Eva Zehentner • Postdoctoral Researcher • Prepositional Complementation Across Time and Space • Department of Language and Linguistic Science • University of Zurich
Describe your research to a kid or a grandmother.
I’m a historical linguist, with a focus on medieval English. This means I deal with texts that were written well before Shakespeare. More than texts and stories, I am interested in how the language of that time worked, and how it has changed over time. I look at changes in grammatical rules, or in specific patterns speakers used to express certain meanings.
If you had a car sticker or door poster, what would it say?
The Latin quote Sic transit gloria mundi (‘Thus passes the glory of the world’) – this sort of matter-of-fact, un-agitated approach to the transitory nature of life resonates well with me. I’ve actually got the phrase tattooed on my forearm, next to an image of a super-sweet and very pink, traditional Viennese pastry – a perfect combination of slightly gloomy and decadent, in my view.
Alternate career?
This is a pretty hard question – my field of study/research doesn’t really come with a clearly defined job profile, and sometimes it feels like the main reason I’m in academia is because I don’t know what else to do (which can be both bad or good, depending on the day!). I guess the most obvious option at this point would be some sort of teaching, editing or other research-related activity, but I think in a parallel universe, I’d maybe go for a career in visual arts (not much easier, to be fair).
Piece of advice to a newly-minted undergraduate student.
There’s two things I feel quite strongly about. First, I’m very much against studying as quickly and efficiently as possible, which is increasingly becoming the norm/ expectation/ requirement – I’d love for students to be able to take time to explore and engage with their studies beyond a superficial level. Second, I think we need to foster the idea in students that a career in academia should be sustainable and compatible with a healthy work-life balance, rather than maintaining the status quo.
What has your research taught you about the world around us?
In general, doing linguistics has made me more aware of the fact that language variation (for example, people using different regional dialects, or using informal ‘slang’) and language change is not something to frown upon or be upset by, but something super fascinating we can study! I’m also really interested in how language is connected to other human behaviours, like how we perceive and categorise objects and events in the world, as well as similarities between language change and other types of cultural (and even biological) change arising from collective behaviour, such as fashion trends, or stock market developments.