37.109, FYI: Expression of Interest: AToUT Postdoctoral Fellowship, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-109. Mon Jan 12 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.109, FYI: Expression of Interest: AToUT Postdoctoral Fellowship, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès

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Date: 11-Jan-2026
From: Marczyk Anna [anna.marczyk-buklaha at univ-tlse2.fr]
Subject: Expression of Interest: AToUT Postdoctoral Fellowship, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès


Expression of Interest: AToUT Postdoctoral Fellowship (University of
Toulouse) — Whistled Speech, Cognition, Soundscape, and Language
This announcement is an expression of interest for a competitive
external fellowship application; funding is not guaranteed at this
stage.
We invite expressions of interest from outstanding early-career
researchers to co-develop a postdoctoral fellowship application within
the AToUT (TIRIS / University of Toulouse) programme (2-year
MSCA-style fellowship).
The selected fellow will join the ECO initiative — Revitalising
Whistled Occitan: Reconnecting People, Place, and Practice. This
initiative brings together researchers in language sciences,
cognition, speech and hearing sciences, psychoacoustics, anthropology,
and sound studies, alongside educational, cultural, and civil-society
partners rooted in mountain territories where whistled speech has
historically been practiced and is currently being revitalised.
A Project Born From Co-research With Society:
This initiative did not begin with a predefined disciplinary agenda.
It was explicitly conceived as a co-research project with
civil-society actors, structured around a simple but demanding
question: Who should seize whistled speech today — how, and for what
purposes?
Together, we argue that revitalisation efforts cannot rely solely on
formal transmission or documentation but must seek a reconnection with
territory, including soundscapes, and with dimensions of language that
go beyond communication: expression, identity, embodiment, and sensory
experience.
Whistled speech, by its very nature, forces us to rethink language as:
 - an acoustically reduced yet linguistically structured and
perceptually salient signal,
 - something produced by the whole body,
 - learned through attention and perception,
 - embedded in specific environments (mountains, distance, wind,
birds, echoes),
 - and meaningful not only because it transmits information, but
because it situates and affects speakers and listeners.
Scientific Directions (Open and Co-designed):
The postdoctoral project will be co-constructed with the fellow,
depending on their expertise and interests. Possible (non-exclusive)
directions include:
 - Cognition, learning and predictive processing
How humans learn to decode whistled speech; perceptual learning;
prediction and attention in atypical linguistic modalities.
(The project is strengthened by a newly awarded MEG study on learning
whistled speech within a predictive-processing framework.)
 - Speech, sound, and auditory scenes
Whistled speech in complex soundscapes; salience and masking;
confusion with non-human sounds; acoustic niches and signal design.
 - Anthropology and geography of whistled communication
Language–territory relations; mountain communication practices;
soundscape-based ethnography; heritage and transmission.
(This axis is developed in collaboration with the research group
**“Mountains of the South.”)
 - Comparative perspectives
Extending beyond Occitan whistled speech to other traditions (e.g.
Tamazight, Greek, or Turkish), with typological, cognitive, and/or
socio-environmental approaches.
We explicitly welcome innovative and ambitious proposals that may
reshape or extend the project’s initial contours.
Who Should Apply?
This call may appeal to you if you are:
 - a speech or hearing scientist interested in atypical speech signal
processing, learning, prediction, and embodiment, situated cognition;
 - a linguist or phonetician curious about non-standard modalities and
typology;
 - a sound engineer or ecoacoustician working on signals in natural
environments;
 - an anthropologist or geographer concerned with language, territory,
and sensory worlds;
 - an Occitanist or interested in minoritised languages seeking new
models of revitalization;
 - motivated to co-construct research with societal actors, and to
engage in participatory, place-based research
We are looking for a researcher who wants not just to apply methods,
but to think with us.
Eligibility & Conditions (AToUT Programme)
 - PhD obtained by 28 February 2026
 - MSCA mobility rule applies: applicants must not have lived or
worked in France for more than 12 months in the 36 months preceding
the deadline
 - 24-month full-time contract in France
 - Minimum gross salary: €3,800/month, with social security and
training provisions
 - Programme deadline: 28 February 2026
Working Environment:
You will be hosted within a vibrant intellectual ecosystem at the
University of Toulouse, which is currently undergoing a major
transformation into a research-intensive university through the TIRIS
initiative. The position offers strong interdisciplinary interactions
across language sciences, cognition, sound studies, and the social
sciences.
Beyond academia, Toulouse offers an exceptional quality of life. Known
as la ville rose for its distinctive pink-brick architecture, the city
lies at the gateway to the Pyrenees, where many of our partners live
and work, and within easy reach of both the Mediterranean and the
Atlantic. Embedded in a region with a strong cultural and linguistic
identity, Toulouse provides a particularly stimulating environment in
which to live and conduct research.
How to Express Interest:
To initiate the collaboration, please send by January 30, 2026:
1.      An updated CV with publication record
2.      A 1–2 page project idea (research questions, approach,
methods, why this project, and why it is a good fit)
3.      A short motivation email
Send to: anna.marczyk-buklaha at univ-tlse2.fr
Shortlisted candidates will be invited on a rolling basis to discuss
and refine the proposal together for submission to the AToUT call.

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     Cognitive Science
                     Language Documentation
                     Neurolinguistics
                     Phonetics




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