Can you make a living loving languages?
22 December 2005
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Let's say you really enjoy languages. At some time in your life -- in school, the military, the Peace Corps or while traveling abroad -- you found that learning how a language works -- and using it -- was really fun.
And just as you're thinking you might want to study the language in depth, or maybe learn another one, someone looks at you with pity and says: "Foreign languages? Hah!! How're you going to make a living with that?" He may even ask whether you’re planning to take a vow of poverty.
Well, let me respond to that, because there are lots of ways that people who know languages can use that ability to make a living -- and a fairly good one, too.
What most people don't focus on is that there are two ways of looking at the role of language and careers. On the one hand are professions centered around and dependent on language skill. Let's call them "Careers in Language." Obviously one of the first things that comes to mind is teaching, and there are certainly a lot of jobs for language teachers in schools and colleges. Some states are importing teachers from other countries because we don't have enough of them in the U.S. If you like languages and cultures, for goodness sake think about teaching them. I can tell you from personal experience that it's a very rewarding career.
And then, of course, there are the jobs of translator or interpreter. Both require very strong language skills, and special training. If you like variety, both offer a broad range of things to work on, from scientific articles or legal contracts to translating an ad for peanut butter into another language -- so that it's culturally correct.
Interpreters can help a monolingual patient talk about symptoms to a doctor who doesn't speak his language, travel with executives on business abroad -- or maybe serve on the "language line," a telephone system that puts an interpreter on the phone whenever one is needed. Really good translators and interpreters aren't easy to find. So there are a great number of jobs in government agencies and international firms.
None of those jobs can be done without language skill, which is why I called them "Careers in Language." But let's be clear, most people -- even those who speak and read other languages -- don't have those kinds of careers. The other side of the coin is what we might call "Language in Careers" -- and here the list is endless: business people, social workers, police, actors, marketers, journalists... a wide variety of professions in which language is not at the core. But knowing a language makes you better at it.
It's a tool... that gives you leverage. The business person with a second language has an advantage in the global economy, so it's common for new hires with language skills to come in at higher pay (so much for the "vow of poverty"); scientists can read the work of foreign researchers who may not write in English; librarians can work with books from other countries; environmentalists can fight more effectively to preserve the rain forest.
And think about government. Diplomats in the Foreign Service have to have strong proficiency in at least one language to be tenured, and -- very recently -- the military made the same requirement for its officers. The CIA and National Security Agency have hundreds of positions that require language skill. And how about the FBI, Census Bureau, or Customs Service? There are more than 80 federal agencies that want you for your language skills in more than 100 languages. Not because these jobs are centered on language, like the teacher or translator. But because language skills give you more options, make you more effective at whatever you do.
So, if you start a language, and you find you love it, follow your heart. Give it the time it takes to learn it well. One way or another ... it'll pay off.
That's the language thought for today, which comes from Frederick Jackson of the federal Interagency Language Roundtable. And this is the five-minute linguist at the College of Charleston, in cooperation with the National Museum of Language. Visit us at www.cofc.edu/linguist. And keep in mind that wherever you are, and whatever you do... language makes a difference.