[Linganth] Three year research fellowship

Wed May 25 01:45:10 UTC 2016

Dear Colleagues,

We have just advertised for six 3-year fellowships. The advertisement can be viewed here: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/unijobs/listing/26049/david-myers-research-fellow/#. The contact person is also listed in this advertisement.

Applicants are encouraged to demonstrate how their research program would fit with ongoing research programs at La Trobe University. Below is a description of our five research clusters within Linguistics.

Best,

Zane
Dr Zane Goebel,
Associate Professor
Department of Languages and Linguistics, School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC 3086, Australia
Tel: +61 3 94791396; Fax: +61 3 94792705; Email: z.goebel at latrobe.edu.au<mailto:z.goebel at latrobe.edu.au>

Program 1: Language Documentation And Description: This group of researchers is already active in addressing the most pressing of all global problems in linguistics in the 21st century: language endangerment. Today, it is estimated that there are over 7,000 languages spoken or signed around the world, and more than half of them are facing extinction within the century as a result of intercultural contact in various forms. La Trobe is amongst the most important centres worldwide for work on language endangerment, which has become increasingly recognised as the key linguistic issue confronting the world and our discipline. The work undertaken by our members (and a significant number of postgraduates) includes recording and archiving the records of languages, often never previously described ('language documentation') and writing analytically rigorous descriptions of the structures and systems of those languages ('language description'); it includes study of phonetics (Program 2), and of the multilingual situations in which many languages are found (Program 3) as well as dealing with the social use of languages (Program 5). Our work includes both an international and national focus, with research at La Trobe University including work on endangered languages in many parts of the world (including Bangladesh, Brazil, Bolivia, Burma, Canada, Chad, China, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Nigeria, Niue, north-east India, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Thailand, Tonga and Vanuatu) as well as Australian Aboriginal languages, and work on language revitalisation and/or maintenance.

Program 2: Phonetics. La Trobe is one of very few Australian universities to have a dedicated phonetics position within the Linguistics program, and probably the only one in which a relatively small program has such a dedicated position. In the context of research strengths in language documentation in Program 1, this is an important asset, given that phonetics is the very first component of a language grammar, and given that modern phonetic research has evolved well beyond the skill set of a general linguist. Modern phonetic research is truly cross-disciplinary, with strong links to speech researchers in psychology, electrical engineering and computer science, to name the most prominent disciplines. In addition to providing phonetics advice to general grammar researchers, phonetics at La Trobe is the source of cutting edge speech perception, acoustic and articulatory research into Australia's indigenous languages, work recently cited in the outgoing speech by the President of the International Phonetic Association. Phonetics research at La Trobe is supported by an articulatory phonetics lab, and by a professional-quality recording studio.

Program 3: Multilingual Complexity: The occurrence of multiple languages within one space and time is the default situation across the globe, and is locally present at La Trobe University and in the surrounding suburbs, an area of multilingual diversity within Melbourne. Even what counts as a language - that is, its semiotic make-up - constantly changes as part of a host of complex inter-dependent processes. These processes include investment and disinvestment in nation-building infrastructures (e.g. education, transportation, communication), population mobility, and the increasingly common practice of using languages to sell goods and services to new markets. In everyday encounters, these processes are also initiated when those involved in communicating define language and its vitality (Program 1) and evaluate accents and ways of speaking (Program 2). This research program focuses on understanding these connections via empirical work on multimodal language use in everyday contexts (Program 4), especially face-to-face talk and mass mediated representations of language and social relations. These understandings are further contextualized via research on how historical circumstances impact on these particular communicative events and through dialogue with scholars from a number of global research networks. In addition to publishing in well-regarded peer-reviewed forums, members of this program also regularly contribute to high visibility working paper series.

Program 4: Multimodality. Language may be spoken and written or signed, but rarely do these modes exist in isolation. They typically interact, often in combination with other communicative features such as gesture, movement and image. In today's digital world, multimodality plays an increasingly important role in daily language use, blurring boundaries between speaking, reading, writing and viewing in all of its multilingual complexity (Program 3). Multimodality as a research area engages with the ways in which these different aspects of language appear in and across these multiple spaces and landscapes. Deaf studies and sign language research have been research strengths at La Trobe University since 1993, a long-standing aspect of its research profile that has made us unique in Australia. Our highly successful Auslan subject, combined with the research being undertaken by Dr. Gabrielle Hodge, is evidence that La Trobe retains it's strength in these areas, even with the temporary absence of Dr. Adam Schembri.

Program 5: Sociolinguistics, Language Variation And Change: Another major focus of Linguistics at La Trobe University is the study of sociolinguistics, including language variation and change. This includes work on the processes of language endangerment in various parts of Asia including China, Thailand and India, the construction of language ideologies and their relationship to institutions and the media in Indonesia, politeness and gender in Japanese, longitudinal research of working class women's language in eastern Japan and most recently on the impact of immigrant languages on Australian English, particularly with the emergence of identifiable ethnolects (i.e., "ethnic varieties") in multicultural cities such as Melbourne. These issues are fundamental to understanding current Australian culture with implications for issues such as relations with its near neighbours and the capacity for Australia to engage in effective dialogue with the wider world. In addition, a number of our researchers are making substantial contributions to the understanding of the relationships between languages and linguistic varieties, and the mechanisms and processes of language change, based on the substantial data collected and analysed in our Language Documentation and Description Program 1, particularly for languages in Asia, Africa and Oceania, This also relates to Program 3, which investigates these issues from the perspective of multilingual diversity.

Dr Zane Goebel,
Associate Professor
Department of Languages and Linguistics, School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC 3086, Australia
Tel: +61 3 94791396; Fax: +61 3 94792705; Email: z.goebel at latrobe.edu.au<mailto:z.goebel at latrobe.edu.au>
Profiles:<http://www.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/about/staff/profile?uname=Z2Goebel> http://latrobe.academia.edu/ZaneGoebel; www.linkedin.com/<http://www.linkedin.com/>
Forthcoming symposium "Conceptualizing Rapport"<http://www.latrobe.edu.au/languages-and-linguistics/conceptualising-rapport-symposium>

Research Networks
Multilingual diversity in a changing Indonesia<http://www.latrobe.edu.au/languages-and-linguistics/multilingual-diversity-in-a-changing-indonesia>
Southern Multilingualisms and Diversities Consortium<http://southernmultilingualisms.org/>
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language<http://www.dynamicsoflanguage.edu.au/>
Babylon, Center for the Study of Superdiversity<https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/babylon/C:/Users/Z2Goebel/Documents/01%20Griffith%20RA%20Work>
International Consortium for Language and Superdiversity, (InCoLaS)<https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/babylon/incolas/>
Leverhulme Research Network "Shifting sociolinguistic realities of the nation of East Timor and its diasporas"<http://www.academia.edu/7833381/Leverhulme_Research_Network_Shifting_sociolinguistic_realities_of_the_nation_of_East_Timor_and_its_diasporas_>

Recent Monographs
Language and Superdiversity (OUP, June 2015)<http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199795420.do>
[9780199795420_140]

Language Migration and Identity (CUP, August 2010 & 2014)<http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/sociolinguistics/language-migration-and-identity-neighborhood-talk-indonesia?format=PB>
[9781107642515]

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20160525/eb4ffbd3/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 6482 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20160525/eb4ffbd3/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 9591 bytes
Desc: image002.jpg
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20160525/eb4ffbd3/attachment-0001.jpg>