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SalaryAbout The University
Swansea University is a research-led university that has been making a difference since 1920. The University community thrives on exploration and discovery and offers the right balance of excellent teaching and research, matched by an enviable quality of life.
Our stunning waterfront campuses and multicultural community make us a desirable workplace for colleagues from around the world. Our reward and benefits, and ways of working enable those who join us to have enriching careers, matched by an excellent work-life balance.
About The Role
This role is situated within the Applied Linguistics section of the School of Culture and Communication. The section is a strong, supportive learning and research community with a track record of impactful and influential outputs. We have strong collaborations with colleagues in other disciplines including Psychology, Health Science, and Education. External partners include policy makers, health care practitioners, and educators. We host interdisciplinary research events, and our community of visiting scholars, research partners and students gives these an international reach.
The Finding, sharing and losing words: understanding the mental lexicon project takes a sustained, systematic approach to advancing understanding of the mental lexicon. Examining how we store and access words, connections between words, and what influences these connections, will help us to understand how specific individual differences impact on communicative effectiveness.
The project uses Word Association (WA) methods, which have previously suggested that response behaviour might correlate with characteristics such as language proficiency, or cognitive performance. However, findings have been inconsistent. The project will scrutinise previous studies, and develop effective methods for investigating the puzzle at the heart of WA research – that is, identifying the factors that cause an individual to give a particular response to a cue word. It will inform understanding of differences in the ways words and meanings are construed across language development, successful second language learning, word access in healthy ageing, language attrition in dementia and aphasia, and key contributors to miscommunication in personal interaction. The project will develop and test new methodologies, and trial real-world interventions (in healthcare and educational settings) that are informed by the project findings.
The successful applicant’s contribution to the project will include methodology development, close analysis of data, and co-authorship of papers/presentations. They will receive bespoke training in WA data coding, visualisation software, and curation of an online resource bank.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
The University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity in all its practices and activities. We aim to establish an inclusive environment and welcome diverse applications from the following protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race (including colour, nationality, ethnic and national origin), religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation.
