Fwd: Program and abstracts for pre-ALT workshop

[Peter Kahrel]

A message posted on behalf of Nick Evans.

Peter



Ph D Opportunities in Linguistics – Australian National University  
(Canberra)

Applications are being sought from potential doctoral candidates
interested in enrolling  in a PhD at the Australian National University,
starting in the first half of 2008, within the framework of  the project
Social Cognition and Language – the Design Resources of Grammatical
Diversity.

Project background
This project will build a detailed, comprehensive and cross-linguistically
valid model of how social cognition is supported by a diverse range of the
world’s grammars. Besides developing a systematic typology based on
existing descriptions, it will gather detailed new data on around 20
languages of the Indo-Pacific, develop new field tools for investigating
social cognition in grammar, examine how language-specific grammatical
categories in the social realm evolve from speech, often reflecting
specific cultural concerns, and develop a representational system capable
of modelling all relevant categories, in a way that will allow their
integration into more formal linguistic models.

Funding for this project was recently awarded by the Australian Research
Council to a team including Nick Evans, Alan Rumsey, Barb Kelly, and
Andrea Schalley, with Steve Levinson and Nick Enfield (MPI Nijmegen) as
partner investigators, and will run from 2008 to 2011.

Doctoral topics
We are inviting applications to work on  4-5 doctoral projects (in the
first intake) chosen from the following set of topics. For each topic the
project will support relevant fieldwork of 9-12 months duration, divided
into two fieldtrips.

• a detailed study of the demonstrative system of Bininj Gun-wok (Arnhem
Land, Australia), with a particular focus on forms monitoring joint or
divergent attention
• the grammar and semantics of reported speech and thought in Ungarinyin
(Kimberley, Australia)
• the grammar and semantics of reported speech and thought in Kalam (PNG)
(committee will include Prof. Andrew Pawley, ANU)
• a reference grammar of Cayapa/Chachi (Barbacoan Ecuador), with
particular focus on mirativity and other categories monitoring the
integration of  information by speaker and hearer (committee will include
Dr Connie Dickinson (MPI Nijmegen))
• a reference grammar of a hitherto little-described language of Vanuatu
(most probably in Malekula), with particular emphasis on its system of
possessive classifiers
• emergence of kin-related grammar and complex demonstratives in north
Australian Kriol
• emergence of possession classifiers in Bislama (Vanuatu)  (Prof. Miriam
Meyerhoff (Edinburgh) will make her corpus of Bislama material available
for this research.)

Applicants should state which  of  the  above projects they would be
interested in working on. Plausible variants on the above (e.g. comparable
topics on alternative languages  of the Indo-Pacific  region, or related
topics on the nominated languages) will also be considered, if the
applicant can make a good case. We are also interested in hearing from
people who may be interested in beginning their PhD on one of these topics
in the following year.

Facilities and support

Scholarships. To be considered for a regular scholarship, applicants must
be citizens or permanent residents of Australia or New Zealand with a good
honours degree in linguistics or equivalent. An application must be
submitted for admission to the PhD program and an Australian Postgraduate
Award (APA) and ANU Scholarship at Australian National University. The
form for this may be downloaded from
http://www.anu.edu.au/sas/forms/sas25local.pdf .  At question 9 on the
form, you should specify that you are applying in the Graduate Studies
Field of Linguistics in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.
Note that, as described at 16 in the form, you will need to arrange for
reports from three referees, on the forms that are provided with
application form. Note that the deadline for both the application and the
referees reports is Oct. 31, 2007.
We hope to have provision to support one doctoral applicant from outside
Australia or New Zealand; such applicants should contact Evans or Rumsey
directly in the first instance.

Fieldwork support. Each PhD project will receive approximately AUD 16,000
support towards field expenses and related travel.

In addition to field support and scholarships, there is provision for
doctoral students in the project to spend time at the Max Planck Institute
for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen for several months, working in the
collaborative framework of the project, involving interaction with Partner
Investigators Steve Levinson and Nick Enfield.
	At the Australian end, individual projects will also be integrated into
the overall project through regular meetings at ANU and annual meetings
involving all Australian chief investigators.

Prerequisites
Applicants should possess a strong background in Linguistics, to Honours
Level (in the Australian system) or Master’s Level (in the European and
American systems).

What to do
Interested applicants should contact Nick Evans (nrde at unimelb.edu.au) or
Alan Rumsey (alan.rumsey at anu.edu.au ) in the first instance; we can then
forward you  a package of  information regarding application procedures.
As outlined above,  formal applications must be received at the Australian
National  University by 31th October.



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