[lg policy] support: American Sign Language, French Sign Language, Quebec Sign Language & Pragmatics, Semantics, Sign Language Processing: PhD Student, Universit é du Québec à Montréal, Canada

[Harold Schiffman]

American Sign Language, French Sign Language, Quebec Sign Language &
Pragmatics, Semantics, Sign Language Processing: PhD Student,
Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada


Institution/Organization: Université du Québec à Montréal
Department: Linguistics
Level: PhD

Duties: Research

Specialty Areas: Pragmatics; Semantics
Sign language processing
Required Language(s): American Sign Language (ase)
                            Quebec Sign Language (fcs)
                            French Sign Language (fsl)

Description:

Chair: Anne-Marie Parisot, professor, UQAM
Location of tenure: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Value and duration: $16 000 each, tenable for 12 months

Field of research: pragmatics and\or semantics and\or natural language
processing
The Groupe de recherche sur la LSQ et le bilinguisme sourd de l'UQAM (Research
Group on LSQ and Deaf Bilinguialism at UQAM), supported by the Fonds québécois
de la recherche sur la société et la culture, offers two doctoral awards, to
support students to work on a research project on the comparison of the
structure of three sign languages, that is, ASL, LSF and LSQ. The main goal of
the research program is to examine and compare the grammar and semantics of the
use of space in these three sign languages, and to analyze the way signers can
mark relations of saliency in grammar. Specifically, we analyze the
distributional and prosodic patterns of four strategies of spatial association
(pointing sign, direct localization, eye gaze and torso movements) that are
involved in the expression of saliency in those sign languages. We also define
the semantic, morphosyntactic and pragmatic characteristics of these
strategies.
Moreover, gathered biomechanical data with kinematic instrumentations allow us
to describe the spatio-temporal patterns of spatial association.

Candidates will have access to corpora gathered on the variation of the
strategies of spatial association. Data consist in sentences and narrations
produced in LSQ, ASL, LSF, French and English. All the productions have been
collected with a recording system composed of 1) a digital camera, 2) infrared
cameras for the capture of the upper body movement and 3) mini-rangefinder
cameras for the capture of eye movements.

The Groupe de recherche sur la LSQ et le bilinguisme sourd, located at UQAM,
will host the candidates.

The candidates' dissertation must deal with the description of elements of the
grammar of either ASL, LSF of LSQ, according to either a semantic or pragmatic
perspective, or a language processing perspective. The candidates will have at
least one sign language specialist as a supervisor.

Candidates must have strong skills in French and must know English enough to
read and understand scientific texts. Applicants must be registered as
full-time
students, undertaking or continuing a doctoral program by September 1st 2010.

Applications should consist of:
1. A cover letter. This letter must include the following information (maximum
two pages and an extra page for a bibliography):
a. The award for which you are applying;
b. A description of the master dissertation and of the prospective
doctoral project;
c. How you wish to contribute to the research project on the comparative
description of sign languages.
2. A curriculum vitae.
3. Two letters of reference from people who know you enough to be able to give
information on your qualifications and your personality (referees should
directly send their letter to Dominique Machabée in an attachment
(machabee.dominiqueuqam.ca), by July 15th 2010).
4. University transcripts of all your undergraduate and graduate studies,
completed or not (certificate, diploma, bachelor degree, master degree, Ph. D
degree, etc.). Digitized copies accepted. University transcripts are also
accepted, but cannot be sent back to applicants.

University transcripts outside of Quebec: Short explanation of the grade system
in force in the institution (for university transcripts obtained outside of
Canada or U.S.A.)
All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply and to send their application
to Dominique Machabée (machabée.dominiqueuqam.ca) or by regular mail, by July
15th 2010.

Applications Deadline: 15-Jul-2010

Mailing Address for Applications:
        Attn: Dominique Machabee
        Groupe de recherche LSQ, Département de linguistique, UQAM
        C. P. 8888, succ. centre-ville
        Montreal Quebec H3C 3P8
        Canada

Contact Information:
        Machabee Dominique
        machabee.dominiqueuqam.ca

http://linguistlist.org/issues/21/21-2594.html

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal,
and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message.
 A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman,
Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list