PhD Studentship
Radboud University Nijmegen Faculteit der Letteren


The European project Acoustic reduction in European languages investigates how speakers and listeners process acoustically reduced words, such as the pronunciation "yesay" for "yesterday" and "onry" for ordinary", in five European languages (Dutch, English, French, Spanish, and Estonian or Finnish). Essential to this research program are corpora of highly spontaneous speech, which exist for English and Dutch, but which will have to be compiled for French, Spanish, and Estonian or Finnish in the course of this project. Complementary to corpus based research, the processing of acoustic reduction will be addressed by means of psycholinguistic experiments. The project has as its principal investigator Dr M. Ernestus. It is funded by a European Young Investigator award, as well as by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and by the Radboud University. The research group is located in the building of the Max Planck Institute, on the campus of the Radboud University, in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. This location guarantees a stimulating research environment with excellent experimental facilities. It offers researchers the possibility to develop interdisciplinary skills and to discuss their work with many internationally renowned scholars. The project is now offering a position for a PhD-student who will investigate acoustic reduction in Estonian or Finnish. The PhD-student will explore which types of reduction occur in this language, and how the production and comprehension of reduced words are affected by the morphological and phonological properties of this language. The PhD student will collaborate closely with the principal investigator. In addition, the PhD-student will be supported in his/her research (including the compilation of the speech corpus) by a team of research assistants.

Required education/skills:University Graduate
Applicants should be (near-)native in Estonian or Finnish and also be fluent in English. They should have a master's degree in linguistics or phonetics, or receive one within a few months. Moreover, applicants should have a basic knowledge of the phonology, phonetics, and morphology of Estonian or Finnish. The successful candidate will receive a contract for three and a half years at the Radboud University Nijmegen (www.ru.nl), under the conditions for PhD-students at this university.
Job type: Research / Advising
Workfield(s):
- Teaching & Research(Scientific discipline: Language & Culture)

Organization
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Radboud University Nijmegen
Faculteit der Letteren
Strategically located in Europe, Radboud University Nijmegen is one of the leading academic communities in the Netherlands. A place with a personal touch, where top-flight education and research take place on a beautiful green campus in modern buildings with state-of-art facilities.



The PhD students will be assigned to the function profile Promovendus (ufo-system).


Or additional information can be obtained through one of the following links:
About the organization (http://www.ru.nl)
About the department (http://www.ru.nl)
About the function (http://www.ru.nl)
Radboud University Nijmegen (http://www.ru.nl)


Faculteit der Letteren
Radboud University Nijmegen, Faculty of Arts,
P.O. Box 310, NL-6500 AH Nijmegen

E-mail: mirjam.ernestus@mpi.nl