Introflective, Reflective Musings; Input Sought

[dcseain]

I read ozarque's journal regularly. For those of you not familiar, it's the journal of Suzette Haden Elgin. Today, she posted this, and i followed the link in the post and read what was there.

What said link leads to is a single-page PDF entitled Phonosemantic Coherence in English Assonances. It's worth looking at it, even though i think most of you will find it boringish, if interesting, for looking at it will give you some context for what follows.

I've done analyses like that one many times, usually after working with Middle English or earlier texts. I've been thinking more and more that i ought to go back to school for linguistics. Studying linguistics would please me, and i could likely make a handy career of some stripe with it.

I left university 14 years ago, uncertain what i wanted to do with my life. Well, quelle surprise, i'm not really any closer to knowing that than i was at 21. I left primarily because my university killed my, and several other, degree programs. At any rate, that's water well under the bridge.

I've worked mostly in the computer field for the last 15 years. I've got a decent job which is challenging, has a great work environment, and a nice commute. I work for a small enough company that eventually i'll be able to find, or propose, a job that will fit me like a glove within the organization.

At the same time, i'd always imagined i'd be teaching language and/or history by the time i was 40 or so. A deep-seated desire to teach has been one constant in my life since i was about 6. Seeing that paper leaves me conflicted about what to do, and unsure about what to do if i do decide to pursue the linguistics thing.

So what advice do you have for me? I'll gladly answer whatever questions you may have about this also, as i'm sure i'm leaving out information you may want. Thanks in advance for your input.

(And for what it's worth, LJ's spell checker knows not the words Phonosemantic nor Assonances, though i suppose those are jargon enough that it needn't know them. But neither does it know the plural form of analysis. Hmph.)

Comments

[mobmama.livejournal.com]

my experience of teaching is that individual or small group tutoring is vastly different from teaching at either the high school or college levels. ditto for teaching self-motivated adults, which presumably is a reasonable definition of "aspiring citizen". :-)

i would encourage you to teach a class that is for middleschool or high school aged kids, or even college kids, and see what it's like for you. possibly teach a sunday school class at your church for a year?? that would be much closer to what "teaching career" is really like.

however, let me say, too, that i think you would make a wonderful teacher. and why couldn't you teach linguistics, hmmm??? combine your passions into what works for you!

personally, i used to love teaching, but now you couldn't get me into a classroom with the proverbial ten-foot-pole -- with the exception of teaching self-motivated adults.

hugs and good luck with this!

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

I have taught Sunday School, 4yr-olds. I've volunteered with ESL in an Elementary school, 6-12yr-olds. I work with teenagers regularly. I've done classroom instruction at the preschool, elementary, HS, and adult levels. The citizenship stuff was with people ranging from about 14 to about 65.

[mobmama.livejournal.com]

aha. additional information that i didn't have earlier.
thanks.

what about combining the two interests? linguistics and academia? or linguistics and TEACHING, specifically? i bet you would ROCK at that!