Associate Professor in Language Acquisition

[Kelley Sacco]

Associate Professor in Language Acquisition


Job description:

The Institute of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark,
Odense, offers a 5 year research position (associate professor) at Center
for Child Language (Center for Børnesprog) for appointment as soon as
possible.

The research position is advertised in affiliation with the WHISPER-project
(the Widex Hearing Impaired Speech Research-Project) with the title "The
interaction between segmentation strategies and mental representations of
language sounds and language production in normal and hearing impaired
populations" financed by Widex A/S and University of Southern Denmark.
The general objective of the project is to investigate the early processing
of speech-sounds in normally hearing and hearing impaired children, paying
special attention to whether a reduced access to the auditory signal ­ with
the use of different types of amplification ­ implies a diverging
development of mental mechanisms and processes in relation to the processing
of sounds, representation of sounds and speech production as compared to the
development in hearing children. The research position will include
experimental investigation of the early phases of the acquisition of speech
in normally hearing and hearing impaired children, but with focus on the
latter group. The experimental work will be carried out at the new
experimental lab-facilities at the University of Southern Denmark (Odense
BabyLab).

The project-group comprises eight researchers of varying research-seniority
from University of Southern Denmark, as well as an external research
consultant. The collected professional research background of the group
spans linguistics, phonetics, speech pathology, psychology and statistics.
The cross-disciplinarity of the group is an important and emphasized
characteristic of the project. The project collaborates with the Oxford
BabyLab, The Department of Experimental Psychology at University of Oxford,
England. The project is based on extensive teamwork, and the position will
include participation in planning, coordination and supervision of the
various related projects.

The WHISPER-project is nested in the Center for Child Language and as such
is part of the Center¹s overall research programme. The Center has a
thriving research milieu, in which the selected applicant will take part.
The Center is active in both basic and applied research in children¹s
language acquisition.

Relevant educational prerequisites could be phonetics, psycho-linguistics,
psychology (preferably developmental or cognitive), or speech pathology.
Experience with and/or interest in working experimentally is required.
Experience with hearing impairment and language acquisition across different
modalities/languages is an advantage. The job does not necessarily require
basic Danish language skills prior to employment.

If the successful applicant has not documented teaching experience
corresponding to assistant professor level, the applicant will be engaged on
trial for the first 18 months.

Applicants can obtain further information concerning the project as well as
the position by contacting project-leader, Dorthe Bleses: email:
bleses at language.sdu.dk, tel: +45 6550 3346.