New University course in human language technology
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The Institute of Linguistics at the University of Malta is offering a new course, BSc in Human Language Technology, starting in October 2011.
The terms Human Language Technology (HLT) and Natural language Processing (NLP) are essentially interchangeable, with the former emphasising more explicitly the technological aspect of language processing.
HLT is an area of research and study concerned with the relationship between natural language and machine. It studies human-machine interaction, the creation of machines that can use natural language, and, therefore, allow us to interact with them as if we were interacting with other humans. This includes robots that can speak your language.
Teaching machines how to communicate with us using ‘natural’ language will also help us understand better what goes on in our brains when we use language.
The use of machines to help us understand, analyse and manipulate language and language data are also included. Most of the information we make use of uses language; the internet is an extremely rich source of information, a large part of which is in the form of language (as well as, say, pictures). We need to be able to exploit this rich repository and to manipulate it to make communication more efficient.
According to the European Commission, human language technologies are one of the key research areas for the upcoming years. The area of Human Language Technology is an area of great importance in research and production both in academic and in commercial sectors. The new university course provides students with the basic skills required in the sector, including programming, problem solving, project management, as well as knowledge on IT, language and language applications, which should allow them to seek opportunities of employment both in the IT sector, the language sector and in academia.
The new course is aimed at those who have a background in arts subjects, as well as those with a science background (including IT and mathematics). The first year is a foundation year in which students are given the opportunity to explore the areas of linguistics and IT which they will need for the second and third years.
The course also offers placements, in which students will spend some hours in a real working environment as well as project work.
The entry requirements are general university entry requirements.
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Mr Carmel Pule'
Jul 10th 2011, 14:11
Basically all complex signals may be analysed into fundamental frequency components and it is the addition of these components which create the sound, timbre and other sound characteristics. The Fourier and the Fast Fourier and the Laplace transorms are a good foundation to understand the nature of the sound and other signals we have around us and in language form one had to include the traditional rules that language accents brought about. Language is not a case of understanding fourier series and other mathematical issue. If we give each letter a digital code , it is not a case of associating a particular sound with the digital code that represent a letter in text mode. It is more than that and other language algoritm must be included with the accent variations that any language seem to develop. Some time ago I went to a friend of mine who had lost his sight. actually he was born blind and relied only on the sounds he heard. I could not believe what I experienced in meeting the man.
He took me to his room, wher his computor could read text and the speaking computer was indeed very clear to understand and I admired the manner in which this blind man picked up the information by counting the lines on the computor aided by the sounds emanating from the computor. But was amaised me was that in the next room there was a room full of birds, which this blind man kept as a hobby. while we spoke the birds sung and he typed on the computor to access what he desired. So here was a blind man who could handle at the same time, my conversation, the singinf birds and the computor spoken text.
Now this was not a case of this man recognising the frequency components of the sound he heard for the frequency components were grouped up as packets to represent each bird, myself and also what the computor utterred. So there was more to it that analysing the frequency responce of the signal entering the ear. There must have been a grouping ability too. though the frequency components may have belonged to any sound source, the listener could idntify each group as belonging to one source and what is more he could identify andy of the undred sourses that were present for there were more than a hundred birds in that cage and with me uttering my bit while the computer dished out the text in language form.
I enjoyed taking to this person for he was a great asset in learning the recognition of sound. I must admit that I had to shelf my fourier transforms including the fast fourier transforms and the Laplace transforms.
Through my life I worked on three dimensional signals and I concluded that if we had to look upon the sine and cosine wave as forming a three dimensional helix, then all the signal around us can be analyesed as consisting of the addition of a number of helixes together to form the complex signal. What is more , now that I had three dimensional basic components to form a three dimensional fourier series then even archhitecture can be described in its frequency components as sound can. This is an amaizing area for all around us including archhitechure, cars, houses , people and their shape, all can be broken down in three dimensional frequency components and reconstructed using the inverse Laplace functions or the inverse fourier series.
Really the contents of thsi subject is ENGINEERING and I cannot see why such processing has entered the linguistic institures and handle TECHNOLOGY. I think that a language institute should only handle language techniques and leace the technology bit to scientists and engineers. wher e it is the engineer who handles communications technology while it is the ligusit who handle the sound techniques.
This is plagiarising at its best , is it not. Just because Engineers and mathematicians invented the computor, other fields have spauned out and with thenm took the fundamental areas that belonged to others who started it all. Wicc Tost I say!!