Applications are invited for a PhD scholarship on the languages of Southern New Guinea. The scholarship, valued at Aus$30,000 per year for three years, is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC). Funds of around Aus$25,000 will also be available for fieldwork expenses.

The ARC project wishes to investigate, analyse and record the barely-known languages of Southern New Guinea, stretching across Papua New Guinea and Indonesia just north of Australia. And more specifically, it aims to produce grammatical descriptions for six of the thirty languages of the area, plus a comparative database and handbook of the languages of the region.

The successful candidate will be based at UNE and work on a language of the Morehead-Maro family, in the Morehead district of Papua New Guinea.

S/he will be part of a research team headed by Prof Nicholas Evans of the Australian National University (ANU), and including Prof Jeff Siegel at UNE, and Dr Wayan Arka (ANU).

The course will start between August 29, 2011 and January 9, 2012.

Applicants should hold an Honours or Masters degree in Linguistics, or an equivalent qualification. The closing date for applications is 4 April 2011.

For further information, contact Prof Jeff Siegel:

jsiegel@une.edu.au

+61 2 6773 3203.