Call for PhD students

[Nick Thieberger]

PhD positions – University of Melbourne
Applications are invited for two PhD positions offered at the
University of Melbourne in Australia as part of an Australia Research
Council funded project: 'From little things, big things grow: how
children learn a morphologically complex Australian indigenous
language'. The positions are contingent on each applicant winning an
Australian Postgraduate Award. Funding through the project will be
available for Research Assistant work
and for field work expenses.

The ARC Project:
This groundbreaking project is the first to investigate the
acquisition of Murrinh-Patha, one of a small number of Australian
indigenous languages still being learned by children. The results of
this research will be far-reaching as they will inform our
understanding of the ways in which children learn grammatically
complex languages, and facilitate the maintenance of this and other
indigenous languages.

The successful candidate will be based at University of Melbourne and
will carry out PhD work on an aspect of the acquisition of
Murrinh-Patha, as well as Research Assistant work on the acquisition
of morphosyntax in the language. This work will require periods of
fieldwork in the remote Aboriginal community of Wadeye, NT. Potential
areas of research include morphosyntactic development in children aged
around 3-5 years and production and comprehension of children aged
around 8-10 years. The candidate will be part of a research team
including Dr. Rachel Nordlinger, Prof. Gillian Wigglesworth, Dr.
Barbara Kelly and Dr. Joe Blythe.

Requirements:
Applicants should hold an Honours or Masters degree in Linguistics, or
an equivalent qualification, with a 10,000 word thesis marked at 80%
or above. Ideally applicants will have a strong background in one or
more of: morphosyntax; descriptive linguistics; Australian languages.

Starting date:
The successful candidate will start at University of Melbourne in February
2012.

Applications:
Interested applicants are to email Barbara Kelly on: b.kelly at unimelb.edu.au
Expressions of interest should be received by August 31st, 2011.