Researcher in the Dutch Creole of the Danish West Indies

The Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics within the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University invites applications for a two-year researcher position concerning Virgin Islands Dutch Creole. The researcher position is affiliated with the research project ‘Digital Demography, Creole Creation, Light on Letters: Unravelling the Unique Case of the Genesis and Development of Creole Language of the Danish West Indies’ funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.

The researcher position is a full time two-year fixed-term position. The position begins on 1 October 2024 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The School of Communication and Culture is committed to diversity and encourages all qualified applicants to apply regardless of their personal background.

Project

The project tracks the genesis and development of Dutch Creole from the settlement of Saint Thomas to the final stages of the language, using demographic data, grammatical data and lexical data from the whole period, starting 1672 to the late 20th century. To this end, computational methods are used, such as phylogenetic networks, agent-based modelling and graphematics. The creole language was created after 1672 by the enslaved population of the island of Saint Thomas, now part of the US Virgin Islands.

Researcher position

The successful applicant will be expected to work on one of the following subproject:

• Bibles and Books. Much linguistic material has been produced by pietistic missionaries from Germany and Lutheran missionaries from Denmark. The evolution of grammatical and orthographic norms are studied and compared. This part will map the 25 printed sources in the creole. The competing missionaries will shed a light on the reliability of missionary resources and their parallel development. Phylogenetic software and graphematic techniques would be appropriate techniques.

The other subprojects are

• Arrival and adjustment. On the basis of available rich detailed demographic data, the interaction of the languages of the enslaved and enslavers will be studied. Agent-based modelling would be an appropriate technique, using agents with different linguistic usage.
• Creole Creation. Uniquely, converted enslaved people in the Danish West Indies were literate. The grammatical evolution of these texts is studied computationally in conjunction with printed texts produced by German and Danish missionaries in the creole language. Phylogenetic software is one of the appropriate techniques.

The three subprojects will thus map the development of the creole through time, from its genesis. The printed and manuscript texts will be made available in digitalized forms.

Teaching and supervision

The researcher position is primarily research-based, but it will also involve a small degree of teaching and supervision. To that end, the successful applicant will be expected to take part in the department’s teaching and supervision activities and to teach and supervise on BA or MA degree programme in linguistics.

Given the international focus of the degree programmes, the successful applicant will be expected to teach in English and/or in Danish.

The person appointed to the post of researcher must complete Aarhus University’s teacher-training programme for assistant professors, which is designed for university teaching.

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