[Fwd: PhD scholarships in grammatical description based at RCLT]

[Claire Bowern]

[forwarded to histling on behalf of the original sender - CB]



PhD scholarships in grammatical description

The Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University in 
Melbourne, Australia, invites applications from suitably qualified 
students to enter the PhD program.

Our PhD candidates generally undertake extensive fieldwork on a 
previously undescribed (or scarcely described) language and write a 
comprehensive grammar of it for their dissertation. They are expected to 
work on a language which is still actively spoken, and to establish a 
field situation within a community in which it is the first language. 
They normally undertake a first fieldtrip of nine to twelve months and, 
towards the end of their course, a follow-up fieldtrip of two to three 
months. Fieldwork methodology should be centred on the collection, 
transcription and analysis of texts, together with participant 
observation, and - at a later stage - judicious grammatical elicitation 
in the language under description (not through the lingua franca of the 
country). Our main priority areas are the languages of Amazonia and the 
Papuan and Austronesian languages of New Guinea. However, we do not 
exclude applicants who have an established interest in languages from 
other areas.

PhDs in Australian universities generally involve no coursework, just a 
substantial dissertation. Candidates must thus have had a thorough 
coursework training before embarking on this PhD program.  This should 
have included courses on morphology, syntax, semantics, 
phonology/phonetics and comparative-historical linguistics, taught from 
a non-formalist perspective.. We place emphasis on work that has a sound 
empirical basis but also shows a firm theoretical orientation (in terms 
of general typological theory, or what has recently come to be called 
basic linguistic theory).

The Research Centre for Linguistic Typology consists, at any one time, 
of about twenty scholars, working on a variety of languages and 
typological issues.  Besides the permanent staff of Professor R M W 
Dixon (Director) and Professor Alexandra Y Aikhenvald (Associate 
Director) we have an array of Research Fellows and PhD students; each 
year a number of senior scholars from across the world spend from three 
to six months with us as Visiting Fellows. Over the past decade the 
Research Centre has included specialists on languages from the following 
families or areas: Tsimshian, Algonquian, Athabaskan, Mayan, 
Oto-Manguean, Eskimo-Aleut, Chukchee, Arawak, Carib, Arawá, Chibchan, 
Jê, Panoan, Jívaro, Tacanan, Zapotec, Indo-European, Dravidian, Turkic, 
Uralic, Niger-Congo, Afro-asiatic, Khoisan, Tai-Kadai, Sinitic, 
Tibeto-Burman, Austro-asiatic, Papuan, Austronesian and Australian.
There is also an excellent Department of Linguistics in the Faculty of 
Humanities and Social Sciences at La Trobe University headed by 
Professor Randy LaPolla. And there are fine Departments of Linguistics 
at the University of Melbourne and at Monash University.

The scholarship will be at the standard La Trobe University rate, 
Australian $19.231 p.a.  Students coming from overseas are liable for a 
visa fee (effectively, a tuition fee); we will pay this. A small 
relocation allowance may be provided on taking up the scholarship. In 
addition, an appropriate allowance will be made to cover fieldwork 
expenses. The scholarship is for three years.

Further information about RCLT is at our website: 
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt.
See, in particular, our February 2007 Newsletter, available on this web 
site.

Prospective applicants are invited to get in touch with Professor 
Aikhenvald at a.aikhenvald at latrobe.edu.au, providing details of their 
background, qualifications and interests.

Professor Alexandra Y Aikhenvald
Associate Director
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
La Trobe University
Victoria   3086
AUSTRALIA
Tel: 61 3 9479 6402
Fax: 61 3 9467 3053
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/StaffPages/aikhenvald.htm

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