Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational and Experimental Linguistics

Stellenbeschreibung:

The position is part of the DFG-funded project Learning Linguistic Inferences and Their Alternatives (PIs: Jacopo Romoli and Yulia Zinova, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf). The project investigates how language models learn linguistic inferences—including implicatures, presuppositions, implicated presuppositions, free choice, and distributive inferences—and whether training on one inference type facilitates learning of others. Combining theoretical, experimental, and computational methods, the project addresses foundational questions about the semantics–pragmatics interface and what language models actually learn about meaning. The project involves constructing novel datasets, running behavioral experiments with human participants, probing inference derivation and its ingredients in both humans and language models as well as training and fine-tuning models using collected data.

Broader context: LaSTing Priority Programme. This position is embedded within the DFG Priority Programme LaSTing (SPP 2556): “Robust Assessment & Safe Applicability of Language Modeling: Foundations for a New Field of Language Science & Technology”. LaSTing brings together researchers across linguistics, cognitive science, and language technology to advance our understanding of language models for safer and more principled use, especially in the language sciences. The programme fosters interdisciplinary community-building, networking, and the training of a new generation of researchers at the interface of language science and language technology.

Position Description: We invite applications for a full-time Postdoctoral Researcher (3 years) to join the project team. The postdoc will play a central role across the project’s work packages, contributing to the computational components of the project as well as to the design and implementation of online behavioral experiments, dataset construction, and data analysis. The postdoc will also contribute to the writing and dissemination of research outputs, and will collaborate closely with both PIs and with Mercator Fellow Paul Marty (University of Lisbon).

Company

Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf

Qualifications

Minimum Education: PhD

Specialty Areas: Computational Linguistics; Pragmatics; Psycholinguistics; Semantics

Required Qualifications

PhD in Linguistics or a closely related field
Expertise in computational linguistics
Ability to engage with both the experimental and computational aspects of the project

Desirable Qualifications

Experience with experimental methods in psycholinguistics
Background in formal semantics and pragmatics and familiarity with formal approaches to pragmatic inferences
Experience working with large language models (LLMs)
Familiarity with natural language inference (NLI) tasks and datasets