Post-Doctoral Fellow Researcher: Towards an improved theory of language change

Post-Doctoral Fellow Researcher

New Zealand Institute of Language Brain and Behaviour (NZILBB
College of Arts
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

• Full-time at 37.5 hours per week (1.0 FTE)
• Fixed-term position (2.5 years)

Towards an improved theory of language change: understanding the covariation of linguistic variables within and across speakers

NZILBB is seeking a Post-Doctoral Fellow to join the team of researchers working on a new project funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund, “Towards an improved theory of language change: understanding the covariation of linguistic variables within and across speakers”. Using large scale corpora (e.g. the Origins of New Zealand English corpus [ONZE), the project seeks to answers questions such as: (1) How do linguistic variables covary between speakers? That is, do individuals who constitute a community use a coherent set of linguistic variables? In cases of language change, can a speaker simultaneously lead the way in one sound change, but lag in another - or do leaders of sound change tend to lead the way for all variables simultaneously? (2) How do linguistic variables covary within speakers? Speakers vary in their realisation of linguistic variables across topics and speech styles, among other things. Work in this area has concentrated on understanding the social meaning that a particular pronunciation of a single variable might construct. When we examine variables in combination, we hypothesize that we will find that they covary across the course of a conversation, with clusters of variables showing extreme values at certain times. Finally (3) How do individuals vary with respect to their wider community? To what extent can individual heterogeneity in apparent group-level patterning be explained?

Applications are invited from researchers with expertise in sociophonetics and quantitative approaches to language change.

The successful applicant will have a PhD in linguistics, and expertise in quantitative variationist sociolinguistics/sociphonetics. Applicants with strong technical skills (e.g. statistical analysis in R, Praat analysis including scripting, programming, corpus analysis) will be at an advantage.

The Postdoctoral Fellow will be employed by the New Zealand Institute of Language Brain and Behaviour, at the University of Canterbury, and will work primarily with Dr Kevin Watson, Professor Jen Hay and Dr Lynn Clark.

The University of Canterbury is committed to promoting a world-class learning environment through research and teaching excellence, and has a vision statement of "People Prepared to Make a Difference". You will have the opportunity to work alongside members of a diverse academic community and enrich your own professional and personal development.

For information about the range of benefits in joining UC please visit us online at: http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/joinus

The closing date for this position is: Sunday, 1st July 2018 (midnight NZ time)

Applications for this position should include a cover letter, resume and any additional attachments combined into one document and submitted online here - http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/joinus

Further information about this role can be obtained by contacting Emma Parnell, [email protected]

The University of Canterbury is an EEO employer and actively seeks to meet its obligation under the Treaty of Waitangi.