The seventh international conference on language resources and evaluation organised by the European Language Resources Association is being held in Malta this week.
Over the years, this conference has become a key event and the reference forum for language technologies researchers and industrial developers from all over the world. Some 650 papers will be presented throughout the workshops and the conference sessions in Valletta to an international audience of over 1,000 participants.
The objectives of research and development in language technologies include elimination of the barriers to communication created by linguistic and non-linguistic factors, and reduction of the effects of the digital divide. This is very pertinent in the EU which has more than 20 official languages and promotes respect of cultural diversity.
Hence language technologies strive to create, for example, machine translation systems, more natural man-machine interfaces based on human language and speech, language-enabled tools for "text-mining", and assistive technologies to help individuals with impairments to visual and auditory communication.
Such technologies are all based on linguistic databases known as language resources. The provision of language resources in all languages, and evaluation of the technologies derived from them are the core missions of ELRA.
The LREC 2010 conference, organised under the patronage of President George Abela, with the support of European Council president Herman Van Rompuy, runs at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta until Sunday.
The local organiser of the event is Michael Rosner, head of the Department of Intelligent Computer Systems in the Faculty of ICT at the University of Malta.
www.lrec-conf.org/lrec2010