When everyone at high school was busy choosing majors for their university applications, I was daydreaming about becoming a lexicographer. I loved the idea of working with dictionaries, especially English dictionaries. As the lingua franca and the language of the academic world, it was English that opened so many doors for me, liberated me, and above all, quenched my thirst for knowledge. But mastering a tool is completely different from having it as the subject of your research. I then had grown so fond of the language that I wished to study it. But as a non-native speaker, how could I make it happen? That is not to mention that linguistics and lexicography were not taught as majors at the best university in my region. Time went by, and I forgot about the little crazy dream I had.
I have a bachelor’s degree in English Studies from Can Tho University in Vietnam, a master’s degree in Linguistics from Purdue University in the USA, and now, I am pursuing a PhD in Digital Humanities at the University of Sheffield in the UK. The name of the degree may fail to capture what I really study, but what I can say is that I’m inching towards what I aspire to explore. Last spring, I even interviewed for the position of a linguistic data manager at Cambridge Dictionary. Somehow, I could complete almost all the data challenges. The once baseless dream has now been less baseless.
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Every morning, I wake up with a burst of excitement. “Now, what will I explore today?”
My ideal on-campus workday looks like this:
6.30: wake up, self-care
7.00: morning stretch, Good Morning Britain, breakfast
8.00: get dressed, walk to the Diamond (a library building with beautiful views up from the hill)
9.00: arrive at the Diamond, morning work session – administrative work
10.00: short break – coffee or tea and pastry
11.00: morning work session (cont.)
12.00: lunch at a nearby café
13.00: afternoon work session
15.00: snack time, short break
15.30: afternoon work session (cont.)
17.00: back home, cook dinner, YouTube
18.00: dinner, washing up
19.00 onwards: self-care and hobby time, ranging from reading, puzzles, journaling to sketching and cooking some sophisticated Vietnamese dish
So, this is a text version of a “Day in the life of a PhD student in Digital Humanities” vlog. As I am not required to take any semester-long courses unless I feel utterly necessary and so do my supervisors, I try to build some structure into my schedule. It is not an easy task, and I must admit that sometimes I fail miserably. These days, I have my bullet journal to hold me accountable. Doing a PhD is more like a marathon than a sprint. No visible progress happens overnight.
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My job is to make linguistic data speak to me. Not literally, though. Not in the way ChatGPT devours your PDF file and spits out words of “wisdom”. I use corpus linguistics and computational linguistics as methods to achieve a goal: to automatically create what I coin a catalogue of zeitgeists, or historically significant concepts across time, from a large collection of texts in a universe of discourse of Early Modern English. This work is to be built upon findings from the Linguistic DNA team, in which the Digital Humanities Institute at the University of Sheffield plays the key role.
Where do lexical items acquire their senses? Of course, they can’t come from thin air. It is a discourse, or a system of communication or knowledge, that sets the scene and gives rise to semantic changes to frequently participating lexical items. By extracting quads, or four lemmas that are strongly associated within a 100-token span around a node word and applying pragmatic routines and encyclopaedic knowledge in the later stages, researchers are able to identify discursive concepts, which cannot be captured by one lexical item or phrasal structure, or even adjacent collocational structures.
Being part of this CASCADE Marie Skłodowska-Curie doctoral network means that I have everything already set up, which I never take for granted: leading researchers with diverse backgrounds and expertise as supervisors, a series of well-organized training camps and workshops across Europe, two academic partners that will host me for my secondments (i.e., a fancy way to call an internship), and a cohort of 10 doctoral researchers with such interesting, groundbreaking projects. We will enjoy mobility, exchange ideas, collaborate, and together, build something grander towards a better understanding of semantic change. I hope to be able to report on our progress very soon.
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My January personal project is a home project. I have set up my reading nook, which is very comfortable and cozy. I am now completing a jigsaw puzzle illustrating one of my favorite nursery rhymes, Humpty Dumpty, because I am sure it will look perfect on my wall, alongside some acrylic paintings (I paint also). I don’t like the colour of the paint in my room – too cold, too un-homely. Setting up and maintaining a living space in such a way that I love is of utmost importance because I also work from home and as a researcher, I need to unwind after stressful hours digging up data.
Long story short: Vạn sự khởi đầu nan (all beginnings are tough), yet I’m sure it will be a very fun journey.
Penelope Gia Bao Huu Nguyen – CASCADE doctoral student at the University of Sheffield