Ref. nr.: 2018/1669

One Post-doctoral Research Fellowship within Linguistics (Cognitive Linguistics: Empirical Approaches to Russian) is available in the Department of Language and Culture at the University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway (UiT). The position is affiliated with the CLEAR research group, Cognitive Linguistics: Empirical Approaches to Russian.

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

The Post-doctoral Research Fellowship aims to qualify the researcher for work in senior academic positions. A candidate may not be appointed to more than one fixed term position as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the same institution.

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

• Professor Laura A. Janda, email: laura.janda@uit.no or
• Head of Department 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 25 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), socio-linguistics (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, and WARGAME.

ISK offers one-year programme education, Bachelor, and Master programmes within general linguistics, literature, art history, media and documentation studies, English, French, 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.

CLEAR is an active and productive research group, currently consisting of 6 researchers, including two professors, one associate professor, one postdoc, and two PhD students. The group members are involved in a number of research projects both locally and internationally. For further information about the group’s work and activities, see the website of the CLEAR research group:

https://en.uit.no/forskning/forskningsgrupper/gruppe?p_document_id=344365.

The appointed Post-doctoral Research Fellow must have her/his daily workplace at the UiT, campus Tromsø.

The position’s field of research/research project and other duties

This position is connected to the In and Out of Context project at UiT. This position will use corpus data, experiments, and machine learning to ferret out and model the way that native speakers use context to select aspect. This will begin with deep analysis of a series of contexts that have been established in an experiment carried out in the CLEAR group that has normed the reactions of native speakers to the choice of aspect in authentic contexts. The ultimate goal is to derive new knowledge that can be implemented in research-based teaching materials, such as the Russian Constructicon and the Strategic Mastery of Russian Word Forms Tool (SMARTool). This position will focus primarily on verbs and their aspect in Russian grammatical constructions and how these can be represented in the Russian Constructicon and the SMARTool.

Applicants for the advertised Post-doctoral position should propose a research project that will contribute to the In and Out of Context project, as well as the development of the Constructicon and SMARTool. The project proposal should be 5-10 pages.

Qualification requirements

The position as Post-doctoral Research Fellow requires a Norwegian doctoral degree in Russian Linguistics or another relevant field or a corresponding foreign doctoral degree recognised as equivalent to a Norwegian doctoral degree. Native or near-native proficiency in Russian is a requirement, as well as academic proficiency in English. Priority will be given to candidates with background and/or publications in cognitive linguistics and/or proficiency in computational linguistics.

The applicant must provide a project proposal with a progress plan for the project’s main activities. It is a prerequisite that the applicant will be able to complete the project within the period of employment.

In the assessment, the main emphasis will be attached to the submitted works and the project proposal for the qualifying work. Emphasis shall also be attached to experience from popularization/dissemination and academic policy and administrative activity.

Personal suitability will be emphasised.

Working conditions

The working hours are reserved for research, research related activities and research administration.

The successful candidate must be willing to engage him/herself in the ongoing development of their discipline and the university as a whole.

The remuneration for this position is in accordance with the State salary scale code 1352.

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 and shall include:

• letter of application
• project description
• CV (containing a complete overview of education, supervised professional training and professional work)
• diplomas and references
• list of works and description of these. The list of works shall contain the following information:
  • author(s), the work’s title
  • for articles: the journal’s name and volume, the first and last page of the article, year of publication
  • for publications: publisher, printer, year of publication, number of pages
• up to ten works that are central to the applicant’s academic production. The applicant’s PhD thesis should be submitted as one of these works.

Additionally, the applicant should provide a description of his/her academic production, indicating which works are the most relevant in relation to the announced position, and therefore should be emphasised in the assessment. The remaining listed works should be described briefly in order to demonstrate the depth of the production. The descriptions should be attached to the application.

Assessment

The applicants will be assessed by an expert committee. It is the committee’s mandate to assess the applicants’ qualifications based on their submitted works and the job announcement.

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. The applicants may be required to give a trial lecture.

Other information

UiT The University of Norway wishes to increase the proportion of women in research positions.

In the event that two or more applicants are found to be approximately equally qualified, female applicants will be given priority.

For further information, applicants should consult the supplementary regulations for appointment to postdoktor (postdoctoal Research Fellow), stipendiat (PhD) and vitenskapelige assistent (Research Assistant) positions at the UiT and the http://www.uhr.no/documents/Regulations_Post_doctoral_and_research_fellow.pdf

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. 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

Deadline: 1. october 2018

Web: www.uit.no

Kontakt: Professor Laura A. Janda

E-post: laura.janda@uit.no

Kontakt 2: Eystein Dahl (Head of Department)

Telefon: +47 77 64 42 90

E-post: eystein.dahl@uit.no