U-Lingua | Summer 2020, Issue 1

Summer 2020 | Issue 1

U-LINGUA The Undergraduate Linguistics Association of Britain‘s Quarterly Magazine

In The Field

The Real World

#ReframeCovid: Metaphors around Coronavirus

The NLP Edition Interviews with Young Professionals

Behind The Bookshelves New Evidence in Biolinguistics: Language Evolved Earlier than We Did

Contents

Contents 5

Meet The Committee

10 In The Field #ReFrameCovid

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Behind The Bookshelves New Evidence in Biolinguistics

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Editor‘s Letter Contributors Social Media

18 The Real World The NLP Edition

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Welcome to U-Lingua I

t’s hard to believe that the ULAB AGM was less than a month ago, so much has happened since then! We at National Chair ULAB HQ have been working incredibly hard over these last few weeks: we’ve been having handovers with the previous committee, holding online meetings, and starting new projects for ULAB at a rate of knots (I leave my phone for five minutes and come back to find that we have decided to publish an academic journal)! U-Lingua is one such project that we are very excited to share with you. We really enjoyed last year’s ULAB Monthly posts and we wanted to turn this idea into a fully-fledged online magazine (published quarterly of course, we’ve all got degrees to be working ver the coming year, I will have the honour of hoson too). Here we will share with you some current linguting ULAB2021 at the University of Aberdeen. As istics research, information on linguistics-related jobs, both within academia, and outside in the ‘Real World’, the newly-elected President of Aberdeen’s Linguistics and introduce ourselves as your brand new ULAB com- Society, I can say with confidence that the University of mittee. Other projects we’ve been working on include Aberdeen prides itself on its committed Linguistics dethe Journal of ULAB I mentioned earlier (or JoULAB, to partment, who have been encouraging us to host ULAB his mates), and we hope to bring you some online social for the past few years as staunch supporters of our Linevents very soon, so look out for more information on guistics Society. Aberdeen is very far up North, but is a those! But for now, please enjoy this brie-utifully desi- beautiful location just moments away from the Scottish Highlands, with brilliant transport links, and a wide argned first edition of U-Lingua. ray of places to stay while you attend the conference.

To appeal to all needs, both academic and recreational, we are also planning to incorporate aspects of Scottish culture into the conference. This will include hosting a ULAB ceilidh and making sure haggis is available at the conference dinner! My first ULAB experience would have been at ULABX, and while I’m sad it couldn’t happen, I’ve heard such great things about it from previous organisers and attendees that I am determined to give the ULAB conference a triumphant comeback! Our Linguistics department is Local Chair already hyped to review abstracts and talk about Scottish dialects!

Cliodhna Hughes

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Beatrix Livesey-Stephens

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Meet The Committee

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Meet The Committee Cliodhna Hughes National Chair

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Amira Ramdani

liodhna is a third-year linguistics student at the University of Edinburgh, interested in all aspects of linguistics, but particularly in phonetics and language acquisition. As well as being ULAB’s National chair, she is also currently the president of Edinburgh University’s linguistics society. She enjoys doing linguistics outreach, attending student conferences, and getting involved in just about anything linguistics-related! Outside of

linguistics, her hobbies include glass fusing, playing underwater hockey and making unbrielievable cheese puns.

As chair, Cliodhna is ultimately responsible for the conduct of both the National Committee and the Local Committee, and represents the face of ULAB for their term. She oversees and directs all of ULAB’s activities, including, but not limited to, the annual conference.

Secretary

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mira is a second-year undergraduate Linguistics and French student at the University of Oxford. She is originally from Germany and studied for an undergraduate degree in Applied Foreign Languages (Chinese and English) at Université Paris-Sorbonne before coming to Oxford.

Her main interests include syntax, historical linguistics, contact linguistics, and semantics. For the rest of her degree at Oxford, she will be focussing on the historical linguistics (and medieval literature) of Romance and Germanic languages, as well as syntactic theory. When not trying to draw

shapely syntax trees, she enjoys learning more about codicology and palaeography. She also likes linocutting.

In her role as secretary, Amira is responsible for all email correspondence in the National Committee, including sending monthly newsletters to members. Her role also includes corresponding with universities, recording minutes of meetings, and keeping track of members’ contact information. In addition to her role as secretary, Amira is also the institutional representative for the University of Oxford.

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Meet The Committee

Meet The Committee Beatrix Livesey-Stephens Cliodhna Hughes Treasurer B

Louis Van Steene Webmaster

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ouis is a third-year linguistics student at Magdalene College, Cambridge, originally from Hertfordshire. After trying to learn a range of languages with highly variable success over the years, from Icelandic to Japanese, his interest in linguistics initially grew as a way to tie them all together.

A Platonist at heart, his current interests primarily lie in formal syntax and phonology and their applications. Further intellectual pursuits span the philosophical and the psychological, but when

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not studying or learning languages, he enjoys literature, music and lists without Oxford commas.

His duties as webmaster include overseeing the upkeep, management, and content input into the ULAB website (www.ulab.org.uk).

This includes keeping a record of presentations, posters, and photographs from the annual conference, but also involves creating a platform to display information on any other activities ULAB pursues.

eatrix (Bea) Livesey-Stephens is a third year undergraduate Language & Linguistics student at the University of Aberdeen, where she is the President of the Linguistics Society. As the Convenor of AUSA Disabled Students Forum, she is particularly interested in the areas of Linguistics surrounding disability, such as the linguistics sign language and Braille. She would also like to work on the ethics of NLP and continue to host UKLO markathons. When not doing Linguistics, she‘s ma-

king new consent workshops for CASE, or knitting.

As treasurer, Beatrix is responsible for managing the finance of the National Committee, which includes the handover of funds between Local Committees between conferences. Beatrix is also ULAB‘s Local Chair for ULAB2021 and the institutional representative for the University of Aberdeen. She is the section editor for U-Lingua‘s "Behind The Bookshelves".

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T. R. Williamson Archivist

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om is a final-year Linguistics and Philosophy student at Lancaster University, originally hailing from Crediton in Devon.

His research interests concern meaning and the mind, although he‘s been thinking a lot about the significance of superlinguistics recently as well. He is looking forward to starting his MPhil in Linguistics at Girton College, Cambridge, where he will be pursuing a thesis with the pro-

Anne Eschenbruecher

visional title ‚Meaning Without Concepts‘. In his spare time, he is a keen squash player, runner, and long-distance walker.

In his role as Archivist, Tom is primarily tasked with the collection of presentations and/or papers for the collation of any publication that ULAB oversees. This has included the ULAB Conference Proceedings in the past, but also the new Journal recently introduced.

He is also responsible for keeping a record of ULAB’s history. In addition to being ULAB‘s archivist, Tom is also Editor-in-Chief for U-Lingua.

Social Media Coordinator

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nne is a postgraduate student in computational linguistics at the University of Wolverhampton.

She is particularly interested in textual complexity and information extraction. Currently, she is writing her master‘s dissertation where she is trying to measure the conceptual complexity of various texts. Her plans for the future include the completion of a PhD in natural language processing for which she is currently writing a lot of applications. In her free time, she can be found program-

ming, jogging, or being creative in various ways. She especially enjoys designing various things with the Adobe Creative Suite.

Her duties as Social Media Coordinator include handling the promotion of ULAB’s activities, including the upcoming conference, as well as to create content for and interact with followers on our social media platforms. Anne is also U-Lingua‘s Editorial Designer and section editor for U-Lingua‘s "The Real World" section.

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Meet The Committee

Meet The Committee Riley Crouch

Cliodhna Instututional Hughes Representative Coordinator

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iley is a 2nd year linguistics student at the University of Edinburgh, originally from the US, more specifically Arkansas.

They love exploring all areas of linguistics, especially pragmatics. When not linguisticsing, they will probably be found in the kitchen or in front of a mirror doing making - both while horrendously belting out the lyrics to songs in various languages.

Their role as Institutional Representative Coordinator (IRC) leading the group of Institutional Representatives (IRs) that ULAB has at universities across the world. The Institutional Representative Coordinator is also responsible for ensuring communication between the National Committee and IRs.

Next Time In the next issue, which will be the Autumn 2020 release, we will introduce you to our Institutional Representatives. The Institutional Representatives are overseen by Riley Crouch, our Institutional Representative Coordinator. You can read their profile above.

Currently, ULAB has representatives at the following universities: University of Aberdeen, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, University of Lancaster, University of Oxford, University College London, Stanford University, and the University of Maryland.

If you are interested in representing ULAB at your institution please contact us at ulablinguistics@gmail.com. We are always looking for new, motivated students to join our committee.

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The University of Aberdeen, New Kings Building

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In The Field

In The Field #ReframeCovid

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In The Field

#Reframe Covid Metaphors around Coronavirus

By Poppy Plumb, MA Discourse Studies, Lancaster University

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OVID-19 has had an undoubtedly large impact on our day-to-day lives. One of these changes is that so many of us have been glued to our TV screens, social media, or other news outputs more than usual.

Daily briefings, regular statistics, and updates have been essential to furthering our knowledge about this devasting pandemic as we find out the latest guidance to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. But we linguists pay attention not only to what is said, but how things are said, so it’s unsurprising that some researchers have turned their attention to the language around coronavirus.

Considering the use of metaphor is just one way of approaching such language use. In terms of health communication, research led by Professor Elena Semino from Lancaster University has previously looked at how metaphors around cancer often involve a ‘battle’ with the illness[1].

They argue that ‘battle’ metaphors are potentially counterproductive because they foreground cancer as a fight that one can win or lose, and ‘losing a battle with cancer’ could evoke negative feelings of failure for

“Some aspects of hostile language such as ‘the fight against the coronavirus’ help to communicate how serious the situation is, and can foster a spirit of solidarity in the face of an external threat. But some features of the war metaphor may actually have adverse effects in that they lead to anxiety or indeed aggression towards people who may be seen as guilty of causing or spreading the virus.”[5] the cancer patient. This is not to say that battle metaphors are always negative: ‘battle’ may evoke some urgency for health professionals to implement effective medical treatment. Nevertheless, Semino et al.

(2017) suggest that alternative metaphors such as cancer as a ‘journey’

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may be more helpful for some cancer patients to frame their illness[1].

You can read more of their suggested metaphor framings in the ‘Metaphor Menu’[2], or more broadly about the project on their website[3].

Turning back to COVID-19, you may have noticed that battle metaphors have also been frequently used to frame the virus. In Boris Johnson’s first public speech since receiving Coronavirus treatment, he called the virus ‘an unexpected and invisible mugger’, framing the pandemic as a fight between us and an anonymous ‘assailant’[4]. The phrase ‘fight against coronavirus’ has become dominant in news reporting and media coverage about the virus. But is this framing of the global pandemic as a battle actually useful?

Whilst war metaphors can promote solidarity in defeating the virus, it is clear that such metaphors are not helpful framings for all aspects of COVID-19. Linguists and metaphor experts across the world have collaborated to research and identify alternative metaphors for coronavirus, with the aim of offering alternatives in their metaphorical framings. This non-prescriptive and collaborative initiative is now known as ‘#ReframeCovid’. #ReframeCovid is not a specific research project headed by individual linguists, but an ‘open initiative’ which aims to ‘(re)think the metaphors used to talk about the pandemic’[6]. Researchers involved stress that #ReframeCovid is non-prescriptive: they are not suggesting that there are right or wrong metaphors to talk about COVID-19, but they want

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to offer alternative framings for the virus. A key aspect of this open research is that data collection takes place online via an open source document created by Dr Veronika Koller[7]. Here, anyone, whether they are seasoned professors or non-linguists, can include alternatives to war metaphors they observe day-to-day. This includes multimodal metaphors such as images and memes and, at the time of publication, over 400 metaphor examples from over 65 contributors and 24 languages.

In this respect, #ReframeCovid is a triumph: whilst analysing metaphors around coronavirus and simultaneously dealing with the personal effects of the pandemic and social distancing, researchers have embraced open access data collection. This in turn allows linguists at all stages to learn about the effects of metaphor framings, and learn about alternatives which may help us all to deal with this devasting pandemic.

So, the next time you turn on the TV or scroll through social media, keep an eye out for metaphors around COVID-19. Are they invoking a battle, or perhaps something more creative? The #ReframeCovid initiative highlights the importance of individuals choosing metaphors that best suit how they feel during these difficult times. Maybe some of these alternatives can help us to frame aspects of COVID-19 in productive ways that resonate with our subjective experiences.

Want to find out more?

Researchers including Professor Elena Semino, Dr Veronika Koller, Dr Inés Olza, Professor Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano, and Dr Paula Pérez-Sobrino recently presented some of their initial findings in an online roundtable discussion at the online RaAM Conference (Researching and Applying Metaphor)[6].

Do watch if you are interested.

You can also keep up with this initiative on Twitter using the hashtag #ReframeCovid.

References

[1] Semino, E., Demjen, Z., Hardie, A., Payne, S., & Rayson, P. (2017).Metaphor, Cancer and the End of Life: A Corpus-Based Study(1st ed.). London: Routledge.

[2] Semino, E. (2019, October 29)A ‘Metaphor Menu’ For People Living With Cancer. Retrieved fromhttp:// wp.lancs.ac.uk/melc/the-metaphor-menu/.

[3] ‘Metaphor, Cancer and the End of Life Project’: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/melc/people/.

[4] Shariatmadari, D. (2020, April 27). ‚Invisible Mugger‘: How Boris Johnson‘s Language Hints At His Thinking.TheGuardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/27/muggers-and-invisible-enemies-how-boris-johnsons-metaphors-reveals-his-thinking.

[5] Semino, E. (2020). In Beyond the Battle, Far from the Frontline: A Call for Alternative Ways of Talking About Covid-19.(2020, April 6). Retrieved from https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/beyond-the-battle-far-from-the-frontline-a-call-for-alternativeways-of-talking-about-covid-19.

[6] Olza, I., Semino, E., Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I., Koller, V., Pérez-Sobrino, P. (2020, June 21). RaAM #ReframeCovidRoundtable Discussion. Retrived from https://media.inn.no/Mediasite/Channel/raam2020/watch/944ce34e07c94f459b6d7825cc4ba0871d.

[7] Koller, K. (2020). #ReframeCovid collection. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TZqICUdE2CvKqZrN67LcmKspY51Kug7aU8oGvK5WEbA/htmlview?fbclid=IwAR00sOqGdOXanH-md_gV77Z2L4nmri6oBkwg4uTPAkhr5HVLcSa7P8fJwTA#gid=268174477.

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Behind The Bookshelves

Behind The Bookshel New Evidence in Biolinguistics

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Behind The Bookshelves

New Evidence in Biolinguistics Language Evolved Earlier than We Did Ondřej Boček, BA Psychology and Linguistics, Lancaster University

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he capacity to freely produce and comprehend language is very likely to be unique to modern homo sapiens. Looking through the evolutionary prism, language embodies myriad advantages in the struggle to survive and reproduce; from a better exchange of information and an increase in group-size to potentially the ability to harbour abstract thoughts and execute complex formal operations. It might be a natural suggestion that language was the cause of the domination of modern homo sapiens over its relatives (such as the homo sapiens neanderthalensis) and its subsequent spread across the world. However, evidence from 2018 may say otherwise.

Researchers, including Noam Chomsky, put the emergence of language, as we know and define it today, within the last 200,000 years of human evolution[1][2]. This empirical claim correlates with the scholarly understanding that modern man evolved within the same period of time[3].

Yet, providing definitive evidence that language emerged within this time period is challenging; after all, language does not fossilise. It is not, however, an impossible task. Every single human capacity must be coded for in our DNA. Whether language is a result of an innate distinct language faculty or general cognitive processes is irrelevant: both imply the inherent necessity of genetic background, and we are not clueless as to what this might be.

“According to their findings, language evolved before modern homo sapiens and thereby did not play an essential role in our emergence, which directly contradicts what others, Chomsky included, proposed.”

Arguably the most famous string of amino-acids known to linguists is the FOXP2 gene located on the chromosome 7q31. In the year 2001, this modest string of proteins made the headlines: “First Language Gene Found”[4]. While such a title is a bit far-fetched, it cannot be denied that FOXP2 has a lot to do with our language capacities. A disruption of the gene co-segregates with speech disorders[5]. During brain development, FOXP2 targets the basal ganglia and the inferior frontal cortex, of which the Broca’s area, (to which language production is biased), is a part[6]; and as to human anatomy, FOXP2 manifests itself in the lungs[7].

Importantly, this is not limited to humans. In birds, Foxp2 (geneticists

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refer to non-human variants of the gene without capitalisation) is important (although possibly not directly) for birdsong production and in mouse pups for ultrasonic vocalisation[8]. Has all this something to do with the emergence of modern homo sapiens?

Some would certainly say yes[9][10].

The human variant of FOXP2 differs in three amino-acid locations from the variant of mice. Two mutations that are fully unique to humans are not shared by other primates, and thus happened since we split off with chimpanzees 4.6-6.2 million years ago[10].

By contrast, only one mutation, which is common to all primates but not to mice, took place within the 70 million years since the last common ancestor with mice[10].

This obvious non-proportionality would suggest that something important happened on the homo lineage. Indeed, the study by Enard et al. (2002) suggested that there was a strong positive selection (i.e. selective sweep) of our variant of FOXP2 in the last 200,000 years of human evolution. In other words, that particular variant of the gene seemed to bring significant advantage to early modern homo sapiens. If one links the connection between FOXP2 and language with the evolutionary advantage of language, one might form the hypothesis that it was language that enabled our emergence, and one could thus date the appearance of language within the last 200,000 years, just as Chomsky suggested. Indeed, Enard et al. (2002) believed this to be the case.

Unfortunately, this elegant hypothesis did not stand against the test of time. In a recent study, Atkinson et al. (2018) duplicated the key

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experiment by Enard et al. (2002) with overall more modern techniques, bigger samples, and comparisons involving the whole human genome instead of solely the FOXP2 gene[11]. Their results found no evidence for the hypothesis that FOXP2 was the gene that caused our prevalence and later domination. The gene probably appeared in our genome before the emergence of modern homo sapiens and might not have been that strongly positively selected[12], hence not being the trigger for our rapid ascent.

This leads to two conceivable and consistent implications. Atkinson et al. (2018) concluded that language per se was not what brought modern

homo sapiens from a local subspecies to a subspecies which dominates the planet. According to their findings, language evolved before modern homo sapiens and thereby did not play an essential role in our emergence, which directly contradicts what others, Chomsky included, proposed. Whilst this is a plausible conclusion, it is not the only one. Since the connection between FOXP2 and language does exist, it might be the case that with the two unique mutations of the gene, not all requirements for language were yet fulfilled. Even though FOXP2’s presence in our genome preceded the emergence of modern homo sapiens, language might have appeared later. Thus, language might still have played a crucial role in modern homo sapiens’ emergence, but other

key mutations took place in the last 200,000 years of our evolution of which we are not yet aware. It might be the case that more ‘language genes’ await discovery.

The struggle to localise the emergence of language on the evolutionary timeline of the homo species is no easy task. But nor is it a fool’s errand. By mapping the human genome, exploring its expressions, and then tracing its history, we might find the answer. This struggle ought not to be limited to genetics alone. Linguists should not restrain themselves from applying a cross-disciplinary approach: this article is an attempt to articulate such a possibility.

References:

[1] Hauser, M. D., Chomsky, N., & Fitch, W. T. (2002). The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?. Science, 298(5598), 1569-1579.

[2] Bolhuis, J. J., Tattersall, I., Chomsky, N., & Berwick, R. C. (2014). How could language have evolved?. PLoS Biol, 12(8), e1001934.

[3] Klein, G. (1989). The Human Career, Human Biological and Cultural Origins. Chicago University Press: Chicago.

[4] Kenneally, C. (2001, March 1). First Language Gene Found. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2001/10/first-language-gene-found/.

[5] Lai, C. S., Fisher, S. E., Hurst, J. A., Vargha-Khadem, F., & Monaco, A. P. (2001). A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder. Nature, 413(6855), 519-523.

[6] Spiteri, E., Konopka, G., Coppola, G., Bomar, J., Oldham, M., Ou, J., ... & Geschwind, D. H. (2007). Identification of the transcriptional targets of FOXP2, a gene linked to speech and language, in developing human brain. Am. J. Hum. Genet., 81(6), 1144-1157.

[7] Shu, W., Yang, H., Zhang, L., Lu, M. M., & Morrisey, E. E. (2001). Characterization of a new subfamily of winged-helix/forkhead (Fox) genes that are expressed in the lung and act as transcriptional repressors. J. Biol., 276(29), 27488-27497.

[8] Fisher, S. E., & Scharff, C. (2009). FOXP2 as a molecular window into speech and language. Trends Genet., 25(4), 166-177.

[9] Corballis, M. C. (2004). FOXP2 and the mirror system. Trends Cogn. Sci., 8(3), 95-96.

[10] Enard, W., Przeworski, M., Fisher, S. E., Lai, C. S., Wiebe, V., Kitano, T., ... & Pääbo, S. (2002). Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language. Nature, 418(6900), 869-872.

[11] Atkinson, E. G., Audesse, A. J., Palacios, J. A., Bobo, D. M., Webb, A. E., Ramachandran, S., & Henn, B. M. (2018). No evidence for recent selection at FOXP2 among diverse human populations. Cell, 174(6), 1424-1435.

[12] Fisher, S. E. (2019). Human genetics: the evolving story of FOXP2. Curr. Biol., 29(2), R65-R67.v

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The Real World

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The Real World The NLP Edition

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The Real World

Senior Language Technician Trevor Beers, Senior Language Technician at Phrasee, gives us some insights into his academic background and career path and tells us about the number one skill you should acquire if you are interested in a career in NLP. Read the interview below.

What is your current job?

I’m a Senior Language Technician at Phrasee, the London-based pioneer in AI-Powered Copywriting. We use natural language generation and machine learning to deliver high-performing marketing copy to customers like eBay, Groupon and Domino’s.

How did you come to be in your current role?

This was my first job after finishing my Master‘s. It was the only job (that wasn’t translating) that came up when you searched for ‘linguistics’ on LinkedIn. Even though my job is a technical role, previous coding knowledge wasn’t a prerequisite for getting hired.

Phrasee opts to fill its Language Team with people who come from linguistics and foreign language backgrounds instead.

What do you do in your current role?

I work on the team that builds bespoke language generation models. Every client has a unique tone of voice and marketing strategy, so each model is different.

I was specifically hired to be an American English linguist as Phrasee hires native speakers for all languages we build models for.

How did you become interested in linguistics in the first place?

I took a History of the English Language course in the final year of my undergrad. I was always into

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grammar and writing in school, but this course made me realise there was an entire field I didn’t know about.

How did you first become aware of the field of NLP and got in contact with it?

ally in love with math or tech, so I never went down that route. Plot twist—now I work with our Data Science team part time and love it. It turns out programming is really cool when you use it as a tool to do linguistic work.

My current job, actually. I used to think NLP was far removed from linguistics (my impression was that it lived under the computer science umbrella). I was never re-

I did my undergrad in English and Classics at the University of Texas at Arlington and my Master‘s in

What is your educational background?

English Language at the University of Edinburgh. At Edinburgh I studied all the fascinating (and arguably unemployable) subjects like Old and Middle English, Scots, Dialectology and History of the English Language.

What advice would you give undergraduates looking for a career in your field?

If you work in linguistics (outside of academia), your job will likely involve Python coding. A good understanding of Python is a great skill to have alongside a formal education in linguistics. Also, keep your eye on the Phrasee careers page of course!

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NLP Researcher Dr Isabelle Lorge talks to us about her career as a researcher in natural language processing and how she got there. Read the Q&A below if you are interested in how you can get started in the field as well.

What is your background?

I did my Bachelor’s degree in Romance languages and literature in Brussels. After this, I first completed a two-years Master’s degree in Linguistics (also in Brussels), before coming to the University of Cambridge for an MPhil in Linguistics. I then decided to carry on with a PhD. While I had some interest in computational linguistics during my first Master’s programme, I had to mostly take psycholinguistics courses because the subject of my research was bilingualism. This was still the case during my MPhil and PhD.

How did you first come in contact with the field of AI? I had been carrying out research which was related to psycholinguistics, so I had some basic knowledge of statistic methods. In the second year of my PhD, I was looking for opportunities to acquire some work experience and the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) happened to advertise an internship at Microsoft Research, who were looking for a social scientist/linguist for a specific project on visually grounded dialogue. I applied and got in.

The experience was eye-opening.

I got to work with a team of brilliant people on a very interesting project which combined linguistic and deep learning challenges.

After this, I knew this was what I wanted to do. Given that I had not

had a maths course in ten years and my knowledge of statistics and programming was limited to some basic R, I started teaching myself how to code and do machine learning in my spare time.

I had always loved maths: the logical thinking is what had brought me to linguistics in the first place, so Natural Language Processing was right up my street.

What is your current job?

I am working as an NLP researcher for an asset management company. The company is highly oriented towards sustainability and also carries out data analyses to produce ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) scores for companies to encourage investing in more ethical and sustainable stocks. I work with an amazing team in a very research-focused atmosphere: everyone here has a PhD. However, I am the only one without a STEM background.

How did you come to be in your current role?

After my experience with Microsoft Research and realising that this was something I wanted to do full-time, I looked up how to acquire some more hands-on experience. I briefly worked with a Korean startup, then I found out about the Faculty fellowship, an 8-week program run by startup Faculty (formerly ASI data science). The idea is to help PhD students transition to data science

by training them intensively for two weeks and then pairing them with a host company to work with them on a real project. Unlike other ‘bootcamp’ initiatives, you don’t pay for the training and receive some compensation. As a result, the entry to the program is fairly competitive. It is also mostly targeted towards STEM PhDs, but they made a couple of exceptions, and I was one of them.

After finishing the fellowship, I was in a very good position to apply for a full-time role as data scientist, and my background in linguistics made it easier to get a position as NLP researcher.

What advice would you give undergraduates looking for a career in your field?

I would say two things: learn to code as soon as possible (half an hour a day will go a long way) and get some work experience with real world projects. Kaggle is

Great coding resources for students include: • • • •

okay, but the datasets come already cleaned, and anyone in this field will tell you that does not reflect reality. If you can, get an internship, or look up a problem you are genuinely interested in. Start small, it makes every successful step feel like a win. Another advice you won’t hear much: try to understand the actual maths as much as you can, be it probability distributions, matrices, differential calculu s etc.. Coding and projects will look good on your CV and get you through the door; but knowing the nitty-gritty is what distinguishes an average data scientist from a good one.

Finally: don’t give up. People will have prejudice against a humanities background, and there will be rejections. I got through to final round interview with three (!) big tech companies who told me I had passed the whiteboard coding question with flying colours, but after much discussion they were still worried about my background and lack of experience. Since this is not something I could do anything about in the immediate, I actually felt ok about it. Focus on the companies and employers who will value your theoretical insight for language problems and your demonstrated ability to learn. They are out there, I promise!

Coding Resources

Articles on medium.com (a great resource to get started and it‘s free!!)

The "Sentdex" Channel on YouTube (Introduction to Python 3) Online courses on Coursera or Udemy "Programming in Python for Linguists: A Gentle introduction" by Dirk Hovy

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Editor‘s Letter

Editor‘s Letter Since June 1st 2019, ULAB has been infrequently releasing a magazine-style post on Facebook that’s been called ULAB Monthly. This was to promote the reach of ULAB by releasing content geared to the perceived interests of undergraduate linguistics students. Sections ranged from what summer schools ULAB members visited last year to linguistics-themed podcast recommendations.

The ULAB Executive Committee of 2020-21 has set out as one of its goals the expansion of ULAB Monthly into a more structured magazine. To this end, we have decided to try to give ULAB Monthly somewhat of a rebrand and a refocus. This started with a name change: U-Lingua (Undergraduate - language in Latin). Then, we looked at what we wanted to cover: to appeal best to the interests of undergraduate students of linguistics, we believed three central areas needed covering: news, academia, and industry. In the process of turning these into the three Sections of U-Lingua, In The Field, Behind The Bookshelves, and The Real World, and then working closely with Section Editors and writers for each, thus was born this magazine!

Though you wouldn‘t ever know, the Editorial Committee was able, with exceptional skill and dedication, to put together the first issue of U-Lingua within just two weeks of its inception. Given that we set out to be a quarterly publication, this was no mean feat! As such, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to all those who played a part in brainstorming, writing, editing, and designing the magazine. In the next issue, expect to find out more about the Institutional Representatives that ULAB has scattered across the world, as well as some insights into the world of translation!

This issue, though it contains highly interesting and useful information, is only a shadow of the talent I know the ULAB membership across the U.K. and the world possesses. If you would like to write for U-Lingua, please get in touch! We welcome all ideas from anyone interested, no matter their education or employment status. Pitches for articles should be sent to ulablinguistics@gmail. com, and addressed to me.

T. R. Williamson Archivist, Undergraduate Linguistics Association of Britian Editor-in-Chief, U-Lingua University of Cambridge

U-LINGUA

Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief T. R. Williamson Section Editor for News Beatrix Livesey-Stephens Section Editor for Academia T. R. Williamson Section Editor for Industry Anne Eschenbruecher Editorial Designer Anne Eschenbruecher

Photo Credits

Aberdeen Campus, Cover Kristina Callan Marcinkowska Aberdeen Campus, Content Page Kristina Callan Marcinkowska Aberdeen Campus, Page 4 Kristina Callan Marcinkowska Aberdeen Campus, Page 9 Kristina Callan Marcinkowska Cover Photo "In The Field" Photo by CDC on Unsplash Story Photo "In The Field" Photo by RaphaĂŤl Biscaldi on Unsplash Cover Photo "Behind The Bookshelves" Photo by Anne NygĂĽrd on Unsplash Story Photo "Behind The Bookshelves" Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash Cover Photo "The Real World" Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash Story Photo "The Real World" Photo by Chris Ried on Unsplash

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