Chartered Institute
of Linguists

Postnominal letters

Postnominal letters, (also known as postnominal initials, postnominal titles or designatory letters), are letters placed after a person's name to indicate that that individual holds a position, academic degree, or other form of public accreditation.

  • CIOL members are able to request that postnominal letters to which they are entitled are added to their membership record. Common examples of these are: "BA (Hons)", "MA", "DPSI", "DipTrans", etc.
  • Postnominals are shown on the member's public profile available via the Member Check in addition to any Find-a-Linguist listings the member may have.
  • Postnominals that identify a professional grade of CIOL membership (ACIL, MCIL, FCIL) or Chartered Linguist registration (CL) are shown on a member's record automatically.

Adding postnominals to your membership record

If you have any postnominals that you would like adding to your membership record, please email the membership team with a decription of the qualification / position along with proof of entitlement, so this can be verified.

New postnominals? You may be eligible to upgrade your membership

You may have recently become entitled to new postnominal letters through the award of a qualification e.g. an academic degree (e.g. BA, MA, MSc) or one of our professional qualification (e.g. DPSI, DPI, DipTrans).

Such qualifications may entitle you to now upgrade your membership. If this is the case, the postnominal letters will be added to your membership record as part of the process.

My postnominals

CIOL members can check what postnominals are shown on their record via the Member Check or by logging into My CIOL.