Job Opportunities at the newly formed Centre for Spoken Interaction in Legal Contexts (SILC) at Aston University

Please see below for an official announcement of a recruitment drive at the new Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics. Of most relevance to iIIRG members is that there will be a new Centre dedicated to research on Spoken Interaction in Legal Contexts (SILC), which will be headed by Kate Haworth and investigative interviewing will form a large part of the research focus. They are looking to appoint two post-doc Research Associates specifically to this Centre. Please feel free to contact Kate to discuss further if you’re interested in applying on k.haworth@aston.ac.uk. 

We’re very pleased to announce that The Centre for Forensic Linguistics at Aston University has been successful in winning a really substantial research grant to create a much larger Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics, as announced by the UK Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore, yesterday. (For details of the full announcement see here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/farming-robots-and-eco-buildings-the-future-as-research-kick-starts-new-innovations or see Aston’s press release here: https://www2.aston.ac.uk/news/?6-million-to-establish-world-leading-forensic-linguistics-institute-at-aston-university-in-birmingham )

Over the next few months we will be advertising a total of 13 new posts, and applications are now open for a Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics and up to 8 Postdoctoral Research Associates in Forensic Linguistics. The adverts can be found here on the Aston website https://jobs.aston.ac.uk/vacancies.aspx?cat=530 as well as being up on LinguistList and jobs.ac.uk, and the closing date is Friday 5th July.

The Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics post is a permanent position and we are looking for an individual who is research active and able to teach principally, but not exclusively, across topics in forensic linguistics in the English department at Aston. The grading of this post would suit either a new academic or a more established lecturer.  Details are available here https://jobs.aston.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=R190210 

The 8 x postdoctoral Research Associate in Forensic Linguistics posts are all three-year appointments contributing to the following projects:

  • A project to collect and analyse commercial extortion demands,
  • A project on investigative interviews and their use as criminal evidence,
  • A project investigating idiolectal variation for forensic applications,
  • A project on language and law.

Alongside specified research tasks, the researchers will be given significant time and mentorship to develop their own research projects.  They’ll have to provide outline details of their project as part of the application process (see the link below for more detail).  In addition, researchers will be expected to collaborate with other members of the new Institute in researching and preparing bids for further sources of research funding. 

We’d encourage applications from individuals with skills in linguistics generally – you don’t have to identify as a forensic linguist to apply, but you will need to be interested in applying your language analysis skills to a breadth of forensic texts and contexts. We are looking to recruit a research team with a balance of skills and approaches including demonstrable skill in and knowledge of one or more of:

  • corpus linguistics,
  • computational linguistics/NLP,
  • linguistic stylistics,
  • conversation analysis,
  • (critical) discourse analysis,
  • critical approaches to professional practice.

We welcome applications also from researchers working in languages other than English. 

More details of the research positions https://jobs.aston.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=R190208 

If you are interested in being part of this exciting project please do contact one of us and please do forward this email to anyone that you feel might want to come and work with us.