Chartered Institute
of Linguists
NEWS & VOICES
By Tess Pike
A career using languages, requiring good organisational and people management skills
At school my careers adviser listened to me tell her how much I loved languages and that all I wanted from a job was to speak German. I thought I was shy, because, as the youngest of five, I never managed to get a word in edgeways at home, so for many years I followed her advice and...
According to a 2019 survey by Pearson Business School, nearly a fifth of graduates were found to be not “workplace-ready”.
Just 13% of the 531 employers and HR leaders who took part in the research felt that graduates were ready to hit the ground running after university.
48% of the surveyed employers and HR managers said that graduates lacked leadership skills, 44% felt...
In this article, our CIOL Corporate Partner Louise Killeen Translations (LKT) show how they help early career translators either become staff or develop their skills to become successful freelance translators.
On our website and in published articles, we’ve talked extensively about our unique Translator Academy model and how we use it to transform our new recruits into fully...
“The key to being a good mentor is to help people become more of who they already are – not to make them more like you.”
The traditional view of a mentor is someone who shares experience and imparts knowledge. In contemporary mentoring a mentor does a lot more listening than talking. A mentor’s role isn’t to tell a mentee what to do, it is to act as a guide. A mentor asks questions and...
Victoria Hislop’s love of Greece runs through her eight novels – every one of them set in the country. So much so that she was awarded honorary Greek citizenship in July for promoting the nation’s history and traditions. Though I knew of her reputation as a dedicated hellenophile, I was less aware of her passion for languages when we spoke in October. I discovered a...
Public Service Interpreters may work in a variety of settings on a daily basis, moving between locations regularly and therefore carrying a high risk of coronavirus exposure, as they have to move between settings from one booking to another.
For this reason we would like to see the inclusion of public service interpreters in the COVID-19 Vaccination Priority Groups alongside police,...
The Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) has chosen former BBC Moscow correspondent Bridget Kendall MBE as the latest recipient of the David Crystal Award, originally donated by the eponymous linguist, a vice-president and Fellow of CIOL.
The award is presented annually to an individual ‘for whom languages have been a constant within their work and life and who has...
By Carina Balbo
How Carina Balbo put self-doubt aside and entered the field of linguistic validation
Tuesday 19 June 2012. I will never forget that day. Usually after a job interview you hope with every ounce of your being to get the position. But this time I did not feel so desperate. Instead, I had an inner feeling of ‘what will be, will be’. I checked my emails and saw one...
By Karl McLaughlin
In the first of three stories from the "Pick of the conference" article in the latest issue of The Linguist, Karl McLaughlin speaks on translating press releases in emergency situations.
In countries that rely heavily on tourism, a less obvious consequence of health-related emergencies and other crisis situations is the need for translation of press releases...
The British Academy, together with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and The Royal Society of Canada, has just published The Importance of Languages in Global Context: An International Call to Action.
This unprecedented joint statement highlights the key role that language skills play in...