Doctoral Research Fellowship in Experimental Linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education

One Doctoral Research Fellowship (PhD) within Experimental Linguistics is available in the Department of Language and Culture at the University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway (UiT). The position is affiliated to the research group CASTLFish and is a part of the project on Modal Concepts and Compositionality: New Directions in Experimental Semantics funded by the Research Council of Norway. A description of the project can be found here:

https://gillianramchandblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/modalmadnessprop.pdf

The appointment is a fixed term position for a period of three years.

The purpose of the PhD Research Fellowship is research training leading to the successful completion of a doctoral dissertation to be defended publically. The candidate will be affiliated with the Faculty's organised research training, and the academic work must result in a doctoral thesis aiming to obtain the degree of PhD within the period of employment. Admission to a PhD programme is a prerequisite for employment, and the programme period starts on commencement of the position.

The successful candidate must meet the requirements for admission to the Faculty’s PhD program, cf. § 6 of UiT PhD regulations. Moreover, the applicant must prove English language proficiency equivalent to the standards of Norwegian Higher Education Entrance Qualification, see PhD Regulations UiT.

For more information, see also uit.no/hsl/phd.

For further information about the position (and the project), please contact:

• Professor Gillian Ramchand email: Gillian.Ramchand@uit.no or the
• Head of Department of Language and Culture Eystein Dahl, phone +47 77 64 42 90, email: Eystein.Dahl@uit.no

Affiliation

The position is affiliated with the Department of Language and Culture (ISK). The Department consists of 75 permanent employees, 10 adjunct professors, and approximately 30 PhD fellows. Additionally, the Department has approximately 35 temporary research and teaching positions. The Department’s core activates are research, teaching, and dissemination within linguistics, literature, art history, and media and documentation studies.

The Department has a very active and diverse research profile. It houses one of the world’s most excellent research communities in linguistics, with research groups within cognitive linguistics (CLEAR), Sami language technology (Giellatekno and Divvun), sociolinguistics (LAIDUA), language acquisition (LAVA), and theoretical linguistics (CASTL-FISH). The Department’s research communities within literature, art history, and media and documentation studies are nationally highly competitive, and are organised into research groups such as Health Art Society (HAS), Russian Space, WARGAME and ALMPUB.

ISK offers one-year programmes, as well as Bachelor and Master programmes within the following fields: General linguistics, literature, art history, media and documentation studies, English, Kven, Finnish, Norwegian, Russian, Sami, Spanish, and German. It also offers PhD education within cultural/literary studies, art history, media and documentation studies, and linguistics.

The appointed Doctoral Research Fellowship must have her/his daily workplace at the UiT, campus Tromsø.

The position’s field of research/research project

The PhD position is offered as part of a newly funded research project on experimental semantics investigating modal concepts and compositionality in English and Russian. The admitted candidate will be responsible for helping to devise, run and analyse experiments that test predictions of compositional semantic theories in the realm of modality. The dissertation research will have as its aim more generally to pioneer new methodologies for testing the processing implications of different types of meaning composition based on syntactic and morphological encoding. Prof. Gillian Ramchand (the PI for the project) will be one of the supervisors of the dissertation.

Qualification requirements

The position requires a Master`s degree in a language, linguistics or (experimental) psychology that builds on an bachelor’s degree (2 + 3 years or equivalent, e.g. 5 years Master’s degree). We also accept applications from Master’s students that have not yet completed their degree, granted that they can enclose with the application a Master’s thesis (of min. 30 ECTS).

The successful candidate should be fluent in English, and it will be considered an advantage although not a necessity, to be fluent in Russian.

For more information, see also: Supplementary regulations HSL.

Personal suitability will be emphasised.

Working conditions

The normal period of employment and the nominal length of the PhD programme is three years. A shorter period of appointment may be decided upon if the applicant has already completed parts of his/her research training programme or if the appointment is based on a previous qualifying position (PhD Candidate, research assistant, or the like) in such a way that the research training amounts to a total of three years.

Remuneration for the position of PhD Candidate is in accordance with the State salary scale code 1017. A compulsory contribution of 2 % to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund will be deducted.

Application

The application must be submitted electronically via the application form available on www.jobbnorge.no.

Applications by e-mail are not accepted.

The application must include the following attachments:

• letter of application
• Personal statement, including research aims and interests, and skills suitable for the project (‘motivation-letter’)
• CV (containing a complete overview of education, supervised professional training and professional work)
• diploma and transcript of records from Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• diploma and transcript of records from Master’s degree or equivalent
• diploma supplement for other completed degrees
• documentation of English language proficiency
• list of 2-3 academic referees, including contact details (name, relation to applicant, e-mail address and phone number). The list of works should contain the following information:
  • author(s), title of work
  • for articles: the name of the journal and volume, first and last page of the article, year of publication
  • for book or other independent publications: publisher, place of print, year of publication, number of pages
• Master`s Thesis
• other works (published or unpublished) which the applicant wishes to be taken into consideration during the assessment process and a description of these.

All documentation must be certified and translated into English or a Scandinavian language in order to be assessed.

Information and material to be considered during the assessment must be submitted within the stipulated deadline.

Assessment

The applicants will be assessed by an expert committee. During this assessment process, emphasis will be attached to the applicant’s potential for research as shown by:

• Master’s Thesis or equivalent
• other academic works.

In addition, consideration may be given to work experience or other activities of significance for the implementation of the PhD research. This includes teaching education, teaching experience, experience from popularisation and experience/education from other types of dissemination.

The best qualified applicants will be selected for interviews. The interview shall among other things aim to clarify the applicant’s personal suitability for the position.

Other information

Applicants shall also refer to the supplementary regulations concerning terms and conditions of employment for the position of postdoctor, research fellow and research assistant at UiT and the regulations concerning terms and conditions of employment for the position of postdoctor, research fellow and research assistant.

Questions concerning the organisation of the working environment, such as the physical state of the place of employment, health service, possibility for flexible working hours, part time, etc. as well as questions about the PhD programme may be directed to the telephone reference in this announcement.

UiT’s HR policy objectives emphasises diversity, and encourages all qualified applicants to apply regardless of gender, functional ability and national or ethnic background.

UiT is an IW (Inclusive Workplace) enterprise, and will make the necessary adaptations in order to facilitate for employees with reduced functional ability.

Personal data given in an application or CV will be processed in accordance with the Act relating to the processing of personal data (the Personal Data Act). In accordance with Section 25 subsection 2 of the Freedom of Information Act, the applicant may request not to be registered on the public list of applicants. However, the University may nevertheless decide to publish the applicant’s name. The applicant will receive advance notification in the event of such publication.

Apply for position

Søknadsfrist: 01.09.2018

Web: www.uit.no