The Computional Linguistics Group at Bielefeld University is seeking applications for a

** Full-time (100%) Research Assistant / Ph.D. Student position **

to work in a newly established project on measuring linguistic creativity across literary and non-literary genres with quantitative, corpus-based methods. The project is part of a newly established Collaborative Research Center (CRC 1646) on “Linguistic Creativity in Communication” funded by the German Research Agency (DFG) for 4 years. The project asks how the originality and success of linguistic signs vary depending on textual cues and are mediated by a spectrum of popular and artistic genre contexts such as travel blogs, popular fiction and literary novels. Focusing on the domain of descriptions of spatial entities across all genres, we aim to develop data-driven metrics and models that automatically identify creative signs at sentence, paragraph and text level. It will be carried out by the Computational Linguistics Group (Prof. Sina Zarrieß) and the Computational Literary Studies Group (Prof. Berenike Herrmann) at Bielefeld University, and will encompass stylistic, experimental and computational methods.

The announced position will be focusing on computational aspects of measuring linguistic creativity. The main task will be to develop sentence embedding models that disentangle style and content, based on language models for different literary and non-literary genres. In addition, the PhD student will carry out work on the analysis of linguistic creativity in large language models, in collaboration with other projects of the CRC.

The duration of the position is about 3,5 years (until end of 2027). Salary is 100% TVL-E13 scale (about 4.000,- EUR per month before taxes, depending on relevant work experience).

Bielefeld is the vibrant center of the region of East Westphalia and Germany’s greenest big city with a lot of cultural, entertainment, and recreational opportunities. It is located in the center of Germany, surrounded by beautiful forests, and connected to Germany’s high-speed rail system. Bielefeld University is a strong research-oriented university with more than 20.000 students and a famous commitment to interdisciplinary research. It hosts major research centers such as the Center for Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) or the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF).

Application deadline is 25th of January, but later applications will be considered too until the position has been filled. If you are interested to learn more about the position, please get in contact with Sina Zarrieß (sina.zarriess@uni-bielefeld.de).

For information on how to apply please refer to: https://uni-bielefeld.hr4you.org/job/view/3067/research-positions?page_lang=...

More information on the CRC: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/fakultaeten/linguistik-literaturwissenschaft/fo...