Doctoral Position in Linguistics

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

Reference no.: 2026/021. One doctoral position available as of April 1st, 2026. 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 project B03 “The Prosody of Pronouns, Prepositions, and Prefixes in West Germanic Languages”. The aims of the project are twofold: (i) To examine prosodic reflexes in medieval manuscripts with a focus on function words and (ii) to investigate whether there are comparable effects in similar structures in modern West Germanic languages. The project will thus combine work on historical manuscripts with production experiments and the advertised position will have a particular focus on prepositions/preposition stranding/r-stranding.

Your Responsibilities

• Corpus work (with synchronic speech corpora and medieval manuscripts)
• Design and execution of experimental studies
• Theory building

Your Competencies

• Completed or near-completed MA
• Documented experience studying formal syntax and phonology
• Documented experience with experimental methods in phonetics and/or phonology
• Interest in historical linguistics and the Germanic languages
• English language skills (at least C1 CEFR, including the written component)
• It is desirable that the candidate speaks German or has experience working with different Germanic varieties

We Offer

• The opportunity to do a PhD within the collaborative Research Centre 'Silence, Noise and Signal in Language'
• A friendly, diverse, and supportive research team and interdisciplinary research environment
• Collaborating researchers at doctoral, postdoctoral and professorial levels
• Excellent career and equal opportunity coaching

Questions can be directed to Prof. George Walkden and Dr. Tina Bögel via e-mail: and .

We look forward to receiving your application by 01.03.2026 via our .

Applications should contain: i) a short motivation letter, 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 and v) a writing sample. 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).