When you start thinking about language jobs, professions like teachers and translators often spring to mind. But what about linguist analysts? This job title is practically unheard of, leaving many people wondering what do they actually do? And how can they help international organizations? So this week, let’s answer these questions.
What are linguist analysts?
If you’re referring to government work, linguist analysts listen to foreign communications using special software/devices and analyze what they hear. It’s an intelligence role, so security clearance is often required before onboarding a linguist.
Then, you have linguist analysts who work for civilian companies. They will usually do a number of tasks which include analyzing current linguistic outputs and making sure they’re up to quality standards.
Where do they work?
If you’re looking at government roles, they work with bodies like the FBI and help them to protect the USA from a number of threats, both domestic and international. They work on cases that include corruption, cybercrime, espionage, and other types of felonies. What they’ll do is translate written materials, interpret for foreign dignitaries, and even provide cultural insights relating to matters the FBI (or other bodies) is dealing with.
How can they help international enterprises?
Stepping away from what linguist analysts do in government roles, there are a number of ways they can help enterprises, too. Companies like Netflix hire linguists to watch their TV programs to make sure that the final version is perfect before it goes to viewers. Working as testers, they can help add an extra layer to your linguistic quality assurance procedures to ensure that nothing slips through the gaps.
How we can help
At PGLS, we can help provide linguist analysts no matter the need. If you’d like to find out more about what we do, please get in touch and we’ll be more than happy to talk you through.
