Biography
The decision to go to Eastern Michigan University was an easy choice for Robert Beltz. A cousin of his had already attended EMU, and the surrounding community only enhanced his vision of a rewarding collegiate environment. And of course, “The fact that The LINGUIST List is based at EMU was also a huge draw.”
The Linguistics MA fondly recalls his experiences at EMU. He regards the faculty as friends and loved the diversity of the student population that brought a wide range of new perspectives and ideas to the program.
The personalized touch offered in the Linguistics program allowed Beltz to feel comfortable enough to explore new ways of looking at language. “Bottom line, everyone’s teaching, everyone’s learning, and everyone’s having a great time doing it.”
EMU’s Linguistics program offers students the opportunity to explore their interests through hands-on experience. While at Eastern, Beltz traveled to South Africa to collect Zulu language data for his thesis, Zulu Morphosyntax and the Structure of AUX. Already interested in the Bantu languages, this experience deepened his passion. He is already planning another trip to Zambia and will attempt to apply his theory of concordance and agreement in Zulu to other Bantu languages.
He has found that his interest in research, intensified by his experience at EMU, easily transfers from environment to environment, which he currently applies to his job of teaching children. Eventually, Beltz plans to get his PhD and teach theoretical linguistics at the university level.
Beltz advises future students interested in pursing linguistics to think about why they want to be a linguist. “If you love language, if you find yourself analyzing the speech of others because it contradicts your intuitions, than you are already a linguist and should go for it.” Another important part of being a linguist is the ability to critically evaluate data. “I would add too, that it is important to think critically about what you read and look for exceptions to rules. You can’t assume that a theory is true based on one linguist’s findings.”
-- Venus Gregory
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