Beca postdoctoral a la Universitat de Colònia
University or Organization: University of Cologne
Department: Institute of Romance Studies
Job Location: Cologne, Germany
Web Address: http://www.sfb1252.uni-koeln.de
Job Title: Postdoc on corpus-based research on syntax and information structure
Specialty Areas: Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics; information structure
Required Language(s): Catalan-Valencian-Balear (cat) / French (fra) / Persian, Iranian (pes) / Spanish (spa)
Description:
The Institute of Romance Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Cologne is looking to fill a position as Postdoc in the Collaborative Research Centre: SFB 1252 "Prominence in Language" in subproject C01 "Prominence and information structure" (Principal Investigator: Professor Aria Adli).
Starting is December 1st, 2017 with a weekly working time of 39,83 hours. The position is a fixed- term work contract ending on 31st of December 2020. The salary is based on the German E13 TV-L scale if terms and conditions under collective bargaining law are fulfilled.
Area of responsibility:
The focus of this research project is the linkage between prominence and information structure through examining the following:
- the role of prominent syntactic positions in non-canonical word order,
- the competition between various prominent topic candidates in canonical word order.
The postdoc supports the PI with regard to project coordination and works on the following scientific issues:
- She/he will examine non-canonical word order phenomena (primarily the sentence periphery and postverbal subjects in Spanish, Catalan and possibly Persian, clefts and others in French).
- She/he will explore possibilities of modelling syntactic prominence and information structure (e.g. rule based vs. probabilistic). These are to be discussed in relation to relevant current literature on the linkage between syntax and information structure.
- She/he will refine the annotation structure for the multilingual corpus of spoken language sgscorpus.com (with regard to prominent syntactic positions, information structure, definiteness/specificity, etc.).
Profile:
- A flawless command of spoken and written English and a high level of proficiency in French and/or Spanish as well as sufficient structural knowledge to perform analytical and corpus-based work in at least one of the other languages examined in the project (i.e. French, Spanish, Catalan, Persian). Knowledge of German is a plus, candidates without knowledge of German should be willing to gain proficiency within a realistic timeframe.
- She/he is able to coordinate day-to-day business with the PI to ensure that project goals and deadlines are met. For this purpose, she/he will implement a time and task management scheme that incorporates the differing areas of work and coordinates all employed personnel. Good communication skills and the ability to work well in a team are required.
- She/he is capable of working with superior efficiency due to her/his result-oriented and well- organized work approach and can proficiently access new fields of study.
Job prerequisites:
- Ph.D. in linguistics
- International research experience in the field of syntax, information structure and at the interface with related fields of linguistics, as documented via publications
- Sound knowledge of corpus linguistics (annotation, corpus queries) and quantitative analysis of corpus data
Applications should include a statement of interest (letter of motivation, addressed to Professor Aria Adli), a CV including a list of publications, a copy of the most important publications (max. 5), a copy of the relevant degrees/certificates, the names and addresses of two referees.
Applications should be sent to the application email below in a single PDF file with the subject "Postdoc C01". The application deadline is 24th September 2017. Interviews are scheduled during the second week of October 2017.
Application Deadline: 24-Sep-2017
Email Address for Applications: adli-applications@uni-koeln.de
Contact Information:
Professor Aria Adli
Email: aria.adli@uni-koeln.de