PhD Position in Diaspora Linguistics
The Department of Linguistics at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa invites applications from students interested in pursuing a fully-funded Ph.D. program, to begin Fall 2025, working with the NSF-funded project, Documenting endangered languages through training and capacity building among diaspora communities (NSF-BCS 2421485). The project focuses on collaborative research, documentation, and community-facing mentorship within the Micronesian diaspora communities in Hawai‘i.
We are currently recruiting two PhD students to work with this project beginning Fall 2025. Duties for the Graduate Research Assistant include:
- Help coordinate undergraduate research positions for students conducting research on Micronesian languages;
- Work with local non-profits to organize language documentation workshops in collaboration with the Language Documentation Training Center (https://www.ldtc.org);
- Curate audiovisual documentation for archiving in Kaipuleohone Language Archive;
- Support a diversity of lab- and field-based research activities.
Previous background with Micronesian languages or diaspora linguistics is welcome but not required. Desired qualifications include a commitment to community-engaged language documentation, familiarity with data management principles and methods, and the ability to work well both independently and in a diverse team that includes academic researchers and members of diaspora communities in Hawai‘i. In addition to these, core research interests in one or more of the following areas are particularly welcome: articulatory phonetics, usage-based approaches to phonology and morphosyntax, language description, typology, corpus linguistics, and/or linguistic encoding of spatial relations.
The initial two years of funding will be through the NSF grant, after which the student will receive three guaranteed years of funding through the Department of Linguistics. All applicants must go through the general admissions process. In their application materials, the student should emphasize that they are applying to join this NSF-funded project and demonstrate why they think they would be a good fit, given the criteria mentioned above. The application deadline for the PhD program in Linguistics is November 15, 2024. Details for admission to the PhD program can be found here.
The Department of Linguistics at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa offers a unique opportunity for graduate students to engage in language documentation and language sustainability with diverse communities from the Pacific and Asia as well as engage in cutting edge research methodologies in the Language Analysis and Experimentation Laboratories.
If you are interested in the position or have further questions, please contact Bradley McDonnell (mcdonn at hawaii dot edu)