AHRC Doctoral Studentship in Russian Historical Sociolinguistics: the
German Language in Russia

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/russian/events/ahrcrussian.html

The doctoral student will belong to a research team based in the
Department of Russian at the University of Bristol which will be working
from 1 August 2011 for a period of three years on a multidisciplinary
project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) on 'The
History of the French Language in Russia'. (S)he will extend the scope of
the project by writing a thesis which explores some aspect of the history
of the German language in Russia.

You will belong to a research team based in the Department of Russian at
the University of Bristol. The team will be led by Professor Derek Offord
and will also include two Postdoctoral Research Assistants who have
already been appointed. It will work from 1 August 2011 for a period of
three years on a multidisciplinary project wholly funded by the AHRC on
‘The History of the French Language in Russia’.

The research team will take an interdisciplinary approach. Using a wide
range of primary sources (archival material, linguistic corpora, published
works and private correspondence written by Russians in French, and
Russian writings about linguistic questions), it will examine the history
of French in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russia from the viewpoints
of linguistic, social, cultural, literary, political and intellectual
history. A fuller summary and list of objectives are available on request.
The approach taken by the postgraduate member of the research team to
her/his thesis on an aspect of the history of German in Russia will mirror
that taken by the Principal Investigator and the Postdoctoral Research
Assistants in their investigation of the history of French there. That is
to say, you should be alive to the benefits of interdisciplinarity and you
will absorb from the other members of the team the diverse theoretical and
methodological approaches that they are applying to material on the
history of French. In so far as the framework of the doctoral thesis
permits, you will bring these approaches to bear on analysis of the
linguistic, social, cultural and other types of impact that German had on
Russian life during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The precise focus of your thesis will be determined in consultation with
the research team during the first six months of the studentship, as you
explore the subject and as the larger project unfolds. The sort of
phenomena that you will consider might include the following: the
prominence of German scholars in the Russian Academy of Sciences in the
early stages of its existence; the role of men of German ethnic origin in
the tsarist bureaucracy; the distribution of communities of German
minorities in the Russian Empire; and the currency of German among the
nineteenth-century educated class as members of it were affected by
Romanticism, German philosophy and periods of study in German
universities.

Your contribution will add an important dimension to the project as a
whole. It will underline the fact that foreign languages other than
French, notably German and English, also achieved wide currency in
pre-revolutionary Russia. It may also help to lay foundations for further
work on the use of German in Russia and on its distribution in other
countries during the same historical period. You will be introduced to the
well-established Historical Sociolinguistics Network (HiSoN) led by Dr
Nils Langer of the Department of German at Bristol.

If necessary, you may receive tuition in Russian at an appropriate level
from the language-teaching staff of the Department of Russian. You will
also benefit from the facilities in the Faculty’s Graduate School
(opened in 2009-10) and from generic skills development training that is
available to research students, including training in web design and
speaking to the media. It will be an important subsidiary aim of the
project to enable the PhD student to gain varied experience of research
activity, project management and organisation of academic events in a
supportive environment.

The deadline for applications is 5.00 pm on Friday 24 June 2011.
Candidates for the studentship should use the research statement section
of their application to explain how their research experience and
interests might connect with this larger project and how the project might
in turn fit in with their longer-term research plans. They should also
provide details of their academic record to date. AHRC doctoral awards are
subject to eligibility criteria relating to residence, set out in the
Guide to Postgraduate Funding at www.ahrc.ac.uk.

For further information please contact Derek Offord
([log in to unmask]).




-- 
Dr Nils Langer
Reader in German Linguistics
University of Bristol

currently
Humboldt Fellow
Germanistisches Seminar
Niederdeutsche Abteilung
CAU Kiel
Olshausenstr 40
24098 Kiel

or
School of Modern Languages
University of Bristol
Bristol, BS8 1TE
UK
+44 117 92 89841

www.bris.ac.uk/german/hison
www.fgls.ac.uk
www.theonion.com