Undergraduate student series: an interview with Casey O’Brien

Felicia Lee

Casey O’Brien is an undergraduate student majoring in Chinese and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. Casey is a polyglot who loves to learn new languages in her free time and is currently an active member of the university’s book club.  

Felicia spoke to Casey about her decision to switch her focus from studying politics to linguistics, her keen interest in language learning, and her plans after graduation.

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Hi Casey, thank you for taking the time to sit down with me. I understand that you were planning to major in politics but decided that linguistics is more your cup of tea. What sparked the change, I wonder?

Well to provide some background information about my decision to major in political and international studies, I’d have to talk about the time when I lived in Hong Kong. I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years, and I was really involved in person and online with political activism in Hong Kong. I did my final extended essay for high school on politics as well, so I was very much set that I would study it at university.

However, once I studied politics in an academically rigorous way at the university, I realised quite quickly that it’s not what I thought it would be. Nor what I wanted to spend the rest of my academic or professional career doing. Whilst I do enjoy it and it’s something I’m still passionate about, it’s definitely not something I could see myself sitting down and doing for the next three, four, or however many years down the line . I’m an opinionated and outspoken person when I really believe in something. But for me, I don’t think that translated well into engaging critically with academic literature on political theory.

Why did I decide to switch to linguistics then? Well, when I was in high school, I would spend a lot of my free time learning languages independently by watching videos online. It was just something I really, really enjoyed. The subjects I enjoyed most were always English and Chinese. I realised that not only am I interested in learning languages, but I find language on a whole, as a field of study fascinating. It’s a rather scientific subject. Although I wish I had gone with linguistics in the first place, I don’t regret starting out in politics. I can now say with certainty that it’s not what I want to do, and I know I’m at a place where I’m finally happy with what I’m studying.

It’s great to know that you’ve found your passion in languages and linguistics. So which field in linguistics do you think you enjoy most?

Though I’m nearing the end of my second year, I’ve only just started linguistics. The Secret Life of Language (SLL) is the first linguistics subject that I’ve taken. So, I feel like I’m still dipping my toes into all the different subfields of linguistics. Despite being challenging, phonology has been very interesting. I find the problem-solving aspect of the phonological analysis exercises enjoyable because it’s so satisfying once the solution finally clicks and you can work out a rule. Because of that, I’m considering going deeper into phonetics and phonology. So far there’s nothing from what we’ve been exposed to in SLL that I don’t like. I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of a lot of the subfields in linguistics, so I’m very keen to learn about everything in more depth in time to come.

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I agree that it’s very satisfying to have successfully solved a linguistics problem. You can speak many languages, such as English, Mandarin-Chinese, and Korean. You’ve also done a summer session in Latin. Why the love for learning languages?

I think that growing up in a country where English isn’t the only or most commonly spoken language certainly played a part in sparking my interest in language learning to begin with. I can’t say that I would have been able to learn Mandarin had my parents not decided to move to Hong Kong when I was young. Growing up, a lot of my classmates’ parents insisted that they place more emphasis on mathematics and the sciences. I’m lucky that my parents have always been supportive of my interest in language learning, and that they think it’s an equally important aspect of education.

As for Korean, I remember being bored in high school one day, and I happened upon a video on YouTube that taught you how to read and write the alphabet. The Korean alphabet is so straightforward because the words are almost always pronounced exactly the way they are spelled. After about fifteen minutes I was able to stumble my way through reading full sentences, despite having no clue what they meant. I thought it was a waste to be able to read without understanding anything at all, so I began studying here and there in my spare time. Now I’ve actually had the opportunity to study Korean formally here at UniMelb up until level four, which is the highest level offered.

Any plans to learn another language?

The logical next step would be Japanese. It has a lot of Chinese loanwords, so I already know many of the common Kanji thanks to Chinese. It also has a similar grammar structure to Korean. However, I feel I should probably branch out and do something completely different like a European language. I don’t have much experience with Indo-European languages other than English and brief stint with Latin in the summer intensive period.

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Indo-European languages can be a great addition to your linguistic repertoire, I guess. Now that you’ve decided to major in linguistics alongside Chinese, what are your plans after graduation?

At this time, I am mainly thinking of pursuing a master’s degree in speech pathology. Personally, I feel that this would be a really fulfilling career because I’d be able to make a positive impact on people’s lives. I have a cousin who struggles with a severe speech impediment, seeing the help that her speech pathologist has given her is inspiring. Everyone deserves the ability to communicate their thoughts and feelings so that they feel heard and understood. From my understanding, phonetics and phonology will be paramount should I choose to go down that route career-wise.

Another option I’m considering is to take up a master’s degree in translation and interpretation. I love to read and literary translation between Chinese and English would be a great way to share that passion and make great books more accessible to others. Otherwise, I may just go into freelance editing or copywriting.

These are just preliminary plans and very flexible ones at that. Nothing is completely set in stone because I’m not the kind of person to single-mindedly chase a specific career. Right now, I’m just focusing on what piques my interest and working to see what I can make of it.

Fair enough, and I guess it’s important to enjoy the journey and not just the destination.  Well, it’s been a great pleasure speaking with you, Casey. I hope that you enjoy the rest of your university life!

Thank you, Felicia.