My career falls into two distinct periods. The first two decades featured insecurity combined with the luck of wandering into situations that ultimately helped me become a better linguist and a better teacher. I had the insecurity mostly under control by the watershed year of 1988, when I published a favorably reviewed coauthored book on language contact and also became editor of Language. Language contact has occupied most of my research time since then, but my first encounter with Séliš-Ql'ispé (a.k.a. Montana Salish), in 1981, led to a 40-year dedication to finding out more about the language and its history.

中文翻译：

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我是怎么到这里的，我下一步要去哪里

我的职业生涯分为两个不同的时期。最初的二十年充满了不安全感，再加上幸运地徘徊在最终帮助我成为更好的语言学家和更好的老师的情境中。到 1988 年的分水岭，我的不安全感基本得到控制，当时我出版了一本受到好评的关于语言接触的合着书，并成为了语言的编辑。从那时起，语言接触占据了我大部分的研究时间，但我在 1981 年与 Séliš-Ql'ispé（又名蒙大拿萨利什）的第一次相遇，导致我花了 40 年的时间致力于更多地了解该语言及其历史。