Two Doctoral Positions in Linguistics
(part-time 65 %, E 13 TV-L)
Reference No.: 2026/014. Two doctoral positions are available as of April 1st, 2026. The positions are 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 positions advertised belong to the project B01 “Noise and New Grammar: Stages of Semantic Change” (), part of the SFB 1760. The project investigates he diachrony of quantifying determiners and particles in German and English. Starting from the Conservativity Universal for determiners, we search for forces that can generate exceptions: the very rare determiners that violate this property.
Your Responsibilities
* Data search and annotation in historical Corpora of English or German
* Case studies in grammaticalization and diachronic semantics
* Conference presentations and research papers
Your Competencies
* MA degree in linguistics (completed or in progress)
* Background in Formal Semantics and Pragmatics
* Experience with data collection in historical corpora (English or German)
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
* Collaborating researchers at doctoral, postdoctoral and professorial levels
* Excellent career and equal opportunity coaching
Questions can be directed to Prof. Regine Eckardt, regine.eckardt@uni-konstanz.de via e-mail.
We look forward to receiving your application until 15.02.2026 via our Online Application Portal .
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 (one from the supervisor of the BA/MA/MSc thesis or equivalent).
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 dual career programme. Persons with disabilities are explicitly encouraged to apply. They will be given preference if appropriately qualified (contact sbv@uni-konstanz.de, + 49 7531 88-4016).