Doctoral Position in Linguistics

### (part-time 65 %, E 13 TV-L)

Reference No.: 2026/018. The start date is 1st April 2026 or soon thereafter. The position is available until the end of 2029.

The University of Konstanz is a dynamic and internationally successful research university with approximately 10,000 students. The campus university’s architecture promotes interdisciplinary cooperation and a sense of community among researchers, lecturers and students. The University of Konstanz has been continuously funded by the German Excellence Strategy since 2006.

The newly granted SFB 1760 () investigates the role of silence and noise in our capacity for perceiving, learning and producing linguistic signals. The first phase will run from April 2026 to December 2029 and encompasses a wide variety of theoretical, experimental, computational and empirical research within linguistics, in collaboration with projects from computer science, computational social science, media studies and sociology.

The doctoral position advertised belongs to the project C02 “Intonation and Sociolinguistic Factors in Regionally Accented Speech” (). The PhD student will be located in Konstanz. Our goal is to examine regional patterns in intonation categories among German and Swiss bivarietal speakers of Alemannic. The project team (in Konstanz (PL Marieke Einfeldt) and Trier (PL Katharina Zahner-Ritter)) will use production, perception, and processing experiments to investigate whether these patterns can be systematically predicted by sociolinguistic factors, e.g., language attitudes.

Your Responsibilities

• Working towards a PhD
• Prepare, conduct, and analyze production and perception experiments (ratings, reaction times) and production studies (with regards to intonation, e.g., using GToBI)
• Recruit, communicate with, and test participants in Germany and Switzerland
• Contribute to the dissemination of research results (e.g., conference presentations, joint journal publications, and outreach events)
• Contributing to the SFB by attending regular meetings and conducting research on SFB topics

Your Competencies

• A very good MA degree in linguistics, phonetics or equivalent
• Strong written and oral English and German skills
• Strong background in prosody and experience with acoustic analysis (incl. relevant software, e.g., Praat)
• Excellent interpersonal and organizational skills and motivation to constructively engage in teamwork
• Experience with experimental research paradigms and practices (incl. relevant software), statistical data analysis (R, RStudio) and regional variation is a strong plus

We Offer

• The opportunity to do a PhD within the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Silence, Noise and Signal in Language’
• An open, motivated research team and interdisciplinary research environment
• Career development opportunities
• Collaborating researchers at doctoral, postdoctoral and professorial levels
• Research support by student assistants
• Excellent career and equal opportunity coaching

Questions can be directed to Dr. Marieke Einfeldt via e-mail: .

We look forward to receiving your application by February 15th 2026 via our .

Applications should contain: i) a short motivation letter (max 1 page), ii) an academic CV, iii) copies of all previous degrees, including detailed transcripts of records, iv) the names and email addresses of two academic referees (one from the supervisor of the BA/MA/MSc thesis or equivalent). Incomplete applications will not be considered.

The University of Konstanz is committed to ensuring an environment that provides equal opportunities and promotes diversity, as well as a good balance between university and family life. As an equal opportunity employer, we strive to increase the number of women working in research and teaching. We also support working couples through our . Persons with disabilities are explicitly encouraged to apply. They will be given preference if appropriately qualified (contact , + 49 7531 88-4016).