Linguistics and English Language alumni

MSc English Language graduate Britanny Howlett may only have studied at Edinburgh for one year, but she ensured she made the most of it

Oliver Stegen ended up in Edinburgh by chance and used his undergraduate Linguistics degree while living and working among the Rangi in Tanzania, learning their language and helping local teachers to devise a writing system. He later returned to the University to embark on a PhD in Linguistics.

MA English Language graduate Gillian Chu currently works for the Civil Service in Hong Kong, and credits the extra-curricular activities she took part in at Edinburgh with widening the breadth of her life experience.

MA English Language & Literature graduate Cate-Nelson Shaw’s career was kickstarted by the University’s Career Service, and having reaped the benefits she is now giving back to students with advice and mentoring nearly twenty years later.

MA Linguistics graduate Richard Watt’s career has taken him around the world, mainly working within the IT industry. Here he explains how he has finally realised his dream of becoming an author.

Kim Chamberlain came to Edinburgh as an undergraduate to study French but after taking Linguistics as an outside object enjoyed it enough to change her degree, years later she still uses the concepts learnt in her professional life.

Award-winning journalist Melanie Reid MBE is the writer of Spinal Column, a weekly column about life as a disabled person following a horse riding accident. She shares her memories of happy times spent in a beautiful and mysterious Edinburgh as an undergraduate studying English Language & Literature.

English graduate Catherine Czerkawska tells us about the vivid memories she has from being an undergraduate student in the early 1970s.

Now retired, Emeritus Professor Laurie Bauer has had a fruitful academic career in Denmark and New Zealand, publishing numerous books and articles on linguistics.

Eve Clark, Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University, was drawn to language from a young age having grown up speaking English and French. A PhD Linguistics graduate, she shares her many memories of living and working in Scotland.