LINGUIST List 30.2693
Tue Jul 09 2019
Support: Spanish; Computational Linguistics: PhD, Ghent University, Belgium
Editor for this issue: Becca Morris <beccalinguistlist.org>
Date: 09-Jul-2019
From: Miriam Bouzouita <miriam.bouzouitaugent.be>
Subject: Spanish; Computational Linguistics: PhD, Ghent University, Belgium
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Institution/Organization: Ghent University
Department: Translation, Interpreting and Communication
Web Address: http://www.ugent.be
Level: PhD
Duties: Project Work
Specialty Areas: Computational Linguistics
Dialectology
Required Language(s): Spanish (spa)
Description:
In the context of a research infrastructure project, a scholarship is offered
for a PhD student in the LT3 Language and Translation Technology Team at the
Ghent University. The successful applicant will participate in a
multidisciplinary research collaboration between UGent (ΔiaLing-LT3) and
UHasselt (Expertise Centre for Digital Media). The PhD research topic is part
of a Hercules project (see description below) and focuses on the extension of
Natural Language Processing tools for application in the domain of Spanish
dialectology.
The successful candidate is appointed for two years. Further funding will be
sought for the remainder of the PhD project. The starting date is as soon as
possible.
Description of the project:
The study of dialectal microvariation of Spanish spoken in Spain has until
recently mainly focused on lexical and phonetic features. The morphosyntax of
these dialects, on the contrary, remains largely unexplored, despite the
recent surge in interest in dialect grammars. This is due to the lack of large
annotated dialectal corpora. This project aims to fill this lacuna and will
create the first morphosyntactically annotated and parsed corpus of the
European Spanish dialects. This dialect corpus will be designed in a
geographically balanced way and its material will proceed from the COSER
corpus (Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Rural 'Audible Corpus of Spoken Rural
Spanish'; www.corpusrural.es), the largest collection of oral data in the
Spanish-speaking world. As transcribing and annotating are expensive and
labour-intensive, this project takes a collaborative game-based approach to
building the parsed corpus of European Spanish dialects. In other words, a
crowdsourced game will be built through which members of the public contribute
to the co-creation of the parsed corpus by providing annotations in the
context of a game.
Requirements:
- Master’s degree in a relevant field (Computational Linguistics, Computer
Science or Hispanic Linguistics)
- Strong interest in language and speech technology
- Interested in research and having the intention to obtain a PhD degree
- Fluent /(near) native in Spanish and English
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills
- Eager to acquire new competences and knowledge
- Preferably knowledge of programming languages (e.g. Python, Java)
- The candidate should be able to work independently as well as in a
multidisciplinary team, and will be guided by advisors with a computer
science/computational linguistics background (UGent-UHasselt) and with a
background in dialectology (UGent).
How to apply:
The application in English should include:
- A motivation letter, summarizing the candidate’s background and
capabilities, and describing his/her motivation for this position
- Attested copies of education certificates, and a list of master courses with
the grades obtained
- An extensive CV
- Contact information (e-mail) of potential referees
Applications are to be sent by e-mail to Prof. Dr Veronique Hoste
(Veronique.Hoste
UGent.be) and Prof. Dr Miriam Bouzouita (Miriam.Bouzouita
UGent.be). Application deadline:
August 15th, 2019. Those who have applied previously do not need to resubmit
their application.
Contact for more information:
Miriam.Bouzouita
UGent.be Application Deadline: 15-Aug-2019
Email Address for Applications: Veronique.Hoste
UGent.be, Miriam.BouzouitaUGent.be Contact Information:
Prof. Dr Miriam Bouzouita
miriam.bouzouita
ugent.be
Page Updated: 09-Jul-2019