LINGUIST List 12.725

Thu Mar 15 2001

Jobs: Child Lang Acquistion/Phonology/The Netherlands

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Rene Kager, Vacant PhD and Postdoc positions University of Nijmegen/University of Utrecht, Netherlands

ONE POSTDOCTORAL POSITION AND TWO PHD STUDENTSHIPS, NIJMEGEN/UTRECHT (THE
NETHERLANDS)

Applications are invited for the above positions, funded by a Dutch
Research Council (NWO) program grant. The program investigates the
acquisition of phonological representations in the lexicon and the role of
these representations in perception and production. It aims at tracking the
development of the phonology of voicing (including its morphological
alternations) in Dutch children ranging from infancy to the age of 5 years.
The research involves perception and production experiments, and analyses
of corpora of both children's speech and infant-directed speech. The
program includes three subprojects, each focusing on one developmental
stage. The senior researchers involved in the project are Rene Kager
(Utrecht) and Paula Fikkert, Anne Cutler and Daniel Swingley (Nijmegen). 

PROJECT I: a 3 year post-doc based at Nijmegen University, studying
phonotactic knowledge in Dutch infants. The emphasis will be on the
perception of voicing contrasts, word segmentation and the role of input in
acquiring phonotactics. Research will identify phonotactic regularities
concerning Dutch voicing which are available to infants, and will ascertain
how much of this information infants actually acquire and use for word
segmentation. The project involves (a) computational analyses of statistics
of voicing regularities in the child's input, and (b) perceptual
experiments with infants.

Applicants for this position must have a completed PhD and preferably have
given evidence of ability to publish research findings. The successful
candidate will have a background in an experimental discipline, such as
psycholinguistics, speech perception, language acquisition research, or
laboratory phonology. In addition, experience with child language research
(especially infant perception studies), experience with computational
analyses of corpora, and knowledge of the Dutch language would be useful
attributes. Salary: minimally NLG 5854 (monthly) and maximally NLG 8044,
depending on the successful candidate's qualifications.

PROJECT II: a 4-year position funding study towards a PhD at Nijmegen
University, investigating development of phonological contrasts in the
lexicon by Dutch children aged between 1 and 3 years. The project involves
perception and production experiments with young children, and acoustic and
phonological analyses of children's speech. 

PROJECT III: a 4-year position funding study towards a PhD at Utrecht
University, focussing on acquisition of morphophological alternations in
Dutch children of ages 2;6 until early school age. Methods will include
experimental elicitation of plurals, perception tests, and database research. 

Applicants for either of the two PhD positions must have native or
near-native competence in Dutch, and must have completed undergraduate
study in phonetics, phonology or psycholinguistics. Salary: minimally NLG
3055 (monthly) in the first year up to maximally NLG 4362 in the fourth year.

The closing date for applications is April 15, 2001. The starting date is
as soon as possible within 2001. Applicants should send a full CV (and in
the case of the postdoc position, supporting publications) and arrange for
two letters of reference to be sent to:

For projects I and II:
Dr. Paula Fikkert
Dutch Department
Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen
Postbus 9103
6500 HD Nijmegen
The Netherlands

Refer to vacaturenummer 04.50.01 (position I) or 04.50.02 (position II)

For project III:
Dhr. Toon van Fulpen
Faculteit der Letteren
Kromme Nieuwegracht 46
3512 HJ Utrecht
The Netherlands

Refer to vacaturenummer 68105

Further information from:
Rene Kager (kagerlet.uu.nl) or Paula Fikkert (p.fikkertlet.kun.nl)


Ren� Kager

Utrecht Institute of Linguistics/OTS
Trans 10
3512 JK Utrecht
The Netherlands

phone: +31-30-2538064
fax: +31-30-2536000

http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/~Rene.Kager/personal/