[Corpora-List] Postdoc and PhD positions in computational humanities/linguistics

[Bod, Rens]

Starting in the fall of 2011, the Computational Humanities programme of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences has the following two vacancies at the Huygens ING institute:

(1) Postdoc High-level Pattern Recognition with U-DOP
34.2 hours a week (0.9 fte)

The Postdoc will be part of the research project The Riddle of Literary
Quality, led by Huygens ING in cooperation with the Fryske Akademy and
the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) of the
University of Amsterdam.
Literary quality is one of the most fascinating issues in Literary
Studies. Scholars have found that social and cultural factors play an
important role in the acceptance of a fictional work as literary or
non-literary and as good or bad. The project The Riddle of Literary
Quality will research whether formal characteristics of a text also play
a role in readers' decisions to call a fictional text literary or
non-literary, and good or bad. Many formal characteristics can be
thought of as having a part in this, e.g. the use of difficult words,
the number of adjectives and adverbs, or complex syntactic style. The
project will integrate the analysis of low-level lexical-statistical
features and high-level syntactic and narrative features. More
information can be found at http://literaryquality.huygens.knaw.nl/.

The project will be coordinated by Dr Karina van Dalen-Oskam (Huygens
ING) in close collaboration with Prof. Dr Rens Bod (ILLC) and Dr Hanno
Brand (Fryske Akademy). The project team will further consist of a PhD
and a Developer. The project is part of the Computational Humanities
Programme funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
(KNAW) and connected to the e-Humanities Group (http://ehumanities.nl/).

The Postdoc will be working on the adaptation and application of
high-level pattern recognition on a selected corpus of literary texts in
Dutch and will do smaller experiments on Frisian and English fictional
texts. The high-level tools will be based on Probabilistic
Tree-Substitution Grammars (PTSGs) within the Data-Oriented Parsing
(DOP) framework as developed at the ILLC by Rens Bod c.s. The research
will focus on syntactic complexity relating this to literary complexity
but also plans experiments with still higher level patterns such as
narrative structure.
The Postdoc will collaborate with team members in the development of new
tools and in presentations and publications about the project, and will
report on the higher level pattern recognition in international
publications.

Position requirements
-       PhD in Computational Linguistics or a closely related field
-       Knowledge of Dutch, English, and possibly also of Frisian
-       International track record, evidenced by peer-reviewed publications
-       Excellent programming skills and affinity with Digital Humanities
-       Able to work as member of a closely collaborating team
-       Willing to reach out to and collaborate with national and
international colleagues in related research disciplines
-       Willing to work at different locations (The Hague, Amsterdam, and
occasionally Leeuwarden) with Amsterdam as the main location

Appointment and Salary
The position involves a temporary appointment with Huygens ING for 4
years with a 2-month period of probation. Applicants should have the
right to work in the Netherlands for the duration of the contract.
Depending on training and work experience, the maximum gross monthly
salary coming with a full-time appointment will amount to a maximum of €
3.755,-(Collective Agreement for Dutch universities), excluding 8%
holiday pay and a 8,3% year-end bonus.

Applications
Please send a letter of application including
1.      Letter of motivation
2.      CV
3.      Two selected publications
4.      Names and addresses of two referees
before October 10, 2011 to Bedrijfsbureau Huygens ING, t.a.v. Hetty
Labots, Personnel Department, P.O. Box 95366, 2509 CJ  The Hague, The
Netherlands or by e-mail to sollicitaties at huygens.knaw.nl


(2) PhD student (Promovendus) Literary Quality
38 hours a week (1.0 fte)

The PhD will be part of the research project The Riddle of Literary
Quality, led by Huygens ING in cooperation with the Fryske Akademy and
the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) of the
University of Amsterdam.
Literary quality is one of the most fascinating issues in Literary
Studies. Scholars have found that social and cultural factors play an
important role in the acceptance of a fictional work as literary or
non-literary and as good or bad. The project The Riddle of Literary
Quality will research whether formal characteristics of a text also play
a role in readers' decisions to call a fictional text literary or
non-literary, and good or bad. Many formal characteristics can be
thought of as having a part in this, e.g. the use of difficult words,
the number of adjectives and adverbs, or complex syntactic style. The
project will integrate the analysis of low-level lexical-statistical
features and high-level syntactic and narrative features. More
information can be found at http://literaryquality.huygens.knaw.nl/.

The project will be coordinated by Dr Karina van Dalen-Oskam (Huygens
ING) in close collaboration with Prof. Dr Rens Bod (ILLC) and Dr Hanno
Brand (Fryske Akademy). The project team will further consist of a
Postdoc and a Developer. The project is part of the Computational
Humanities Programme funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences (KNAW) and connected to the e-Humanities Group
(http://ehumanities.nl/).

The PhD will be working on the research into and the analysis of the
low-level features that will be selected for analysis. The PhD will
therefore combine knowledge of existing research into literary quality
with new empirical approaches as developed in the area of
digital/computational humanities. The PhD will collaborate with team
members in the development of new tools and in presentations and
publications about the project, and will report on part of the work in a
dissertation to be defended at the University of Amsterdam.

Position requirements
-       Master in Literary Studies or a closely related field
-       Knowledge of Dutch, English, and possibly also of Frisian
-       Affinity with empirical research
-       Affinity with information technology and willing to learn basic
programming skills
-       Able to work as member of a closely collaborating team
-       Willing to reach out to and collaborate with national and
international colleagues in related research disciplines
-       Willing to work at different locations (The Hague, Amsterdam, and
occasionally Leeuwarden) with The Hague as the main location

Appointment and Salary
The appointment will be for 12 months. Upon positive evaluation, it will
be extended with another 36 months (full-time). Applicants should have
the right to work in the Netherlands for the duration of the contract.
The salary starts at € 2,042.- in the first year and increases to €
2,612.- in the fourth year, based on a full-time appointment (Collective
Agreement for Dutch universities), excluding 8% holiday pay and a 8,3%
year-end bonus.

Applications
Please send a letter of application including
1.      a curriculum vitae;
2.      a letter of recommendation;
3.      a list of courses followed and a copy of the MA diploma (please
provide translations of these documents in English or Dutch where
appropriate);
4.      a copy of the MA thesis or a writing sample of it;
5.      an extended letter of motivation explaining the applicant’s
qualifications for this position (max. 1,000 words).
before October 10, 2011 to Bedrijfsbureau Huygens ING, t.a.v. Hetty
Labots, Personnel Department, P.O. Box 95366, 2509 CJ  The Hague, The
Netherlands or by e-mail to sollicitaties at huygens.knaw.nl
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