Language and Technology

Objective

This course introduces the main areas in which computer technology and language converge to serve a variety of fields. These areas include a variety of applications based on Natural Language Processing (NLP), such as Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), and distance learning.

Outcomes

• Knowledge and Comprehension
• Discuss  theories, concepts, facts, and methodologies related to applying information technology to language and linguistics.
• Skills
• Critically evaluate the use of NLP (Natural Language Processing)   applications in learning/teaching/research contexts.
• Utilize information and communication technology effectively in research and study in the context of language and technology.
• Values
• Work effectively in groups to facilitate teamwork.

Content

• Chapter 1: Definitions, origins, divisions, levels, approaches and history of NLP (J & M, 2) 
• Chapter 2: Regular Expressions, text normalization, and minimum edit distance (J & M, 2018) 
• Chapter 3: N-Grams (J & M, 2018) 
• Chapter 8: Part-of-Speech Tagging (J & M, 2018) 
• Chapter 6: Lexical Semantics and WordNet (J & M, 2018)
• Chapter 10: Syntax and Formal Grammars of English (J & M, 2018)
• Chapter 11: Syntactic Parsing (J & M, 2018)  
• Corpus linguistics: Computer/web-based Corpora (Brown, LDC, The British National Corpus, Project Gutenberg), Concordance Software McEnery & Hardie, 2012; O’Keeffe, McCarthy & Carter, 2007 
• Computer-mediated language learning (CALL) Hubbard, 2009; Warshchauer 1996) )

Textbook

• Jurafsky, D. & Martin, J. H. (2018). Speech and Language Processing: an introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition, 2nd ed. USA: Pearson Prentice Hall.  
• Hubbard, P. (2009) (ed.) Computer Assisted Language Learning, Vol. I-IV, Routledge: London and New York.
• McEnery, T. &Hardie, A. (2012). Corpus Linguistics. Method, Theory and Practice. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 

Course ID: ENGL 310