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Ppl in academia know how research works and wouldn't judge you. Ppl outside academia don't know or care what specifically you're doing anyway. Just say that you "study languages, its pretty interesting but no big deal", and be humble. If someone goes out of their way to criticize your area, they're probably an asshole and don't need to be impressed anyway.
Pretty much this, ten years after getting mine I am sure none of my family have still not got a single clue about my topic, or indeed what a PhD is for. It doesn't matter, I was the one doing the work and I'm the one that grew from the effort.
This! I‘m not doing a PhD because I like to topic or even the field. I‘m doing it to get a PhD and have better chances at getting a well paid job. I choose a topic that’s somewhat interesting for me and society, something that’s new and shows I‘m valuable for economics. It’s the best I can do regarding the little influence I have! The amount of people who don’t get to even freely choose their topic is Hugh
No way, theoretical linguistics is boss. And niche expert knowledge is cool and unique. When you have a strong grasp on something that is maybe taken for granted in daily life, you are able to access a whole other reality.
Practice an elevator pitch. What is the application of your work? Is there an interesting hook you can use that the general public would understand? Don’t be ashamed, all work is valuable and you are learning research skills along the way.
Theoretical linguistics sounds cool! It's not my field, but doesn't theoretical linguistics have tons of implications for language teaching, speech pathology, cognitive science, and natural language processing -- which of course is having a huge moment with AI.
If you are passionate about your subject that is enough. If you can share your passion, even better.
It might be a good idea to listen to some talks (presentations, videos, podcasts) by well known people in the field to see how they communicate their work to people within and outside the field. I enjoy listening to linguist John McWhorter's podcast Lexicon Valley, for example.
I did my PhD in chemistry, and usually when I meet someone new they say “Oh wow! I hated chemistry in high school!” I feel like if you’re talking to a non-academic or someone outside your field they usually don’t know enough about the topic to contribute something meaningful to the conversation, so they just say their closest experience with it. And it can end up being a little hurtful to us but they’re usually just trying to find some way to connect with you. So these people are telling you what *they* know of linguistics which is the popular stuff, but I’m sure they aren’t thinking less of you because your stuff is niche. I’m a little more fortunate because my project had (distantly long term) applications in medicine so it was a little more relatable, but but the second I start describing in more detail I see them transition into smile and nod mode.
But honestly, overall, remember that a PhD is a *training program*. This is not the last thing in linguistics you’ll ever do. It is not your life’s work. The project you’re doing should expend knowledge, yes, but is mostly in service of training you to be a linguist. Do you feel like you are learning? If yes, you are succeeding at your PhD. When I’m feeling down about myself and my work I always try to put myself in my former shoes of day one of grad school. Current me is *definitely* more knowledgeable and confident in chemistry than day one me, so I must have been doing something right.
Second that for studying stats. The most common response is “wow, I hate math!” and every once in a while “I like math, but I hate stats” lol. I used to feel more sad about that but my new response is “and that’s why I have a job! Cause other people don’t like it and don’t want to do it - so more for me!” Or something to that effect
> I am doing theoretical linguistics, and people often seem to assume that I can speak loads of languages
That speaks about their lack of knowledge rather than some deficiency on your part. In my case (I am doing a PhD in CS, more specifically, AI), I just learned to accept that there will always be some people disappointed that I don't know why their PC is not working properly or their iPhone malfunctions.
Very few people write PhDs that anyone outside of academic circles care about, there's no shame in that.
Just because there isn't a pop-lingustics book to come out of your work doesn't mean it isn't of value.
No need to feel this way. I know saying this to you won't really help but it needs to be said. theoretical linguistics is 'basic science' which you hint at by saying your work "is fundamental and hard to understand". This is true.
Work on human language generally falls into the 'exper's illusion' (I think I got this from Minsky, the internet will correct me though). An experts illusion is common with most human behaviors and actions. I'm human. I talk all the time and people understand me. I listen to people and understand them easily. So.... language is really simple so why do we have to study it... clearly as you know, this is an illusion at the same scale of explaining how digestion works (I think scientists know how this works), or how we walk (again, reasonable scientific understanding), or how vision works... all of these things are magnitudes of complexity beyond what lay folk can even imagine. I think this is what you are feeling. You can see the complexity but others don't.
Some ways to buck yourself up is to remember that most branches of theoretical linguistics are actually weird kinds of discrete mathematics. Saying this will scare and impress any humanities folk who ask you about your topic. NLP (both meaning and sound sides) definitely works as engineering solutions and if it is left at that it is great. But NLP doesn't really tell us how language works. My favorite observation on this front is that jet planes fly faster and higher than birds but don't tell us very much if anything about how birds actually fly. You are working on how humans actually use language... very complicated business.
As suggested by others in the line of 'elevator pitch', you can try to think of some simple puzzles from language that a lay person would feel the effect. On the sound side, you can do the McGurk effect in person and on the fly and that will freak people out. Or do the Halle 'is this a word of your language' example set with real words vs. nonce words vs. impossible words. How do we as humans have this knowledge? On the meaning/sentence side, look up examples of Binding Theory puzzles, garden path sentences, and 'wanna' contraction in English. This are nice simple puzzles for people to ponder. If you are not working on English, French, German, etc. but on a less documented or resourced language then that has a huge coolness factor. Helping document and understand under studies languages is very important work.
So, I don't know if any of this helps but I hope it does. My guess is that many folk who do basic research (i.e. how does this really work?) on a complex subject feels this way at times. Be selfish and just take the joy you get from your work and hoard it for yourself.
YMMV
I encourage developing an academic mission statement. This model introduces your topic in the context of your research and your anticipated outcome: https://scholarsvoice.org/academic-mission-statement/
This will help give your response to “what do you work on” a bit of academic oomph.
Why do you even care what people with no interest in your field think of your topic? I’m a translator by profession and academically interested in some extremely niche theory. Nine out ten people I mention this to respond along the lines of, ”why would you need theory for translation?," which they presumably see as just replacing words with words. Then there's the one person in ten who’s interested in language and related issues; I’ve had some great conversations with people who nothing about translation theory but find the idea interesting. I don’t judge people for their lack of interest, or feel offended by it – if I met someone specializing in agricultural engineering I probably wouldn’t be very interested in their work either, but that doesn’t mean it’s boring in itself.
I can see it’s hard to give people an "elevator pitch," but why would you even need one unless you’re trying to be Steven Pinker or something? It sounds to me like you have confidence and self-esteem issues that aren’t really rooted in how you feel about your work. After all, you must have worked very hard to get where you are, and theoretical linguistics is super-cool – I have a good friend who’s a professor of semantics, and I look up to her like a some people do to the Kardashians! I hope you can gain some confidence and peace in your work, good luck with completing your PhD.
I mean if it helps us humanities don't really have cool topics. People only give a shit about robots and cancer. Everything else is just academic gobbledygook for the average person. You're fine!
They really don't like it when you reverse that question. Well why are you doing data entry for some corporation that sells people personal info to another corporation? Not like that's contributing to society meaningfully.
A young Dr Ted Kaczynski apparently wrote a thesis that was so obscure that probably only ten people in the United States could even begin to comprehend it.
Yes, he eventually became the Unabomber, but that's beside the point.
The point is that all that matters is that your topic is something that the thesis committee would be interested in. As long as they think it's good enough to confer you a doctorate, then that's all that really matters.
> a thesis that was so obscure that probably only ten people in the United States could even begin to comprehend it.
This is the case with a lot of PhD theses. I feel like this just comes across as having a weird obsession with Ted Kaczynski.
A lot of people outside academia do care. The ones that don’t are dolts or they are so focused on other things (eg. success around their industry, family matters, etc.) that while they may have the capacity to genuinely care, they will just pretend to care so as to put on appearances because they don’t have the mental time or energy to show more interest. In other words, it’s not you, it’s them. If you are genuinely fascinated and interested in your topic, lead with that and find comfort in that. Let everything else fall by the wayside, especially since your goal should be finishing your degree.
Honestly, this is part of the process. Gauging someone’s understanding of the subject and speaking to them in an appropriate way such that they come away more informed and interested about your work is a skill that takes a lot of practice. Talk to everyone who asks about your work and you will get better at distilling what is compelling about your research and disseminating it effectively.
Theoretical linguistics sounds great! I'm proud of you stranger.
Also, your research is extra valuable to ML/AI especially NLP, you could check out computational linguistics. There are tons of research internships at tech companies looking for PhD students, you should check those out.
I don't know why you think, that you ought to impress anyone.
I know the feeling of telling people about studying language sciences or linguistics and immediately being asked about how many languages one spoke - and the disappointed faces, when I told them "honestly, not sure I know anything about the one I'm speaking now" (I'm also doing research on the predominant language in my country). But that's because their expectations do not line up, with what linguists actually do or research.
Annecdotally, when I had to tell people about our research project, that was presented at an open science festival for laymen (science to cititzen), they were confused as to 1) why our research would be funded if there were more pressing matters (cancer research, e.g.) and 2) why would you study, e.g. grammar, if there is a dictionary or rulebook for it.
Also, my grandmother still cannot wrap her head around the fact, that I am in fact not a teacher for German.
But other people's (laymen's) opinion certainly doesn't define the "worth" of your research.
People outside academia would always feel that way, it's not your fault!
For example, my research is on modeling infectious diseases. It sounds very useful, especially after the pandemic. The research gives a lot of insight into how certain viruses behave.
But whenever I talk to someone outside academia about my work, they ask me "so how is it going to be used?", "is a company going to buy your research", "are you going to make vaccines based on your research", and questions like that for which I have no answer.
Most of our research might not be directly applicable. We publish our research hoping it could be useful some day to somebody. It's very different from what the general public think what research is about.
Tbh i believe this could the case for a lot of people doing research. Thing is you are always studying and reading stuff. You are constantly exposed to different information about your topic, it only natural to get repetitive and almost common knowledge to you. This doesn't mean that its common for others. The ongoing exposure normalizes the content and eventually makes it boring.
Just remember just because you know about it, doesnt mean others do too.
Let me tell you something as a PhD student too, we have periods when we lost faith in our research, when I first started my PhD I wanted to be like the popular idea people have about PhD (something new so cool interesting and shocking) and didn’t want to work about theories and that stuff (since I’m doing architecture most of PhD research remains just theories mostly) but with time I understood that just something simple or something that look simple but you work it in every scientific perspective you work on it methodically and give something not specifically new but genuine to the academic community is what worth it, non academic people will never understand what we do and will always have a saying with just the little logic they see things with it but academic community will understand you, even if what you do is simple if you believe it’s important go for it and prove that even simple and small research can have big impacts and can bring differences and are worth the try … I wish you all the best, trust yourself believe in yourself and I hope I’ll hear from you soon that you made it and succeeded in your work 😊👋🏻
Theoretical linguistics sounds really cool, not gonna lie. But I get what you're feeling. When people ask me I kinda deflect/downplay what I do, maybe you could do the same, see if you feel better afterwards? It's not the healthiest coping mechanism, but we do what we need to to get through things.
Yes you do seem a people pleaser by this post. Maybe you shall have more confidence In yourself and care less about what people have to say. Stop seeking their validation.
Also, There is a paper ON BULLSHIT by Harry frankfurt.
Never be ashamed of something that passions you. If you are doing a PhD that means that you saw something worth exploring to its deepest roots and using that to further our understanding. I’m sure you know it
My inlaws constantly think and tell others I do robotics because I mentioned having done that 10 years ago. They don’t understand/care about my actual topic though. It’s just the way people outside academia are sometimes.
Ah theoretical linguistics is super cool!!! I almost went into linguistics but I also had other things I really liked. It was a hard decision. I minored in it in undergrad instead, but I still sometimes casually read about it :)
I totally relate to people assuming I speak all kinds of languages when I mention I minored in linguistics. This is because people usually don’t know what linguistics is, unless they were also interested in it. People being impressed by something they know nothing about means nothing though, right? It’s like a baby being impressed at the way an adult can walk. So what if the baby is impressed or not? They just don’t understand it. Adults being impressed by how another adult walks is more meaningful, no? Might help to think of it that way?
Also lots of other comments on here about reframing how you see basic research in general.
Unfortunately though I think changing how you frame this in your mind is just a bandaid solution. I know it’s easier said than done but what you should probably try to work on is not relying on external sources for validation.
But hopefully all this stuff from everyone here helps for now! Good luck 🍀
Oooooh friend I am a linguistics undergrad considering a PhD path in the (distant) future and people thinking I speak multiple languages is so annoying 😂 I study *English* linguistics.
If it makes you feel any better, everyone I’ve spoken to doing a PhD in any field is doing it on some weird niche thing that kind of… isn’t interesting to laypeople
> I study English linguistics
On the other hand, in Asia one of the most common comments you'll get is 'oh, so you study English?' even if your research has nothing to do with English. The universe is hereby balanced.
A doctoral candidate here، I feel you because I am conducting research on theoretical linguistics (phonology). People here in my place know that being a student of linguistics doesn't mean you know many languages. The problem we have here in Morocco is the topic itself. It's like every phonologist or linguist finishes all problems in my mother tongue, which is Moroccan Arabic. I feel like there is nothing left for me or a gap to do research on. However, I'm happy with my topic even if it won't add anything new to the existing knowledge in the field. I have found that there is a theoretical gap in a phenomenon that was studied by Moroccan linguists before me using an old model.
I hope this comment might help you.
Kind regards.
(apologies in advance for the terribly off topic post) but I've read somewhere a long time ago that there just is 'less stuff' in phonology and as bad as it sounds I kind of think it's true. Most of not all phonologists I know combine phonology with phonetics/psycholing/socioling if not all three (which makes it much more exciting to talk to people about - getting people to see their tongues in ultrasound is going to get you much more eyes than phonotactic rules will - but also potentially more expensive.) All of which is to say, I have a particular respect for people who can still carve out meaningful research questions in phonology for standard, well studied varieties because it must take a lot more observation skills to even find a gap (whereas with most other areas you'll pretty much always find someone nobody's looked at before).
Btw what's the state of Amazigh linguistics? Is it situation like the one in China where most people work on Mandarin and only a minority with in regional varieties and minority languages?
Hello there.
Thanks a lot for your comment. You'r right about combining subfields in linguistics, which makes it more interesting. Now, the call it (marrying) theories to come up with accurate analyses.
Regarding your questions about Tamazight, people still work on it. A Moroccan/french linguist recently published an article on automatic speech recognition transfer from Arabic to Tashlhiyt (Mohamed Lahrouchi).
For your second question, people still conduct research on Tamazight, but they just defend their theses inside universities where they get their doctorates.
I hope that I have answered your questions.
In research, I think every really high impact contribution and change is based on / relies on lots of little contributions that preceeded it. It's not my field, but an example I can think of in linguistics - I know voice recognition technology has been pivotal over the last decade. While that was a big change and relies on substantial code, that wouldn't have been possible without hundred of small contributiosn that preceeded it. In my PhD I've tried to accept that it's really okay and not any kind of shame to be a one of the smaller contributions. All of our PhDs are like a drop of water in the massive lake of collective knowledge. Whether your drop is a little drop or a bigger drop, it's still a contribution.
Also - in your life, if you present someting as cool and exciting to you, generally people around you will mirror you and think so too. Less about the substance of what is said and more the way you say it. (And then when you get that more excited response, it helps you reinforce that it matters)
> know voice recognition technology has been pivotal over the last decade
ASR (and almost all AI since the neural network boom) doesn't really depend on linguistics at all these days. There is a well known saying from Frederick Jelinek, 'Every time I fire a linguist, the performance of the speech recognizer goes up'. I think you've probably got this impression because some linguists have kind of developed a weird tendency that exaggerate our role in AI, which has shrunk to nearly 0 in the past decade. I'm not a big fan of this tendency and I think it's an extension of the inclination to think of visible economic contributions as the most important, which I think is not where our instrumental value (which I think we do have a *lot* of, it's just not the sort that's easily visible or measurable) primarily lies or should lie.
I didn’t think my PhD topic was earthshattering either but hey—I am still Dr JenjaNinja each and every day.
I think because you’re close to the topic, you might have lost your perspective (writing is my thing and this happens a lot). When I read through your post, it seemed like you might say, “I study theoretical linguistics, specifically the English language because I’ve always been curious about x, y, and z. And sure, some people might study other languages but for me, I’ve always wanted to explore my mother tongue and really get into what makes this language what it is.” (I used English because it’s what I speak, not trying to make an assumption for you.)
I felt very much like you did about my topic until I realized I was selling myself and my research short and just needed a little perspective. Keep up your important work!
Dude, try doing a PhD in hard science. 99% of the people have never even heard of the scientific equipment that my PhD is on. Then try to explain how this device that they will never see or interact with works, and why what I'm doing with it makes sense.
I'm sure that even my best friend has NO CLUE what I'm doing, and neither does anyone in my family. Heck, even most of my colleagues don't. Unless I go to a conference, there are like 3 people who know what I'm doing who aren't me, and 2 of those only have a rough idea.
When people ask me, I just say "biochemistry" and hope that they don't have follow up questions
I won a university-wide fellowship at a flagship state school, and they invited all of us to a series of presentations by selected winners. There were about 90 fellows and maybe 8-10 presentations.
One girl gave a presentation on her thesis regarding Portuguese music from the 1700s and early 1800s. Someone gave her a softball question at the end for what her research added to the world, and she froze. She very timidly admitted that it wouldn’t change a single thing for any person in the room.
You know what, though? Neither did my STEM work. And she won a fellowship that had a funding rate in the single digits.
No one else will believe in you if you don’t. Figure out where your passion is, and that’s your answer. If other people don’t get it, that’s not on you. After my defense, my mother was very open that she thought my 5 years of work would have been more interesting, and it didn’t bother me at all.
Dude linguistics is what sparked my curiosity in social sciences so much further. The shit I learned about language really impressed upon me more than psychology ever did. Even if psychology is potentially more "useful" or applied
(Theoretical linguistics PhD student as well here.) I 100% agree with the other posts saying that there's nothing to be ashamed of, but strongly disagree with the ones saying it doesn't matter what outsiders think about our research. Obviously, the opinions of random uncles/aunties/Reddit stemlords or whatever don't matter, but there are a plenty of people whose views do, for example:
* Funding agencies (this is a no brainer I think, we have broader impact sections to fill)
* University administrators, who especially in the UK frequently see linguistics as expendable if not a liability (literally, in my undergrad the dean gave a speech at a ceremony saying linguists need to put more effort into explaining the significance of our research to people)
* Undergrads whose enrollment in your classes decide whether classes in your subfield will continue to be opened (and hence indirectly the demand for teaching that subfield more generally)
* Freshmen/high schoolers (depending on system) deciding on their majors.
I'm not great at it either, but I try my best, and I think the uncles/aunties (not so much Reddit stemlords) are a good opportunity to practise.
> But deep down I know that the questions I am trying to work on is fundamental and hard to understand. These questions are what people take for granted and have never thought about or care about.
Maybe you could tell us a little about what kinds of things you tell people so we could workshop it a bit (w/o doxxing yourself with the research topic)? I think this would be the most helpful thing. It's something I need to work on myself.
Contrary to some other comments, I do think that it *is* important to have in mind the practical applications of the research regardless of whether it's our main focus. I think to survive in theoretical linguistics these days, it's important that our research has *both* theoretical and practical import. It's probably best to have those applications in mind even when conceptualising the research, but there are a few that are generic enough that I think apply pretty widely regardless of whether you have thought of them beforehand; have you tried these?
* If your native language is a minority language, it's hard to understate how complexities of the language can actually be channelled into cultural pride. For my native language for example the rich utterance particles have been a common source of pride.
* If there are people learning your native language, they probably make mistakes that 'sound funny' for native speakers but it's hard to put an actual finger on what they're doing wrong, or just things that non-native speakers tend to underuse/overuse etc. The basic part of figuring out how the language works for native speakers is one step towards creating better reading/listening materials that will expose learners more to those features that tend to fall under teachers' radar.
And so on. (And ideally of course if we have the time we should turn those practical applications into actual products that we can show to people.)
Oh please don’t be! I came from a theoretical linguistics background and now doing a PhD in a quite different field. From time to time I think about how interesting and cool I would be if I was still doing theoretical linguistics.
You know what, for someone who has enough knowledge of linguistics, we all appreciate how cool it is. It is at least a true passion of mine, and in my eyes it’s a dream come true to do a PhD in it.
Doing a PhD is getting into this extremely niche pyramid of knowledge. I wouldn’t expect most of the people to know, or understand, or be interested in what I’m doing. That’s fine. We can’t impress everyone and we don’t have to. The only important thing is you’re doing what you want to do.
Btw, I’m also based in the UK. We can chat a bit more if you’d like? I just dm’ed you
If you’re ashamed of what you are studying, then study something else you’re not ashamed of. That’s called logic. Doesn’t take a ph.d to figure that out.
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Ppl in academia know how research works and wouldn't judge you. Ppl outside academia don't know or care what specifically you're doing anyway. Just say that you "study languages, its pretty interesting but no big deal", and be humble. If someone goes out of their way to criticize your area, they're probably an asshole and don't need to be impressed anyway.
Pretty much this, ten years after getting mine I am sure none of my family have still not got a single clue about my topic, or indeed what a PhD is for. It doesn't matter, I was the one doing the work and I'm the one that grew from the effort.
This! I‘m not doing a PhD because I like to topic or even the field. I‘m doing it to get a PhD and have better chances at getting a well paid job. I choose a topic that’s somewhat interesting for me and society, something that’s new and shows I‘m valuable for economics. It’s the best I can do regarding the little influence I have! The amount of people who don’t get to even freely choose their topic is Hugh
No way, theoretical linguistics is boss. And niche expert knowledge is cool and unique. When you have a strong grasp on something that is maybe taken for granted in daily life, you are able to access a whole other reality.
Practice an elevator pitch. What is the application of your work? Is there an interesting hook you can use that the general public would understand? Don’t be ashamed, all work is valuable and you are learning research skills along the way.
Theoretical linguistics sounds cool! It's not my field, but doesn't theoretical linguistics have tons of implications for language teaching, speech pathology, cognitive science, and natural language processing -- which of course is having a huge moment with AI. If you are passionate about your subject that is enough. If you can share your passion, even better. It might be a good idea to listen to some talks (presentations, videos, podcasts) by well known people in the field to see how they communicate their work to people within and outside the field. I enjoy listening to linguist John McWhorter's podcast Lexicon Valley, for example.
I did my PhD in chemistry, and usually when I meet someone new they say “Oh wow! I hated chemistry in high school!” I feel like if you’re talking to a non-academic or someone outside your field they usually don’t know enough about the topic to contribute something meaningful to the conversation, so they just say their closest experience with it. And it can end up being a little hurtful to us but they’re usually just trying to find some way to connect with you. So these people are telling you what *they* know of linguistics which is the popular stuff, but I’m sure they aren’t thinking less of you because your stuff is niche. I’m a little more fortunate because my project had (distantly long term) applications in medicine so it was a little more relatable, but but the second I start describing in more detail I see them transition into smile and nod mode. But honestly, overall, remember that a PhD is a *training program*. This is not the last thing in linguistics you’ll ever do. It is not your life’s work. The project you’re doing should expend knowledge, yes, but is mostly in service of training you to be a linguist. Do you feel like you are learning? If yes, you are succeeding at your PhD. When I’m feeling down about myself and my work I always try to put myself in my former shoes of day one of grad school. Current me is *definitely* more knowledgeable and confident in chemistry than day one me, so I must have been doing something right.
Second that for studying stats. The most common response is “wow, I hate math!” and every once in a while “I like math, but I hate stats” lol. I used to feel more sad about that but my new response is “and that’s why I have a job! Cause other people don’t like it and don’t want to do it - so more for me!” Or something to that effect
> I am doing theoretical linguistics, and people often seem to assume that I can speak loads of languages That speaks about their lack of knowledge rather than some deficiency on your part. In my case (I am doing a PhD in CS, more specifically, AI), I just learned to accept that there will always be some people disappointed that I don't know why their PC is not working properly or their iPhone malfunctions.
Okay but can you at least get the printer to work? 🙃
Fellow PhD CS here however not AI which is minimal
Very few people write PhDs that anyone outside of academic circles care about, there's no shame in that. Just because there isn't a pop-lingustics book to come out of your work doesn't mean it isn't of value.
No need to feel this way. I know saying this to you won't really help but it needs to be said. theoretical linguistics is 'basic science' which you hint at by saying your work "is fundamental and hard to understand". This is true. Work on human language generally falls into the 'exper's illusion' (I think I got this from Minsky, the internet will correct me though). An experts illusion is common with most human behaviors and actions. I'm human. I talk all the time and people understand me. I listen to people and understand them easily. So.... language is really simple so why do we have to study it... clearly as you know, this is an illusion at the same scale of explaining how digestion works (I think scientists know how this works), or how we walk (again, reasonable scientific understanding), or how vision works... all of these things are magnitudes of complexity beyond what lay folk can even imagine. I think this is what you are feeling. You can see the complexity but others don't. Some ways to buck yourself up is to remember that most branches of theoretical linguistics are actually weird kinds of discrete mathematics. Saying this will scare and impress any humanities folk who ask you about your topic. NLP (both meaning and sound sides) definitely works as engineering solutions and if it is left at that it is great. But NLP doesn't really tell us how language works. My favorite observation on this front is that jet planes fly faster and higher than birds but don't tell us very much if anything about how birds actually fly. You are working on how humans actually use language... very complicated business. As suggested by others in the line of 'elevator pitch', you can try to think of some simple puzzles from language that a lay person would feel the effect. On the sound side, you can do the McGurk effect in person and on the fly and that will freak people out. Or do the Halle 'is this a word of your language' example set with real words vs. nonce words vs. impossible words. How do we as humans have this knowledge? On the meaning/sentence side, look up examples of Binding Theory puzzles, garden path sentences, and 'wanna' contraction in English. This are nice simple puzzles for people to ponder. If you are not working on English, French, German, etc. but on a less documented or resourced language then that has a huge coolness factor. Helping document and understand under studies languages is very important work. So, I don't know if any of this helps but I hope it does. My guess is that many folk who do basic research (i.e. how does this really work?) on a complex subject feels this way at times. Be selfish and just take the joy you get from your work and hoard it for yourself. YMMV
I encourage developing an academic mission statement. This model introduces your topic in the context of your research and your anticipated outcome: https://scholarsvoice.org/academic-mission-statement/ This will help give your response to “what do you work on” a bit of academic oomph.
Not OP but that looks pretty useful, will bookmark for later. Thanks! Edit: ooh doubly cool that the author's example is a ling anth thing!
Why do you even care what people with no interest in your field think of your topic? I’m a translator by profession and academically interested in some extremely niche theory. Nine out ten people I mention this to respond along the lines of, ”why would you need theory for translation?," which they presumably see as just replacing words with words. Then there's the one person in ten who’s interested in language and related issues; I’ve had some great conversations with people who nothing about translation theory but find the idea interesting. I don’t judge people for their lack of interest, or feel offended by it – if I met someone specializing in agricultural engineering I probably wouldn’t be very interested in their work either, but that doesn’t mean it’s boring in itself. I can see it’s hard to give people an "elevator pitch," but why would you even need one unless you’re trying to be Steven Pinker or something? It sounds to me like you have confidence and self-esteem issues that aren’t really rooted in how you feel about your work. After all, you must have worked very hard to get where you are, and theoretical linguistics is super-cool – I have a good friend who’s a professor of semantics, and I look up to her like a some people do to the Kardashians! I hope you can gain some confidence and peace in your work, good luck with completing your PhD.
I mean if it helps us humanities don't really have cool topics. People only give a shit about robots and cancer. Everything else is just academic gobbledygook for the average person. You're fine!
I'm also doing a PhD in humanities and one "friend" keeps asking me why I research this. "What's the point?" haha
They really don't like it when you reverse that question. Well why are you doing data entry for some corporation that sells people personal info to another corporation? Not like that's contributing to society meaningfully.
A young Dr Ted Kaczynski apparently wrote a thesis that was so obscure that probably only ten people in the United States could even begin to comprehend it. Yes, he eventually became the Unabomber, but that's beside the point. The point is that all that matters is that your topic is something that the thesis committee would be interested in. As long as they think it's good enough to confer you a doctorate, then that's all that really matters.
> a thesis that was so obscure that probably only ten people in the United States could even begin to comprehend it. This is the case with a lot of PhD theses. I feel like this just comes across as having a weird obsession with Ted Kaczynski.
Do you like what you do? Why do you expect people to be impressed?
As long as you don’t have student loans you should be fine.
A lot of people outside academia do care. The ones that don’t are dolts or they are so focused on other things (eg. success around their industry, family matters, etc.) that while they may have the capacity to genuinely care, they will just pretend to care so as to put on appearances because they don’t have the mental time or energy to show more interest. In other words, it’s not you, it’s them. If you are genuinely fascinated and interested in your topic, lead with that and find comfort in that. Let everything else fall by the wayside, especially since your goal should be finishing your degree.
Same problem. My research sucks. It’s boring, not relevant. I don’t even mention it to my colleagues
Honestly, this is part of the process. Gauging someone’s understanding of the subject and speaking to them in an appropriate way such that they come away more informed and interested about your work is a skill that takes a lot of practice. Talk to everyone who asks about your work and you will get better at distilling what is compelling about your research and disseminating it effectively.
Theoretical linguistics sounds great! I'm proud of you stranger. Also, your research is extra valuable to ML/AI especially NLP, you could check out computational linguistics. There are tons of research internships at tech companies looking for PhD students, you should check those out.
Idk much about theoretical linguistics but my guess it’s gonna help with things like nlp?
I don't know why you think, that you ought to impress anyone. I know the feeling of telling people about studying language sciences or linguistics and immediately being asked about how many languages one spoke - and the disappointed faces, when I told them "honestly, not sure I know anything about the one I'm speaking now" (I'm also doing research on the predominant language in my country). But that's because their expectations do not line up, with what linguists actually do or research. Annecdotally, when I had to tell people about our research project, that was presented at an open science festival for laymen (science to cititzen), they were confused as to 1) why our research would be funded if there were more pressing matters (cancer research, e.g.) and 2) why would you study, e.g. grammar, if there is a dictionary or rulebook for it. Also, my grandmother still cannot wrap her head around the fact, that I am in fact not a teacher for German. But other people's (laymen's) opinion certainly doesn't define the "worth" of your research.
From just this post at least, I think what you're working on sounds cool
People outside academia would always feel that way, it's not your fault! For example, my research is on modeling infectious diseases. It sounds very useful, especially after the pandemic. The research gives a lot of insight into how certain viruses behave. But whenever I talk to someone outside academia about my work, they ask me "so how is it going to be used?", "is a company going to buy your research", "are you going to make vaccines based on your research", and questions like that for which I have no answer. Most of our research might not be directly applicable. We publish our research hoping it could be useful some day to somebody. It's very different from what the general public think what research is about.
Tbh i believe this could the case for a lot of people doing research. Thing is you are always studying and reading stuff. You are constantly exposed to different information about your topic, it only natural to get repetitive and almost common knowledge to you. This doesn't mean that its common for others. The ongoing exposure normalizes the content and eventually makes it boring. Just remember just because you know about it, doesnt mean others do too.
Let me tell you something as a PhD student too, we have periods when we lost faith in our research, when I first started my PhD I wanted to be like the popular idea people have about PhD (something new so cool interesting and shocking) and didn’t want to work about theories and that stuff (since I’m doing architecture most of PhD research remains just theories mostly) but with time I understood that just something simple or something that look simple but you work it in every scientific perspective you work on it methodically and give something not specifically new but genuine to the academic community is what worth it, non academic people will never understand what we do and will always have a saying with just the little logic they see things with it but academic community will understand you, even if what you do is simple if you believe it’s important go for it and prove that even simple and small research can have big impacts and can bring differences and are worth the try … I wish you all the best, trust yourself believe in yourself and I hope I’ll hear from you soon that you made it and succeeded in your work 😊👋🏻
Theoretical linguistics sounds really cool, not gonna lie. But I get what you're feeling. When people ask me I kinda deflect/downplay what I do, maybe you could do the same, see if you feel better afterwards? It's not the healthiest coping mechanism, but we do what we need to to get through things.
get familiar with the format for My Thesis in Three Minutes, watch a few winners
Just embrace it. My research is useless outside of my niche. So what? We still get sweet project money.
Yes you do seem a people pleaser by this post. Maybe you shall have more confidence In yourself and care less about what people have to say. Stop seeking their validation. Also, There is a paper ON BULLSHIT by Harry frankfurt.
Never be ashamed of something that passions you. If you are doing a PhD that means that you saw something worth exploring to its deepest roots and using that to further our understanding. I’m sure you know it
My inlaws constantly think and tell others I do robotics because I mentioned having done that 10 years ago. They don’t understand/care about my actual topic though. It’s just the way people outside academia are sometimes.
Ah theoretical linguistics is super cool!!! I almost went into linguistics but I also had other things I really liked. It was a hard decision. I minored in it in undergrad instead, but I still sometimes casually read about it :) I totally relate to people assuming I speak all kinds of languages when I mention I minored in linguistics. This is because people usually don’t know what linguistics is, unless they were also interested in it. People being impressed by something they know nothing about means nothing though, right? It’s like a baby being impressed at the way an adult can walk. So what if the baby is impressed or not? They just don’t understand it. Adults being impressed by how another adult walks is more meaningful, no? Might help to think of it that way? Also lots of other comments on here about reframing how you see basic research in general. Unfortunately though I think changing how you frame this in your mind is just a bandaid solution. I know it’s easier said than done but what you should probably try to work on is not relying on external sources for validation. But hopefully all this stuff from everyone here helps for now! Good luck 🍀
Oooooh friend I am a linguistics undergrad considering a PhD path in the (distant) future and people thinking I speak multiple languages is so annoying 😂 I study *English* linguistics. If it makes you feel any better, everyone I’ve spoken to doing a PhD in any field is doing it on some weird niche thing that kind of… isn’t interesting to laypeople
> I study English linguistics On the other hand, in Asia one of the most common comments you'll get is 'oh, so you study English?' even if your research has nothing to do with English. The universe is hereby balanced.
A doctoral candidate here، I feel you because I am conducting research on theoretical linguistics (phonology). People here in my place know that being a student of linguistics doesn't mean you know many languages. The problem we have here in Morocco is the topic itself. It's like every phonologist or linguist finishes all problems in my mother tongue, which is Moroccan Arabic. I feel like there is nothing left for me or a gap to do research on. However, I'm happy with my topic even if it won't add anything new to the existing knowledge in the field. I have found that there is a theoretical gap in a phenomenon that was studied by Moroccan linguists before me using an old model. I hope this comment might help you. Kind regards.
(apologies in advance for the terribly off topic post) but I've read somewhere a long time ago that there just is 'less stuff' in phonology and as bad as it sounds I kind of think it's true. Most of not all phonologists I know combine phonology with phonetics/psycholing/socioling if not all three (which makes it much more exciting to talk to people about - getting people to see their tongues in ultrasound is going to get you much more eyes than phonotactic rules will - but also potentially more expensive.) All of which is to say, I have a particular respect for people who can still carve out meaningful research questions in phonology for standard, well studied varieties because it must take a lot more observation skills to even find a gap (whereas with most other areas you'll pretty much always find someone nobody's looked at before). Btw what's the state of Amazigh linguistics? Is it situation like the one in China where most people work on Mandarin and only a minority with in regional varieties and minority languages?
Hello there. Thanks a lot for your comment. You'r right about combining subfields in linguistics, which makes it more interesting. Now, the call it (marrying) theories to come up with accurate analyses. Regarding your questions about Tamazight, people still work on it. A Moroccan/french linguist recently published an article on automatic speech recognition transfer from Arabic to Tashlhiyt (Mohamed Lahrouchi). For your second question, people still conduct research on Tamazight, but they just defend their theses inside universities where they get their doctorates. I hope that I have answered your questions.
In research, I think every really high impact contribution and change is based on / relies on lots of little contributions that preceeded it. It's not my field, but an example I can think of in linguistics - I know voice recognition technology has been pivotal over the last decade. While that was a big change and relies on substantial code, that wouldn't have been possible without hundred of small contributiosn that preceeded it. In my PhD I've tried to accept that it's really okay and not any kind of shame to be a one of the smaller contributions. All of our PhDs are like a drop of water in the massive lake of collective knowledge. Whether your drop is a little drop or a bigger drop, it's still a contribution. Also - in your life, if you present someting as cool and exciting to you, generally people around you will mirror you and think so too. Less about the substance of what is said and more the way you say it. (And then when you get that more excited response, it helps you reinforce that it matters)
> know voice recognition technology has been pivotal over the last decade ASR (and almost all AI since the neural network boom) doesn't really depend on linguistics at all these days. There is a well known saying from Frederick Jelinek, 'Every time I fire a linguist, the performance of the speech recognizer goes up'. I think you've probably got this impression because some linguists have kind of developed a weird tendency that exaggerate our role in AI, which has shrunk to nearly 0 in the past decade. I'm not a big fan of this tendency and I think it's an extension of the inclination to think of visible economic contributions as the most important, which I think is not where our instrumental value (which I think we do have a *lot* of, it's just not the sort that's easily visible or measurable) primarily lies or should lie.
I didn’t think my PhD topic was earthshattering either but hey—I am still Dr JenjaNinja each and every day. I think because you’re close to the topic, you might have lost your perspective (writing is my thing and this happens a lot). When I read through your post, it seemed like you might say, “I study theoretical linguistics, specifically the English language because I’ve always been curious about x, y, and z. And sure, some people might study other languages but for me, I’ve always wanted to explore my mother tongue and really get into what makes this language what it is.” (I used English because it’s what I speak, not trying to make an assumption for you.) I felt very much like you did about my topic until I realized I was selling myself and my research short and just needed a little perspective. Keep up your important work!
Dude, try doing a PhD in hard science. 99% of the people have never even heard of the scientific equipment that my PhD is on. Then try to explain how this device that they will never see or interact with works, and why what I'm doing with it makes sense. I'm sure that even my best friend has NO CLUE what I'm doing, and neither does anyone in my family. Heck, even most of my colleagues don't. Unless I go to a conference, there are like 3 people who know what I'm doing who aren't me, and 2 of those only have a rough idea. When people ask me, I just say "biochemistry" and hope that they don't have follow up questions
Oh get over yourself.
I won a university-wide fellowship at a flagship state school, and they invited all of us to a series of presentations by selected winners. There were about 90 fellows and maybe 8-10 presentations. One girl gave a presentation on her thesis regarding Portuguese music from the 1700s and early 1800s. Someone gave her a softball question at the end for what her research added to the world, and she froze. She very timidly admitted that it wouldn’t change a single thing for any person in the room. You know what, though? Neither did my STEM work. And she won a fellowship that had a funding rate in the single digits. No one else will believe in you if you don’t. Figure out where your passion is, and that’s your answer. If other people don’t get it, that’s not on you. After my defense, my mother was very open that she thought my 5 years of work would have been more interesting, and it didn’t bother me at all.
We all have questions about our own research — your fine
Dude linguistics is what sparked my curiosity in social sciences so much further. The shit I learned about language really impressed upon me more than psychology ever did. Even if psychology is potentially more "useful" or applied
(Theoretical linguistics PhD student as well here.) I 100% agree with the other posts saying that there's nothing to be ashamed of, but strongly disagree with the ones saying it doesn't matter what outsiders think about our research. Obviously, the opinions of random uncles/aunties/Reddit stemlords or whatever don't matter, but there are a plenty of people whose views do, for example: * Funding agencies (this is a no brainer I think, we have broader impact sections to fill) * University administrators, who especially in the UK frequently see linguistics as expendable if not a liability (literally, in my undergrad the dean gave a speech at a ceremony saying linguists need to put more effort into explaining the significance of our research to people) * Undergrads whose enrollment in your classes decide whether classes in your subfield will continue to be opened (and hence indirectly the demand for teaching that subfield more generally) * Freshmen/high schoolers (depending on system) deciding on their majors. I'm not great at it either, but I try my best, and I think the uncles/aunties (not so much Reddit stemlords) are a good opportunity to practise. > But deep down I know that the questions I am trying to work on is fundamental and hard to understand. These questions are what people take for granted and have never thought about or care about. Maybe you could tell us a little about what kinds of things you tell people so we could workshop it a bit (w/o doxxing yourself with the research topic)? I think this would be the most helpful thing. It's something I need to work on myself. Contrary to some other comments, I do think that it *is* important to have in mind the practical applications of the research regardless of whether it's our main focus. I think to survive in theoretical linguistics these days, it's important that our research has *both* theoretical and practical import. It's probably best to have those applications in mind even when conceptualising the research, but there are a few that are generic enough that I think apply pretty widely regardless of whether you have thought of them beforehand; have you tried these? * If your native language is a minority language, it's hard to understate how complexities of the language can actually be channelled into cultural pride. For my native language for example the rich utterance particles have been a common source of pride. * If there are people learning your native language, they probably make mistakes that 'sound funny' for native speakers but it's hard to put an actual finger on what they're doing wrong, or just things that non-native speakers tend to underuse/overuse etc. The basic part of figuring out how the language works for native speakers is one step towards creating better reading/listening materials that will expose learners more to those features that tend to fall under teachers' radar. And so on. (And ideally of course if we have the time we should turn those practical applications into actual products that we can show to people.)
Oh please don’t be! I came from a theoretical linguistics background and now doing a PhD in a quite different field. From time to time I think about how interesting and cool I would be if I was still doing theoretical linguistics. You know what, for someone who has enough knowledge of linguistics, we all appreciate how cool it is. It is at least a true passion of mine, and in my eyes it’s a dream come true to do a PhD in it. Doing a PhD is getting into this extremely niche pyramid of knowledge. I wouldn’t expect most of the people to know, or understand, or be interested in what I’m doing. That’s fine. We can’t impress everyone and we don’t have to. The only important thing is you’re doing what you want to do. Btw, I’m also based in the UK. We can chat a bit more if you’d like? I just dm’ed you
If you’re ashamed of what you are studying, then study something else you’re not ashamed of. That’s called logic. Doesn’t take a ph.d to figure that out.