Research Associate

About the Role

This is a Postdoctoral Fellow position on a DST-funded project titled "THE GROWTH OF GRAMMAR IN EARLY CHILDHOOD" at the Industrial Research And Consultancy Centre (IRCC) - IIT Bombay. The project investigates early language acquisition across diverse Indian languages, mapping developmental trajectories in young children by compiling and analyzing naturalistic spoken data.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and execute experimental protocols (e.g., elicited production, comprehension tasks, repetition tasks) and collect naturalistic child language data in field settings.
• Transcribe, gloss, and annotate audio/video corpora.
• Conduct quantitative and theoretical linguistic analyses on acquisition data.
• Coordinate field logistics, participant recruitment, and ethics/consent workflows.
• Prepare research manuscripts for publication and present findings at national/international conferences.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Ph.D. in Linguistics (or submitted thesis awaiting viva).
• Specialization preferably in Syntax, Formal Semantics, or Language Acquisition / Psycholinguistics.
• Demonstrated research competency and strong theoretical grounding.
• High diligence, organizational skills, and independence in managing project timelines.

Preferences

• Language Competence: Working proficiency / native competence in at least two of the following languages (in addition to English): Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi.
• Fieldwork Experience: Prior hands-on experience collecting linguistic or developmental data in the field.
• Technical Skills: Familiarity with annotation tools (e.g., ELAN, Praat) and statistical packages for data analysis (e.g., R, RStudio).