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PhD Scholarships
in grammatical description
Do you dream of visiting far-away places and unravelling the mysteries of a fascinating language?
We'll welcome you to the PhD program at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
The Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, invites applications from suitably qualified students to enter its PhD program.
Our PhD candidates undertake extensive fieldwork on a previously undescribed (or scarcely described) language and write a comprehensive grammar of it for their dissertation. They are expected to work on a language which is still actively spoken, and to establish a field situation within a community in which it is the first language. Their first fieldtrip lasts for about nine months. After completing a first draft of the grammar, back in Melbourne, they go on a second fieldtrip of two to three months. Fieldwork methodology centres on the collection, transcription and analysis of texts, together with participant observation, and — at a later stage — judicious grammatical elicitation in the language under description (not through the lingua franca of the country). Our main priority areas are the languages of Amazonia and the Papuan and Austronesian languages of New Guinea. However, we do not exclude applicants who have an established interest in languages from other areas.
PhDs in Australian universities generally involve no coursework, just a substantial dissertation. Candidates must thus have had a thorough coursework training before embarking on this PhD program. This should have included courses on morphology, syntax, semantics, phonology/phonetics and comparative-historical linguistics, taught from a non-formalist perspective. We place emphasis on work that has a sound empirical basis but also shows a firm theoretical orientation (in terms of general typological theory, or what has recently come to be called basic linguistic theory).
The Research Centre for Linguistic Typology consists, at any one time, of about twenty scholars, working on a variety of languages and typological issues. Besides the permanent staff of Professor R M W Dixon (Director) and Professor Alexandra Y Aikhenvald (Associate Director) we have around eight PhD students and about eight three-year Postdoctoral Fellows. Each year a number of senior scholars from across the world spend from three to six months with us as Visiting Fellows.
The scholarship will be at the standard La Trobe University rate, Australian $19,231 p.a. Students coming from overseas are liable for a tuition fee; we will pay this. A small relocation allowance may be provided on taking up the scholarship. In addition, an appropriate allowance will be made to cover fieldwork expenses. The scholarship is for three years (with the possibility of a six month extension).
For more information on RCLT's acitivities,see our February 2007 Newsletter.
Prospective applicants are invited, in the first place, to get in touch with Professor Aikhenvald at a.aikhenvald@latrobe.edu.au, providing details of their background, qualifications and interests (including a curriculum vitae).
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