While finishing his own degree in American civilization at Harvard in 1999 (another difficult job year), he helped organize a protest at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association, an organization of scholars and professors of language and literature.
"Students thinking of going to graduate school in English should understand that right now their chance of landing a job that provides them a livable wage is 50-60 percent," said Rosemary Feal, executive director of the M.L.A., the world's largest association of scholars and professors of language and literature.
Her mother retired as a professor of language at Columbia University.
SAM ABRAMS Rochester The writer is a professor of language and literature at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Terry Lamb, professor of language and pedagogy at Sheffield University, said qualifications were "crucial".
Jordan-Young's call is echoed in the UK by Deborah Cameron, an Oxford professor of language and communication.
Deborah Cameron, professor of language and communication at Oxford University and author of The Myth of Mars and Venus, suggests that women's experiences at Oxford contribute to the gap.
He is, after all, a professor of language evolution – "possibly the only one in the world," he says, without a hint of arrogance.
Lo Bianco, the man who wrote Australia's first national language policy in 1987, now professor of language and literacy education at the University of Melbourne, has called for an urgent "revitalisation" of the nation's language policy and teaching practices.
"Kids are using sound and images so they have a world of ideas to put together that aren't necessarily language oriented," said Donna E. Alvermann, a professor of language and literacy education at the University of Georgia.
"Greengrocers might do it out of ignorance, but it is also being used intentionally to draw attention to what you are selling," Jean Aitchison, the Rupert Murdoch professor of language and communication at Oxford University, told The Telegraph.
