PhD on Early Bilingual Language Development

In this project, you study how the speech sounds that infants hear at home guide their discovery of two languages. Curious? Check the vacancy!

Deadline 2 Dec ’25

Vacancy ID 4960

Job description

Bilingual infants have astonishing learning capabilities that allow them to learn sound properties of two different languages in the first year of life. But how do they discover and distinguish two languages in their speech environment? In this project, you study how the speech sounds that infants hear at home guide their discovery of two languages. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the project aims to collect and analyse bilingual infant-directed speech, test infants’ reliance on sound cues, and use computational models to simulate the learning of two languages from speech.

Your job

In the PhD subproject, you work with Dutch-English bilingual families to collect and analyse a corpus of bilingual infant-directed speech. You also study bilingual infants’ language discrimination skills using headturn-preference experiments. In this research programme, you work in an interdisciplinary team with researchers from the fields of linguistics, psychology, and artificial intelligence. You receive assistance from student assistants in data collection and/or data processing and develop your academic teaching skills (during your project). The project will be carried out at the Institute for Language Sciences (ILS), at Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Your tasks include:

• completion and defence of an article-based PhD thesis within four years (including studying relevant literature and writing the articles);
• presenting intermediate research results at workshops and conferences regularly;
• publication of peer-reviewed articles in established international journals;
• participation in training programmes and expert meetings organised for the project group;
• participation in relevant training programmes provided by the Institute for Language Sciences (ILS), the Utrecht University graduate school, the National Graduate School of Linguistics (LOT) and other organisations;
• co-organisation of project workshops and conferences.

Requirements

• An (R)MA degree in linguistics, psycholinguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, or a related discipline in hand by the starting date;
• affinity with research on infant language development;
• demonstrable knowledge in at least one of the following areas: phonetics, phonology, language development, early speech perception, bilingualism;
• a high proficiency in English and Dutch;
• readiness to learn new experimental methods and statistical analyses;
• the skills to work both as an independent researcher and as a team member;
• strong organisational, social and communication skills;
• prior experience with infant research and/or quantitative linguistic research methods is a plus.

Conditions of employment

• A position for 18 months, with an extension to a total of four years upon a positive evaluation;
• a working week 1,0 FTE (38 hours) and a gross monthly salary between €3,059 and €3,881 (salary scale P under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

In addition to the terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University offers a range of its own schemes for employees. This includes arrangements for professional development, various types of leave, and options for sports and cultural activities. You can also tailor your employment conditions through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage you to keep investing in your personal and professional development. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

Employer

Universiteit Utrecht

A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major strategic themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Pathways to Sustainability. Sharing science, shaping tomorrow.

The Faculty of Humanities has around 7,000 students and 1,100 staff members. It comprises four knowledge domains: Philosophy and Religious Studies, History and Art History, Media and Culture Studies, and Languages, Literature and Communication. With its research and education in these fields, the Faculty aims to contribute to a better understanding of the Netherlands and Europe in a rapidly changing social and cultural context. The enthusiastic and committed colleagues and the excellent amenities in the historical city centre of Utrecht, where the faculty is located, contribute to an inspiring working environment.

The department of Language, Literature and Communication offers Bachelor's and Master's programmes in language education, intercultural communication, literary studies, linguistics, communication studies, translation, as well as in Dutch, English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Celtic languages. The research is conducted at one of the groups of Institute for Language Sciences (ILS). The ILS research staff comprises approximately 20 full professors, a dozen postdocs and roughly 45 PhD candidates.

The PhD position is part of a new project financed by NWO, entitled "The discovery of two languages by bilingual infants: testing the role of segmental cues", awarded to project PI dr. Frans Adriaans.

Additional information

For more information, please contact Dr Frans Adriaans (PI) at f.w.adriaans@uu.nl or Maaike Schoorlemmer (ILS research coordinator) at m.schoorlemmer@uu.nl.

Candidates for this vacancy will be recruited by Utrecht University.

If you are applying from outside the Netherlands, you will find practical information about living and working in the Netherlands on our website. It is required to live in the Netherlands for the duration of the appointment.