Department: Language Productivity Work Consortium (Dept. of Linguistics, Dept. of Experimental Psychology)
Web Address: https://www.languageproductivity.ugent.be

Level: PhD

Institution/Organization: Ghent University

Specialty Areas: Neurolinguistics; Psycholinguistics


Description:

We are currently seeking applicants for the following vacancy: one PhD-student (Ph.D) in psycholinguistics, for a four-year full-time contract starting on 1 January 2021.

How to apply?
The deadline for applications is 15 October 2020. Applications should be submitted to languageproductivityugent.be and should consist of:
- A detailed CV,
- Including degree grades and title of Master Thesis, and
- A letter of motivation in English.
- Please mention PhD 5 in the subject field.

For more information, contact: Robert Hartsuiker, robert.hartsuikerugent.be

Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed in the last week of October and will be notified of the search committee’s decision in early November.

Detailed Project Description:
You will be engaged as a Ph.D researcher in a project aimed at investigating the relationship between measures of productive (“novel”, “creative” or “unconventional”) use of grammatical constructions in linguistic corpora and processing of such constructions in real-time language comprehension. The project asks to what extent corpus-based productivity measures are predictive of processing difficulty and how adaptive the language comprehension system is when confronted with completely novel uses of a word in a construction. You will conduct experiments using eye-tracking in reading, focusing on a range of constructions in several languages. It is part of a broader interdisciplinary project on grammatical productivity. A more extensive project description is available upon request.

Minimal Requirements:
- MA in psychology or linguistics or related field
- Experience with empirical psycholinguistic research
- Advanced knowledge of data analysis
- English at C1 level
- Prepared to engage in good (open science) practices
- Prepared to function in an interdisciplinary team

Additional Assets:
- Experience with R, LME
- Experience with eye-tracking research
- Programming skill (especially Python)
- Knowledge of Dutch, Spanish, French, German, or Icelandic

Applications Deadline: 15-Oct-2020

Contact Information:
        Professor Peter Lauwers
        Peter.Lauwers@ugent.be