22 January: fyi -- psycholinguistics, NL

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Psycholinguistics: Utrecht Institute of Ling OTS, Netherlands

The Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS is a research institute of the
Faculty of Arts of Utrecht University. About a hundred researchers are
involved of which 12 full professors, 10 postdoctoral researchers and about
30 graduate students.

The goal of UiL OTS is to develop scientific expertise in the area of
language, speech and their use. The research of UiL OTS comprises the
following six areas: Syntax and Semantics, Morphology & Phonology,
Computational Linguistics & Logic, Phonetics, Language Development, and
Language Use. The research programme of UiL OTS brings together research
from different strands of linguistics and related disciplines such as
logic, computer science, cognitive sciences, teaching, and social sciences.
Within the Netherlands the UiL OTS is the only research institute that
brings together all these different types of research. The research policy
of UiL OTS is focused on making full use of the added value associated with
this concentration of research and on strengthening the national and
international position of the institute.

UiL OTS currently hosts the so-called PIONIER project 'Comparative
Psycholinguistics'. Comparative Psycholinguistics is an NWO-supported
project that involves cross-linguistic, cross-population
investigations of language development and language disruption.
Specifically, it aims at comparing the linguistic abilities of
normally developing children and agrammatic Broca's aphasics - the
latter a population that has suffered a specific linguistic impairment
as a result of brain damage. Unlike most of the research in
acquisition and aphasia, the focus of the program will be on the
investigation of the development and disruption of the interface
between syntactic and discourse mechanisms, rather than on a specific
kind of linguistic knowledge (e.g. syntax, or morphology.) In
addition, the research projects proposed here will include studies of
both comprehension and production capacities in children and Broca's
aphasics. The proposed experiments within this program will be carried
out with speakers of three different languages (Dutch, Russian,
Italian) with the resulting data to be compared to preliminary results
in English. Within this project there is currently available

1 graduate position

The duration of the sub-project to be carried out by the graduate
student is two years with a possible extension of one year. For
further information about the project, please check our web site:
http://www.let.uu.nl/~Esther.Ruigendijk/personal/pioneer/

Candidates: Eligible candidates must be in possession of a
pre-doctoral academic degree, or must have graduated before March
2002. We are looking for a person with some background in linguistics
and experimentation, who would be involved in psycholinguistic
research with normally developing children and agrammatic aphasic
speakers. Importantly, as the project is cross-linguistic in nature,
we are looking for someone with substantial knowledge of the Italian
language. The idea is that the person should be able to participate in
conducting experiments with Italian language speakers. We are looking
for candidates who show an enthusiasm for scientific research and
evident interest in one of the areas of the project described.

We offer a stimulating and innovative research environment with many
international contacts, a programme offering possibilities for
advanced education in a broad area of linguistics, good experimental
facilities, and support for attending conferences. As part of their
training, the graduate student will be able to follow courses in the
LOT graduate programme.

For further information please contact the projectleader
Dr. S. Avrutin tel. +31-30-256022, Email: sergey.avrutin@let.uu.nl

To apply: Please send a CV, a statement of interest, list of academic
results, two letters of reference, MA-thesis, and, if possible: a
paper, or other written result of academic work to the following
address:

UiL OTS
Trans 10
3512 JK
Utrecht
The Netherlands

Or via E-mail to:

uil-ots@let.uu.nl

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