THIS JOB HAS BEEN FILLED AND ALL FUNDING DISBURSED

Florian Jaeger, Brain and Cognitive Science, University of Rochester Jürgen Bohnemeyer, Linguistics, State University of New York at Buffalo

We are looking for a graduate student or post-doctoral researcher who is interested in conducting psycholinguistic studies on Yucatec Maya (and possibly additional psycholinguistically understudied languages). We are anticipating two years of NSF funding for a project on language production in Yucatec Maya, starting this Fall (Fall 2009). The researcher would help with the analysis of already existing pilot data and on the basis of this design and carry out a series of studies in the field in collaborations with the PIs.

The ideal candidate would have:

  • solid background in syntactic theory
  • familiarity with the structure of Mayan languages
  • knowledge of Yucatec Maya or willingness to learn it (and possibly other field languages)
  • interest in language processing research
  • expertise in collecting and analyzing linguistic and language processing data
  • the ability to work under field conditions and willingness to do so

What we provide: The researcher will receive training in psycholinguistic theory and psycholinguistic and field work methodologies. He or she will participate in the academic communities at both the Center for Language Science at Rochester (with astrong focus on language processing) and the Department of Linguistics at Buffalo (with a strong focus on linguistic typology and field linguistics), thereby further strengthening the collaboration between the two institutions. The researcher would be primarily situated at the Human Language Processing Lab, Brain and Cognitive Science department, University of Rochester , with access to all resources of that lab, but also collaborate closely with Jürgen Bohnemeyer, who will provide further training in field methods and Yucatec Maya (Linguistics Department, State University of New York at Buffalo). We have already established contacts with field sites in Mexico (including a university campus, where we have run some of our pilot studies).

Where to apply: Please send applications (detailed CV and a statement of interest) to hlplab-yucatec@bcs.rochester.edu. For questions, please feel free to contact Florian Jaeger at hlplab-yucatec@bcs.rochester.edu. (n.b. this address is disabled and will bounce)