’t necessarily come easily, if you’re like me and interested in all the things. Knowing that you’re specifically interested in 3 or 4 things makes it easier to assess opportunities, jobs and other things. For example, I’m interested in evidentiality, gesture, Tibeto-Burman and data management. A project has to hit at least a couple of those for me to consider it. It took me a while to clearly articulate such a simple list to myself, and I don’t imagine it will stay that way forever, but it’s a good tool for me at the moment. 

Other Tumblinguists and TumblrAcademics please share your advice too!

It’s been almost a year since I moved to Singapore, and so it’s time to pack up the postdoc caravan once again. This time I’ll be moving to the UK for two years to do a postdoc at SOAS funded by the ELDP. I have had a great year at NTU, and I’m excited to continue my working with the Kagate community in Nepal.

Of course Superlinguo will keep rolling on. Expect less Singlish and more anecdotes based around me watching the BBC.

I was supposed to spend the next two weeks in Nepal, working on a project that I was really excited about and attending a conference. While I would love to be able to see my friends, it’s unfair to burden the country with another person who isn’t directly helping get the place back on its feet. I will definitely be there by early 2016 though.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be running a few final posts about language and life in Singapore.

For over three years Superlinguo has been a multimedia linguistics empire, with the website and Georgia’s radio spot on RRR, as well as the occasional foray into print.

From next month Superlinguo will become an International multimedia empire. I am moving to Singapore to start a postdoc at NTU. While I am there I’ll be continuing my work with Kagate speakers in Nepal, and working on some other really great projects that I’m looking forward to sharing with you.

We will still be posting stuff here regularly, as well as hanging out on Twitter and Facebook. Georgia can still be heard chatting with the RRR Breakfasters every month. I will try my hardest to ensure that I post about something other than Singapore English from time to time!

- Lauren

In what has now become a solid annual tradition, my reading group has held a poetry KK at Christmas. This year the fabulous phonetician Rosey  rewrote Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter as The Linguist and The Postdoctor. She’s been kind enough to let me share it with you here. It’s quite long, so hit the ‘read more’ button to see it all in its magnificent glory. Thanks so much Rosey! It’s the best poem I’ve ever received!

The sun was shining in the sky,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The fieldsite warm and bright–
To help the linguists trying hard
To get the grammar right.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
Assisting everyone.
“The language data won’t” she said,
“Be good – in the long run!”

The notes were scarce as scarce could be,
The background noise too high.
You could not know the sounds, because
No phonemes were transcribed:
No labels on the cassette tapes –
No labelling was tried.

Read more …