Description
Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in etymology, historical linguistics, and lexicography; research word origins and language change; publish scholarship; and advise students. Includes positions combining teaching, research, and service.
- • Initiate, facilitate, and moderate discussions on word histories and language change.
- • Prepare and deliver lectures on historical linguistics, semantic shift, morphological change, and comparative reconstruction.
- • Prepare syllabi, assignments, handouts, and digital resources tailored to etymology courses.
- • Evaluate and grade students' work, projects, and exams.
- • Compile, administer, and grade examinations or oversee TAs who do so.
- • Maintain attendance, grades, and other required records.
- • Plan, assess, and revise curricula and course content in etymology and related fields.
- • Maintain office hours to advise and assist students.
- • Keep current with research in etymology, philology, corpus linguistics, and lexicography.
- • Select and obtain textbooks, dictionaries, corpora, and other reference materials.
- • Advise students on programs, research pathways, and careers in lexicography, publishing, NLP, or academia.
- • Conduct original research on word origins, borrowing, and language contact using corpora and archival sources.
- • Publish findings in journals, edited volumes, dictionaries, or digital repositories.
- • Collaborate with colleagues across linguistics, classics, medieval studies, and digital humanities.
- • Serve on departmental and university committees.
- • Participate in recruitment, registration, and student placement activities.
- • Compile bibliographies and reading lists of etymological and philological sources.
- • Supervise student research, internships, corpus annotation, and teaching work.
- • Consult with campus writing and tutoring centers on usage notes and language history.
- • Perform administrative duties and, when needed, serve as program or department head.
- • Advise linguistics or language clubs and student organizations.
- • Write grant proposals to support dictionary projects, digitization, or corpus development.
- • Provide consulting to publishers, media, legal teams, or tech firms on word histories and naming.
- • Offer extra help to students outside class and mentor independent studies.
- • Conduct or support fieldwork, archival visits, or study-abroad activities relevant to language history.
- • Contribute etymological entries or revisions to dictionaries and encyclopedias for scholarly or public audiences.
- • Recruit, train, and supervise research assistants, corpus annotators, and teaching assistants.
- • Conduct performance evaluations for supervised staff and students.
- • Teach and mentor using online and hybrid technologies and digital corpora tools.
- • Teach service courses in language history or introductory linguistics as needed.
- • Schedule courses and coordinate room and technology needs.
- • Write letters of recommendation for students and collaborators.
- • Review manuscripts, dictionary entries, or grant proposals for professional outlets.
- • Engage in community outreach, public talks, or media commentary on word origins.
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This site includes information from O*NET by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. Career Clutch has modified some of this information for student readability. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Last reviewed: Jan 2026
