Language Research

“My raw material is language,” says linguist Fabienne Tissot. She works for Sensor Advice, a company in Zurich that advises clients on political, communications and organizational management, where she’s responsible for areas including dialogue and discourse analysis. For example, she moderates stakeholder dialogues and focus group discussions on behalf of foundations, companies and interest groups, and develops campaigns and communications strategies based on a linguistic analysis of these discussions. “I have to constantly work on applying a scientific analysis of language in such a way that it has practical relevance in a business or communication management setting.” The key question is what value the data adds and how this can be clearly communicated. Tissot, who studied German studies, film studies and history at UZH, has always been interested in knowledge transfer and the impact of research results. After her licentiate degree, she first had a job as an assistant at the ZHAW School of Applied Linguistics that involved research, organizing research and teaching. “I really liked the fact that I had such a practical, interdisciplinary role at the university of applied sciences.” When it came to her PhD, Tissot was once again drawn to basic research in conversation analysis. “I prefer to work to a clear brief and deadline,” she explains. In 2016, she joined Sensor Advice. Here she make the best of her skills and help resolve current problems in society: “In June, for example, Sensor Advice and foraus, the Swiss foreign policy think tank, invited 50 prestigious stakeholders with senior roles in politics, administration, science and civil society to discuss pressing issues around the governance of health data.”

Alice Werner