Student Assistant Natural Language ProcessingCorpus Linguistics (Spanish)

Are you a masters student eager to gain experience with research at the intersection of Natural Language Processing Cognitive Linguistics and Corpus Linguistics We are seeking a student assistant (SA) to join our project entitled Modelling Word Order and Cognitive Constraints from February 2026 to June 2026. As part of this project we are currently working on a study of differential object marking.

Modelling Word Order and Cognitive Constraints

The languages of the world show a wide range of variety but this variety is often constrained. It has been hypothesized that various cognitive biases shape these the case of differential object marking this includes factors such as animacy and definiteness but there has never been a comprehensive multifactorial investigation across languages on natural language data to empirically confirm this. We are looking for someone with excellent organizational skills and attention to detail who also has substantive experience with natural language processing and (corpus or cognitive) linguistics and has an excellent command of the Spanish language. The ideal candidate will be familiar with NLP methodology for automatic linguistic annotation in Python and will have a practical understanding of methods for multifactorial linguistic studies on experimental or corpus data. Knowledge of statistical analysis of such data also helps.

This is what you will be doing

You will contribute to a systematic quantitative corpus study of differential object marking in Spanish. There are two main tasks. The first is to investigate and implement methods that automatically annotate relevant linguistic properties that predict the use of differential object marking in Spanish such as animacy and definiteness. A previous research assistant has already developed a method to automatically identify instances of differential object marking in Spanish but this can be further developed. The second is to perform manual or semi-automatic annotation of sentences containing differential object marking and the features that predict its use. After doing these two tasks depending on the remaining time another task may be to statistically analyse the data that was collected.

Part of the research has already been carried out by a previous student assistant so you will be following up on existing work.

This is what we ask of you

You have an interest in academic research and are familiar with quantitative methods in linguistics. You have experience with text processing in Python as well as a high level of Spanish proficiency. You are familiar with relevant linguistic concepts such as animacy givenness and differential object marking and are able to identify them in empirical data.

This is what else we offer you

As an UvA employee youll be able to work in the employee areas of Lab42 (the building of the Institute for Logic Language and Computation at Science Park). Through weekly update meetings you will gain practical experience with how research projects develop. If you are interested you can join us to relevant academic events such as the Computational Linguistics Seminar and the Corpus-based and/or Computational Approaches to Language and Literature (CCALL) events.

This is a unique opportunity to work at the Faculty of Humanities. The duration of the employment contract is from 1 February 30 June 2026 for 8 hours per salary will be between 3.084 - 3.141 gross per month based on a full time employment of 38h per week. This is exlcuding 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% percent end of the year bonus. The Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities is applicable.

This is where youll be working

You will join the Modelling Word Order and Cognitive Constraints project which is an interdisciplinary collaboration between Dr. Marieke Schouwstra (Cognitive Science) Dr. Jelke Bloem (Natural Language Processing) and Dr. Eva van Lier (Linguistics). You will work with Maria Tepei PhD candidate in this project whose focus is on differential object marking in Romanian. The project combines theoretical insights from linguistics and cognitive science with advanced methods from Natural Language Processing.

Questions
For questions about the position or department you can contact us during office hours at:

Jelke Bloem

Assistant Professor in Computational Humanities

Application
If you recognize yourself in the profile and are interested in the position we look forward to receiving your application. To apply please fill in the questionnaire below and send it to Jelke Bloem (). The vacancy closes on.

Please answer the questions below to apply for the research assistant position:

1. Personal data

Name:

E-mail address:

Current degree programme:

University where you are currently enrolled:

Study plans for 2025-2026:

Have you ever worked as a research assistant at the UvA before If so was that under the compensation other than wages

2. Motivation

Why do you want to participate in this research project Why does it seem interesting or useful to you What do you hope to learn from it Are there aspects of the project that particularly interest you

3. Relevant prior knowledge and experience

What relevant prior knowledge or experience have you gained in your studies activism or volunteer work paid work or personal life What courses have you taken that are relevant to this topic This can be about the task itself (Spanish syntax and semantics) or its research context (corpus linguistics cognitive linguistics automatic annotation using natural language processing).

4. Availability

Are there periods in the period Feb 2026 Jun 2026 when you are not or less available