33.922, Jobs: Language Acquisition; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax: Postdoctoral Associate, University of Calgary

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-33-922. Thu Mar 10 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.922, Jobs: Language Acquisition; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax: Postdoctoral Associate, University of Calgary

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Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2022 17:26:09
From: Elizabeth Ritter [ritter at ucalgary.ca]
Subject: Language Acquisition; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax: Postdoctoral Associate, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada

 
University or Organization: University of Calgary 
Department: School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures & Cultures
Job Location: Alberta, Canada 
Web Address: https://slllc.ucalgary.ca/
Job Title: Postdoctoral Associate
Job Rank: Post Doc

Specialty Areas: Language Acquisition; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax 


Description:

The postdoctoral fellow will design and undertake a study within the scope of
our research project, how to do things with nominals (see summary below), and
collaborate and consult with Professors Elizabeth Ritter, Martina Wiltschko
and Dimitrios Skordos, and other project members on different project studies.
While any postdoctoral project on the topic of nominals as acts of reference,
one that investigates how children acquire them is especially desirable. 

Qualifications: 
The successful postdoctoral candidate will have a PhD in linguistics or
psycholinguistics, and relevant expertise in syntax, semantics, pragmatics
and/or acquisition. Experience with different methodologies, including
elicitation, experimentation and corpus studies would be an asset. Applicants
without a PhD degree will be considered if they have submitted their thesis by
the time of application. Applicants should have a strong publication track
record (appropriate to level) and excellent English speaking and writing
skills.  

Project Summary:  How to do things with nominals
Different types of nominals, proper names, descriptions, and pronouns, are
used to perform different acts of reference – naming, describing and reference
tracking. Since acts of reference are dependent on both the speaker’s and the
addressee’s relation to the referent, researchers have concluded that
reference is a collaborative act. And in fact, there are parts of speech and
intonational tunes dedicated to managing this collaborative act. This project
explores the universal and language-specific properties of different acts of
reference. 
Our project is informed by three different strands of research in linguistics
and philosophy of language. First, beginning with Austin’s 1962 seminal work,
speech act theory has established that when we utter different types of
sentences, we perform different speech acts, including asserting, questioning,
requesting, promising, etc. Second, since the 1970s syntacticians have
explored different ways to incorporate speech act meaning into their formal
representations of sentence structure. Currently, it is assumed that sentences
contain an abstract layer of structure that is responsible for encoding
information about the sentential speech act. Third, during the same period the
discovery of structural and interpretive parallels between sentences and
nominals has advanced our knowledge of nominal structure. We bring together
these three lines of research with a novel hypothesis: the nominal speech act
hypothesis which asserts i) that naming, describing and tracking are nominal
speech acts, and ii) that like sentences, nominals contain an abstract layer
of structure that is responsible for encoding information about the nominal
speech act. Our goal is to test this hypothesis in a broad range of languages
to determine which aspects of nominal speech acts are attested across
languages (and hence universal), and what the range of variation is.

Your application should include the following:
 - CV, including a list of publications and presentations
 - A sample of past research 
 - A cover letter describing a possible research project on nominal speech
acts
 - 3 letters of reference (sent directly by your referees)

Please submit your application as a single PDF file with the subject line:
Postdoctoral application – [Your name] to Dr. Elizabeth Ritter at the email
address below.



Application Deadline: 15-Apr-2022 
	  
Email Address for Applications: ritter at ucalgary.ca 
Contact Information:
	Dr. Elizabeth Ritter 
	Email: ritter at ucalgary.ca 


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