Intern – Language Research & AI Data Annotation

X STAR TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD.; Singapore; On-site; SGD 13,000 - 20,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

On-site internship

Long-term opportunity

Mentorship

Job summary

X STAR TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD. in Singapore offers an on-site internship focused on language research, localization analysis, and data annotation for NLP and CV tasks. You will investigate linguistic features, annotate text and audio, and evaluate AI outputs under project guidelines.

The role emphasizes strong linguistic fundamentals, analytical writing, and attention to detail, with potential for long-term opportunities and hands-on mentorship in a fast‑growing tech environment.

Qualifications

• Pursuing degree in Linguistics or related field with strong academic results.
• Native or near-native proficiency in one or more target languages: Malay, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, or English.
• Solid grounding in core linguistic concepts: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, or pragmatics.
• Strong analytical reading and writing skills; ability to produce clear, structured written assessments.
• Able to follow detailed annotation guidelines and flag ambiguities systematically.

Responsibilities

• Language research: investigate linguistic characteristics of target languages — phonology, morphology, pragmatics, regional variation, and code-switching behaviors.
• Localization analysis: identify how language use differs across regions, registers, and cultural contexts; document findings to guide model adaptation.
• Pronunciation & phonetic work: analyse and annotate pronunciation characteristics, prosodic patterns, and phonetic variation for speech tasks.
• Text & audio annotation: label data for semantic classification, grammaticality judgments, sentiment, discourse structure, and speaker intent.
• Language model evaluation: assess AI-generated outputs for fluency, accuracy, cultural appropriateness, and task fit; provide detailed feedback.

Skills

Linguistics knowledge

Analytical writing

Attention to detail

Education

Pursuing or recently completed degree in Linguistics

Tools

Label Studio

Labelbox

Prodigy

Job description

Job Description & Requirements

What You Will Do

Language Research & Evaluation:

• Language research:Investigate linguistic characteristics of target languages — phonological patterns, morphology, pragmatics, regional variation, and code-switching behaviors.
• Localization analysis:Identify how language use differs across regions, registers, and cultural contexts; document findings to guide model adaptation.
• Pronunciation & phonetic work:Analyse and annotate pronunciation characteristics, prosodic patterns, and phonetic variation for speech-related tasks.
• Text & audio annotation:Label data for tasks such as semantic classification, grammaticality judgements, sentiment, discourse structure, and speaker intent.
• Language model evaluation:Assess AI-generated language outputs for fluency, accuracy, cultural appropriateness, and task fit; write detailed feedback to drive model improvement.

Vision Annotation & Labelling:

• Image annotation:Label objects, scenes, attributes, and spatial relationships in images.
• Video annotation:Track objects across frames, annotate actions and events, and label temporal sequences according to project-specific guidelines.
• Visual quality assurance:Review annotated image and video data for consistency and accuracy; resolve ambiguities against labelling guidelines.
• Cross-modal work:Annotate data where language and vision intersect — such as image captioning evaluation, visual question answering, or OCR output review in target languages.

Across Both Streams:

• Guideline development:Collaborate with the team to refine annotation SOPs and evaluation metrics; use your linguistic and domain knowledge to resolve edge cases.
• Quality & consistency:Cross-check annotated data before submission; flag systematic errors and propose corrections.

Who we're looking for

Required:

• Pursuing or recently completed a degree in Linguistics, Language Studies, Translation, Communication, or a related field — with strong academic results.
• Native or near-native proficiency in one or more of our target languages:Malay, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, or English.
• Solid grounding in core linguistic concepts — phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, or pragmatics.
• Strong analytical reading and writing skills; ability to produce clear, structured written assessments.
• High attention to nuance — comfortable making fine-grained distinctions in language use and visual content.
• Able to follow detailed annotation guidelines and flag ambiguities systematically.

Preferred:

• Exposure to computational linguistics, NLP, or computer vision — coursework, projects, or self-study counts.
• Experience with transcription, translation, subtitling, localization, or language teaching.
• Prior experience with image or video annotation tasks (object detection, segmentation, action labelling).
• Familiarity with annotation tools such as Label Studio, Labelbox, Prodigy, SuperAnnotate, or similar platforms.
• Interest in phonetics, sociolinguistics, or cross-cultural communication.
• Multilingual ability — particularly in dialects or regional varieties of target languages.
• Available for a long-term, full-time, on-site internship.