Research Associate in Language Variation and Change

The Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics is seeking to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Associate to support Professor David Willis and the CURLEW Project (Census of Urban and Rural Language in England and Wales), for which an SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation) grant has been awarded.

The overall role of the post is to co-ordinate and participate in data collection and analysis that will help us fully understand how the socio-economic and demographic changes of the past half-century have steered language change across England and Wales.

The post is for a fixed-term period of 48 months starting August 2026 (or as soon as possible thereafter.)

About the Role

Reporting to the Oxford Principal Investigator, David Willis, the post holder will be a member of the Oxford-based group carrying out research for CURLEW: Census of Urban and Rural Language in England and Wales. CURLEW is a four-year project (from August 2026) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation as part of the International Co-Investigator Scheme with the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It is a collaboration between Bern, York, and Oxford with teams in each of the participating institutions. The aim of CURLEW is to conduct a census of urban and rural language in England and Wales, providing a rich snapshot of the English language in these countries today using contemporary sociolinguistic sampling techniques, studying a broad cross-section of the population. Modelled on the successful Swiss Dialäktatlas, this project serves as a 21st-century counterpart to the historic Survey of English Dialects from the 1950s and 60s.

The post holder will be expected to contribute to the planning, co-ordination and execution of the project and its data collection, with specific responsibilities to take the lead on data processing, statistical analysis (including geospatial statistics), and GIS-based mapping. They will conduct data collection and analysis for the project and provide guidance to junior members of the research group, including research assistants, doctoral students, and project participants. They will also be responsible for comparing contemporary data with historical datasets (such as the Survey of English Dialects or relevant historical corpora), thereby identifying patterns of linguistic innovation and diffusion. Additionally, they will explore the sociolinguistic and historical factors that have shaped these developments. Like all project members, they will be expected to carry out data collection (primarily remotely) to build the CURLEW corpus.

About You

You will have a doctoral degree in either Linguistics or a relevant related field, together with relevant research experience and previous experience of contributing to publications and presentations.

The post holder must have sufficient specialist knowledge of relevant areas (such as language variation and change/sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, morphosyntax, history of the English language, geospatial linguistics and dialectology) to work with and develop the research programme, including the necessary statistical skills to perform geospatial analysis of the results.

Application Process 

You will be required to upload a supporting statement, CV and two referees as part of your application. The supporting statement must explain how you meet the selection criteria for the post.

The closing date for applications is 12:00 noon on  Friday, 20 February 2026.

Interviews will take place during week commencing Monday, 13 March. 

Advert information