Where Jesus and linguistics intersect

The first step was discovering linguistics.

Sometimes a person knows what she wants to do for a living by the time she graduates from the fifth grade. That was not me. When I was in the fifth grade, my biggest concerns were earning homework passes and making sure I didn’t get kicked off of the safety patrol squad so I could go on the field trip to Carowinds at the end of the year. One of my long-term goals was to learn to type as fast as my friend Shruthi so I wouldn’t look like a fool chatting with her on AOL Instant Messenger each afternoon. Careers were far from my mind. I didn’t start caring about my future career until about… senior year of high school. It just didn’t seem to matter before. But soon everyone was applying to colleges and I knew I was expected to do so, as well. So I had to figure out which college I wanted to go to. Typically, this choice comes down to what you want in a school. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m the least decisive person she knows (except Kaitlin. She’ll say herself because she’s stubborn. She’ll agree with that too).  I had no idea what I wanted to study, so I needed to go to a well-rounded school that offered almost any program I could ever want. I picked UNC-Chapel Hill. It was a great choice. As far as choosing my life path, I was off the hook for a while. I had at least a year or two to continue being undecided. I took random classes. One of which was LING 101, Introduction to Linguistics. I loved it. The material was the most interesting stuff I had ever learned. We learned about pronunciation, dialects, how to describe sounds, how people think about and use language, and so much more. And I did really well in it, too. I considered majoring in linguistics. But you know me… Miss Indecisive. I wanted to keep my options open! Can you blame a girl? I ended up declaring linguistics as my major at the very last minute. It was my 4^th semester in college, and I finally felt like I had an undergraduate identity. From Miss Indecisive to Miss Linguistics Major. Score.

What can you do with a degree in linguistics?

Raise your hand if anyone has ever told you that you can’t do anything with your major except teach or do research. Every hand should be raised (Unless you’re one of those people who claims you don’t nod on the phone. Who are you trying to fool?). It’s one of the biggest misconceptions about undergraduate degrees. I’m bad at memorizing statistics, but I’m sure that a very high percentage of people with bachelors degrees work in a field that is totally unrelated to their major. Even people who have masters degrees sometimes pursue a different field of study than they did in undergrad.  Bit of advice: don’t let anyone tell you that your major is useless. Well, let them tell you, but let it go out the other ear. Majors are silly anyway. A college degree prepares you for the world and the workforce. That’s why we have general education requirements. Okay, enough lecturing about higher education. I seriously had no idea what I could do with a degree in linguistics. Like, people would ask me, and I would have to Google it. I didn’t really want to be a professional linguist, I just wanted to take classes and learn the material. I also didn’t want to have to learn another language. That probably confuses you a lot. Language classes aren’t required for the linguistics major at UNC. Why? I’m not sure. Probably because we’re awesome.

Here’s the main reason I don’t want to be a professional linguist: Who is benefitting from that? I mean, other than nerds like me who just want to analyze spectrograms all day, whose life would really be improved by a research project on the behavior of reduplication in Indonesian? (I use this example because one of my linguistics professors talks about reduplication in Indonesian like it’s the eighth wonder of the world.) I didn’t really feel “called” to linguistics. I mean, I love it. A lot. But I don’t think it’s something people would talk about at my funeral.  I wanted to help people. Or at least, help someone else help people (I’ve never been extremely confident in my own ability to do anything).  Can a linguist do that? How?

Reaching the world with an IPA chart

I can’t really explain how I came across these two “career” options.  I sort of knew about speech pathology already. Well, at least I knew about speech therapy. Since being a linguistics major, I had heard the term “speech pathology” tossed around and I Googled it a few times. I knew it was an option and a way to help people, but I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea (I’ve always avoided working in medicine or healthcare). But Bible translation was relatively new to me. I suppose I had heard of it, or else I never would have known to research it. Sometime toward the end of my sophomore year, lots of my friends were talking about summer internships. I’ve always been kind of a bandwagon girl, especially when it comes to opportunities. I thought maybe I should start looking for internships, too. The problem was that the only thing I was trained in was linguistics. Do linguistics internships exist? I Googled it. (Google is one of my closest friends. I really have it to thank for a good bit of this process.) I found a few, but nothing terribly eye-catching. So I went out on a limb and typed in “Bible translation internships”. One of the first few links was to Wycliffe. I clicked on it and began browsing their site. They had a summer internship in Orlando that looked appealing, but I had missed the deadline to apply. I knew I was a little late in the game, so I wasn’t upset. Plus, my brother would be getting married that summer so it’s not like I had my heart set on doing one that year. But I did find a week-long summer program called TOTAL It Up! (TOTAL = Taste Of Translation And Linguistics) that looked incredible.  The cost was only a couple hundred dollars and it involved spending a week at Wycliffe USA’s headquarters, taking classes on things like literacy, translation, phonetics, phonology, tech support, and doing some language learning. I cried. I literally broke down in tears. Tears of joy, I think. I don’t know, exactly. It just seemed so perfect. It was like someone wrote the description of TIU specifically for me. I thought of it as a sign from God that I should do Bible translation. Or at least, look into it. Ever since then, Bible translation has been in my life… lingering in my mind, in the hazy vision of my potential future. I think of it as the intersection of my passion for linguistics and my desire to spend my life serving God by serving people.

But there is another such intersection. Speech pathology. At the end of my 5th semester and only 2 classes to go for my linguistics major, I knew I needed options. I decided to investigate the speech and hearing science minor at UNC. It’s in the school of medicine, so I have to apply to it. But I’m going to apply. Maybe I want to do speech pathology, maybe I don’t. But I’m going to take classes on it to find out. Plus, it works out in my schedule because I’m completely finished with my linguistics major as of 5 days from now. So this is where I am. Linguistics and service. Two glowing cords in my life that intersect in two different places: Bible translation and speech pathology.

Oh by the way, an IPA chart is a universal reference source of all of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols and descriptions. It is central to linguistics. It’s like a map to a geography major.

Can’t I translate the Bible AND be a speech pathologist?

I suppose I could, but not simultaneously. Partly because Bible translation would probably take up all of my time and partly because the places that need Bibles most likely should spend their money paying for basic needs like food or protection from HIV. So which one should I pursue? Pros and Cons list time!

Bible translation. Few things are more eternally-focused than this task. We’re talking about translating the entire Biblical text into a new language so that a certain people group can read it and teach it and people can come to Jesus. That’s amazing right there. It’s hard to pass up that kind of service opportunity. Unless it takes you 15 years to do. Yes, on average, a translation takes a total of 15 years. That’s a long time to live in a country that is not my home. Deep down, I want to get married and have kids and go to a church where I am actively involved and give as much as I can to God and people. I don’t really want to be away from my parents and brothers for years at a time and learn a new language and home-school my kids in Africa. Maybe some people do. I don’t. I also don’t want to live on the charity of others. Missionaries have to raise support. A lot of support. I’ve never been self-sufficient financially and I don’t want to always feel like a child. But relying on God for everything sounds like the most humble and beautiful lifestyle I can imagine.

Speech pathology. It’s safe. It’s secure. I can stay in the U.S. and get married and have an income. I know I could find a job and I would be able to support myself. I would be helping people be able to talk and/or hear and/or swallow. Things like that are pretty life-changing, too. But remember when I said I’ve always avoided healthcare? Yeah. I think lots of things are gross. Lots of bodily things. I don’t think I could deal with people who have facial deformities or abnormalities or illnesses. That almost completely rules it out right there. But I believe that God can change people. I have faith that if I were to pursue this with my whole heart, God would soften my heart for people and toughen my gag reflex and sensitivity toward sickness. The other downside is that I would have to get at least a masters degree in speech pathology. That means more schooling. I’m getting very fed up with school and homework and tests. I don’t know if I can do it for many more years. But it would be something to fall back on if whatever else I choose falls through.

That’s where I am. That’s why I’m starting this blog. No matter which path I choose, whether one of these or something completely different, it’s going to be a journey. I’m going to walk with God and I invite you to walk with us, too.