What are you going to do

Languages allow different linguistic strategies (e.g., use of different sentence moods) to express interlocutors’ communicative intentions. There are currently several hundreds of languages spoken in The Netherlands, and one may wonder what the linguistic landscape looks like with regard to these patterns, and how they may influence teacher-pupil (teenager) interactions or else, interpersonal and public conversations. When speakers of different languages meet in a multilingual society, they are likely to assume that the language patterns engrained in their minds should somehow match with equivalent patterns in the surrounding languages as well. This attitude could lead to miscommunication or a misinterpretation of interlocutors’ communicative intentions when language patterns diverge. It is therefore important to discover the range of variation between languages in this respect.

For this position, the ACLC expects the postdoc to formulate a project that investigates how speakers of different languages in The Netherlands bridge the gap between their other languages and Dutch, and how the differences between distinct languages in the encoding of communicative intentions may affect effective communication. This includes as well the interpretation of assignment instructions in classroom situations or official documents known for adopting directive speech forms, all of which may be the source of anxiety for pupils/citizens. A better understanding of the organization of language strategies and the way these are related to one another is highly relevant in establishing an inclusive communication in a multilingual society.

You are required to submit an innovative research proposal of 800-1000 words that investigates a wide range of languages currently spoken in The Netherlands. You are expected to explain how you would approach the project thematically, conceptually and methodologically, within the timeline of the 2 year appointment as well as its interdisciplinarity (i.e., its connection with preferably two research groups within the ACLC).