ESRC CASE Doctoral Award at Lancaster University: ‘Linguistic adaptability across genres and modalities: A corpus-based investigation of a key component of L2 proficiency’.

Applications are invited to undertake a fully-funded, full-time three-year PhD studentship to be held at Lancaster University, beginning in October 2021. The PhD studentship is funded by the ESRC North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP) and will be undertaken in collaboration between Lancaster University (the Department of Linguistics and English Language) and the British Council.

The successful applicant will work on a PhD project that addresses an issue of critical importance in language learning and testing – the construct of linguistic proficiency in a second language (L2). In particular, it focuses on a crucial component of proficiency, linguistic adaptability, that is, the ability to adapt the use of language according to different communicative contexts and needs represented in different tasks. The study combines corpus methods with advances in language testing and assessment (LTA) research to address the topic and to contribute to second language acquisition (SLA) and LTA theory. The study also seeks to apply the findings directly in LTA practice by closely collaborating with the British Council (BC), a major international organisation specialising in the delivery of English teaching and testing.

The project will use corpus methods to investigate linguistic adaptability in production of L2 learners of English. In particular, the project will further develop and use a unique corpus that represents production from the same set of learners across different modes of communication (speech/writing) and across a series of tasks representing different genres. This corpus is based on the APTIS test, developed and administered by the BC and taken annually by over 300,000 users in over 100 countries. The study uses the existing Spoken APTIS corpus, completed in 2020 through a collaboration between Lancaster University and the BC, containing 663,111 words of spoken performance data from 865 speakers. The Written APTIS corpus will be built as part of the PhD project using the written component of the APTIS test from the same set of learners that contributed the spoken samples, with the estimated size of 1.5M words when complete. The corpus represents L2 speakers from three levels of English proficiency (intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced) and three linguistic/cultural backgrounds (Arabic, Chinese and Spanish), allowing the investigation of the development of linguistic adaptability across speakers of increasing proficiency levels and typologically different languages.

A thorough training and guidance in the use of corpus methods will be provided as part of the doctoral training; any other required training (e.g. in specific research methods) will also be provided as part of the PhD. In addition to the contribution to the language acquisition and language testing theory, the study seeks to improve assessment of spoken English by closely collaborating with the  British Council’s Assessment Research Group and by making the findings directly relevant to language test developers.

The project seeks to address the following research questions:

• RQ1: What is the effect of modality (speech vs. writing) and task (genre) on L2 performance?
• RQ2: Do more proficient L2 users show more adaptability to modality/task than less proficient L2 users?
• RQ3: Is there a relationship between adaptability and other features of L2 performance (e.g. accuracy and complexity)?   

The PhD studentship award represents an excellent opportunity to combine training as a researcher in a leading academic Linguistics department as well as gain skills through working in a non-academic environment, with our industrial partner, the British Council.  The PhD project will involve close cooperation with the members of the Assessment Research Group at the British Council. 

The PHD studentship award: The studentship covers full-time academic fees (standard UKRI Home rate) and provides a yearly stipend (£15,285 in 2021/22). It also includes access to a Research Training Support Grant (RTSG) for reimbursement of research related expenses including – but not limited to – conference attendance, training courses and UK fieldwork.

Supervision: The studentship will be supervised by a team consisting of Dr Dana Gablasova, Dr Vaclav Brezina and Prof Luke Harding from Lancaster University and Dr Jamie Dunlea from the British Council.

The Candidate: We are seeking to appoint a PhD student who

• Has experience or interest in studying spoken and written production of L2 English learners  and  in applying the findings to language testing; has experience or interest in corpus-based methods
• Has a first class or upper second class or equivalent undergraduate degree 
• Has completed or is in the process of completing a postgraduate (Master’s) degree in a relevant discipline (e.g. linguistics, applied linguistics, TESOL, corpus linguistics, language testing or other related field.)
• Satisfies the academic, language and residential eligibility requirement (see http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/phd-studentship/eligibility-criteria/)

Deadline: Closing date for applications: Tuesday, 6th April 2021, 5pm (UK time).