LEIT–MLA Link Yields Free Job Listings for LISA Members

The American Modern Language Association (MLA) has offered LISA members the opportunity to post job listings on the MLA’s Web-based Job Information List (JIL) free of charge. Although the MLA functions primarily as an American association, it has 30,000 members in 100 countries. Its mission is to serve the interests of individual teachers and scholars in the fields of language and literature, generally differentiated as English and “foreign languages”—a designation that reflects the organization’s US orientation.

For many years, the JIL has comprised the primary medium for exchanging information on jobs in language education. The more recent JIL Online service is a searchable electronic database of job listings of interest to PhDs in English and “foreign languages”. It is made available by subscription over the World Wide Web. In addition to the predictable academic job opportunities, the JIL has also included some non-academic listings; now pressure from young job seekers has moved the service to recruit additional industry-oriented positions.

Companies wishing to take advantage of the offer to post job listings without charge should contact Roy Chustek at + 1 212 614 6321 (New York City, i.e., Eastern Time) or via E-mail: roy.chustek@mla.org. Roy will create a database record for each company; after this, the company will be able to submit a listing to the JIL directly at the MLA Web site: www.mla.org.

Companies are invited to submit postings for the remainder of the subscription year, which began in September and runs through the end of June, reflecting the traditional academic hiring year in the United States.

This new link between the MLA and LISA reflects an effort on the part of the LISA Education Initiative Taskforce (LEIT) to identify additional sources of potential talent in order to fill unmet needs in the language industries, as well as a response on the part of the MLA to discontent among its graduate student members, who are frustrated with the limited opportunities they see in the teaching field.

It can be a little difficult to view the actual situation in the field in terms of pure statistics. Elizabeth Welles, MLA’s Director of Foreign Language Programs and of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL) reports that approximately 400 PhDs graduated in 1997. These would have competed for between 1,100 and 1,400 jobs listed in the information lists. However, the figures cannot necessarily be compared directly with one another because there is always participation in the job market from other people who already have jobs and from previous graduates who have not yet found positions.

As it turns out, only about 40% of all graduates obtained highly coveted “tenure-track” positions. In many cases, universities are generating part-time, low-paying, non-tenured positions instead. This means that, upon graduation, many job candidates find themselves facing a continuation of the relative poverty they have endured as graduate students. Even those who do get “good” jobs frequently find themselves accepting positions in the $35,000 p.a. range, and sometimes lower. Interestingly, M.A. graduates who have been trained as translators and localizers, with two years of post-graduate study compared to the five to seven that is typical for PhDs, have been finding jobs in industry in the $38,000 to $42,000 range, or higher for those with additional computing skills. This situation has led MLA students to lobby the professional organization to support the creation of more good jobs in academia and to assist them in finding out more about alternative jobs in industry.

When asked whether traditional “language” programs have implemented alternative training tracks, Elizabeth Welles responds: “My sense is that there are no such courses [offered in the traditional departments of language and literature], but these options are looked upon more favorably than they once were. The Committee on Professional Employment has made recommendations about alternative careers.”

One prestigious university to introduce such a program is the University of Washington in Seattle, spurred on by support from Microsoft. Structured as an interdisciplinary program, this graduate certificate program will be housed in Information Science, but will appeal to and combine the efforts of students and faculty in such diverse departments as Language and Literature, International Studies, Business, Geography and Computer Science. Microsoft’s Ulrike Irmler reports: “Although we have been offering short courses and special seminars for some time now, the formal certificate program will begin in September 2000.”

Irmler is herself proof that there is life after academia: she started at the University of Washington as a graduate student in German literature, but made the switch to localization when she took a job as German terminologist in the Microsoft localization team. “The work I’m doing now is so challenging and exciting compared to what’s going on right now in literary criticism. When I go to literary conferences, I get depressed with the lack of opportunities and the effect that the poor prospects in the field have on my colleagues. But when I go to a language technology-related workshop or conference, I discover a collection of colleagues who are working on the leading edge. That’s where I want to be. And of course, the fact that I’m making a lot more money than I would in a teaching position doesn’t bother me at all, either.”

Whereas the majority of language-oriented programs in the United States are focused on teaching and literature, the numerous translator training programs in Europe are turning out large numbers of graduates, many of whom are not qualified for the rigors of translation in highly computerized environments. While traditionally trained “translators” fail to find good jobs or settle for secretarial or clerk-type positions, the localization industry cannot find adequate personnel to fill high-tech jobs. Despite current LEIT efforts to increase the number of highly qualified professionals in this area, the University of Rennes’ Daniel Gouadec urges caution. He observed recently in a forum for translator trainers: “As professionals, we also should care for younger colleagues. All of them. And we should try and do our best to raise standards, including pay standards, which may mean watching carefully when we decide to launch a new training program. And maybe watch more carefully when we embark on translator training schemes in the global scene, where translation is dead cheap. The day localizers come a-plenty, money will be scarce. And that has happened before with other specialties.”

Future LEIT Projects

The LEIT group is currently pursuing a number of projects and general activities, including:

• exchanging syllabi, courseware, and support materials for a variety of localization-related courses;
• defining a way for academics to become active in LEIT, even if their institutions are unable to afford standard LISA membership;
• establishing a user-friendly, LEIT-oriented Web site designed to inform students and potential trainers of opportunities available in the field;
• exploring venues for publicizing the career opportunities available in the field;
• recruiting representatives from industry to support LEIT efforts.

The next issue of the LISA Newsletter will provide further information on the Web site and on plans to conduct a localization training seminar in conjunction with the American Translators’ Association conference, to be held in September in Orlando, Florida.

Sue Ellen Wright
Institute for Applied Linguistics
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio 44242, USA
Tel: 1 330 673 0043
Fax: 1 330 673 0738
E-mail: swright@kent.edu