'Linguists Outside Academia', a new group for academic nomads and drifters

[Dave Sayers]

Now this is the story all about how,
my life got flipped turned upside down,
and I'd like to take a minute just sit right there,
I'll tell you how I became the moderator of a new group called Linguists 
Outside Academia.

That's right, I just parodied the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to introduce a 
new academic group that I've made. That, my friends, is how I roll.

So, like, here's how it happened...

1. I realised that my chances of finding academic employment any time 
soon were slim to nil at best; and rather than simply wither alone, I 
wanted to share my misery with others. A problem shared is, after all, a 
problem halved (unless you're the one who the problem is being shared 
with, in which case you've just gained half a problem, but let's leave 
that to one side).

2. I thought, hey, surely there are other people like me out there, 
jobless people with PhDs, still publishing and presenting their research 
for some reason, but without the tiniest chance of getting even the 
lowliest fixed-term part-time adjunct academic post with no prospects 
whatsoever attached to it. Not even an email notifying me that I'd been 
rejected! Er, I mean, notifying them that they'd been rejected...

3. I sent a nice email to a number of learned societies (email 
subscription lists) asking whether there existed any sort of group, 
association, sub-group, knitting circle, etc., for linguists like me, 
doing research but outside of academic settings. In order to create the 
impression that I'm not entirely self-absorbed, I also included a second 
relevant category of people, those doing research for non-academic 
organisations.

4. I received quite literally some responses. A few people pointed me to 
organisations like BAAL, but while these sorts of organisations do 
accommodate people outside academia (to varying degrees), that's not 
really what they're all about. Other responses were from people like me, 
people who share my pain! *sniff* There are like-minded rolling stones 
out there after all. In fact, these responses soon became the majority. 
More and more of my fellow academic stragglers and outcasts contacted 
me, calling out from scattered locations in the wilderness of the 
academic badlands. Bleary-eyed, running short on opportunity but not on 
determination, weary from beating the path to countless unobtainable 
jobs, speaking to numerous empty conference audiences, born back 
ceaselessly into utter obscurity, they spoke, through the dark shadows 
and foggy haze, to me....

6. All these people said they definitely wanted to be part of whatever 
group I was setting up. Hmm. At first I politely pointed out that I 
hadn't actually offered to make any such thing; all I did was ask if it 
already existed. After a while I realised that I had, of course, 
inadvertently volunteered myself. Perhaps I wanted this all along. 
Perhaps my thirst for fame and influence has come to this: staking out 
my niche in academic cyberspace, and becoming master of all I survey, 
king of my particular hill. So be it.

7. I approached the good people at www.jiscmail.ac.uk, asking if I could 
create an email list for linguists doing research outside academia. I 
explained that the prospective members of such a group were 
research-active, so this would fit jiscmail's criterion of relevance to 
academia. But they said no! Meanies. Not only that, they even tried to 
hawk some second-rate paid alternative on me, www.mailtalk.ac.uk, which 
they said could be mine for the low low price of £120 a year!! £120?? 
What do they think this is, the 1990s?? Well, after harrumphing and 
shaking my fists at my computer screen for quite some time, I decided I 
didn't need their help anyway.

8. After considering a number of options, it came down to either a 
Google Group, or a knitting circle. It was a tough decision, but in the 
end I went for a Google Group -- much to the disappointment of my 
grandmother, for whom the knitting circle held out the first hope that 
the two of us could finally share a leisure pursuit. Ho hum...

So, here it is -- and congratulations to all those who have made it 
through this rambling opus of an email (which I will soon be adding to 
my list of publications):

https://groups.google.com/group/ling-outside/

Allow me also to introduce my co-moderator listed on the site, Richard 
Littauer, who not only responded at point #4 above, but also offered to 
help. The fool!

In the introductory blurb I've also widened the target group to include 
those on unstable university teaching contracts -- after an email from a 
friend currently in that situation, who felt almost as peripheral to 
linguistic academia as me. Now, from where I'm sitting, he looks like 
the proverbial man who sweats gold and is upset he doesn't sneeze 
diamonds, such is my relative obscurity; but I have heard similar tales 
of woe about people in those sorts of jobs feeling excluded, and far be 
from me to exclude people from a group designed for people who feel 
excluded. So they can come along too, but only if they feel sufficiently 
marginalised. There will be a test.

To kick things off and entice people in with the promise of useful 
information, I've written down the sum total of my knowledge about eking 
out some sort of professional profile whilst pretending to be an 
academic. I realise that by saying "sum total" I've given the lie to the 
idea that there will be further useful information. Who knows, maybe 
I'll think of something more. Hopefully though, the group will soon be 
busy with useful tips from others. And that's the point of this really, 
for the dispersed and obscure diaspora of linguistic nobodies to help 
each other with a sense of shared purpose, common destiny, mutual 
irrelevance, and collective destitution.

Please pass on the good word of this group as far and wide as you can -- 
and forgive me for taking up your time with such seemingly endless, 
circuitous, periphrastic circumlocution. If anything, this has certainly 
not been a lesson in perspicuity. My apologies also for cross-posting 
this message to a frankly offensive number of email lists. You know what 
they say though, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Speaking of which, this old chestnut is oddly pertinent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pyA6jAM3_I

Thanks all, hope to see you in the new group soon. Byeeee!!

Dave


--
Dr. Dave Sayers
Honorary Research Fellow
College of Arts & Humanities
and Language Research Centre
Swansea University
dave.sayers at cantab.net
http://swansea.academia.edu/DaveSayers