Linguistics 384: Language and Computers

Linguistics 384: Language and Computers

Course goals: In the past decade, the widening use of computers has had a profound influence on the way ordinary people communicate, search and store information. For the overwhelming majority of people and situations, the natural vehicle for such information is natural language. Text and to a lesser extent speech are crucial encoding formats for the information revolution.

In this course, you will be given insight into the fundamentals of how computers are used to represent, process and organize textual and spoken information, as well as tips on how to effectively integrate this knowledge into working practice. We will cover the theory and practice of human language technology. Topics include text encoding, search technology, tools for writing support, machine translation, dialog systems, computer aided language learning and the social context of language technology.

GEC: The course satisfies the GEC category 2B (Mathematical and Logical Analysis). It does so by using natural language systems to motivate students to exercise and develop a range of basic skills in formal and computational analysis. The course philosophy is to ground abstract concepts in real world examples. We introduce strings, regular expressions, finite-state and context-free grammars, as well as algorithms defined over these structures and techniques for probing and evaluating systems that rely on these algorithms. The course goes beyond merely subjective evaluation of systems, emphasizing analysis and reasoning to draw and argue for valid conclusions about the design, capabilities and behavior of natural language systems.

Instructor: María Aránzazu Martín-Lozano (Arantxa)

Office: 204 Oxley Hall
Email: lozano@ling.ohio-state.edu; Telephone: (614) 688-3108
Office hours: M, W 4:30-5:30 (in general, arranging an appointment at the end of class or by email works best)

Course Coordinator: If you have any questions about this course you can contact Dr. Hope Dawson, TA coordinator of the Linguistics Department. E-mail: hdawson@ling.ohio-state.edu. Office: Oxley Hall 222A.

Course meets: Tuesdays 3:30-5:18pm in 209 Central Classroom and Thursdays 3:30-5:18pm in 345 Central Classroom

Carmen: We'll be using the Carmen course management tool for the course, which is accessible at http://carmen.osu.edu. You'll use it to

do the on-line quizzes
submit your homeworks (in html format) in the electronic dropbox
locate/read the updated syllabus, slides, handouts, reading material, etc.
send email to the class

Note that email from Carmen is sent to the official email addresses (Name.Number@osu.edu) of the students enrolled in the class and the instructor. You should read email sent to your official osu account on a daily basis.

Readings: There is no textbook for this course (the topic is quite new, at OSU and elsewhere). There will be some readings assigned periodically throughout the course.

I will distribute slides in class for each unit. These will also be available on the web after the class in which they are first distributed. These slides are only a skeleton of the material covered; they cannot replace actually being in class.

Course requirements: The basic requirement is regular attendance in class and active participation. There will be roughly one online quiz per topic, to ensure the material covered in class is mastered. And there will be one homework (exercise sheet) per topic, which are intended to give the opportunity to explore new aspects of the topics discussed in class. The midterm will consist of the material covered in the first half of the class, and the final will cover the contents covered in the second half of the class.

Grading: Grades will be based on participation in classroom discussion and group work, quizzes, homeworks, a midterm exam, and the final examination, using the following scheme:

Participation	10%
Quizzes	20%
Homeworks	30%
Midterm	20%
Final	20%

Given that homeworks, quizzes, and the exams address the material covered in class, attendance is essential for doing well in this class.
Homeworks are administered on-line through Carmen, using its dropbox feature. Please submit homeworks in html format, which you can either write as such or save in that format from the editor you use (e.g., the ``Save as Web Page'' option of Word). No other format will be accepted.

You have about a week for each homework and a clear deadline will be given for each homework. No late homeworks will be accepted.

I encourage group work on the homework assignments, but each of you has to write and submit your own answers, i.e., you have to use your own words -- copying part or all of the answer of another student is unacceptable. Note that group work means that everyone in the group contributes and fully understands what you turn in---where in doubt, I may ask you individually to explain to me in person what you turned in.
Quizzes are administered on-line through Carmen (http://carmen.osu.edu). Each of them takes about 5--20 minutes, but you'll have two hours to complete the entire quiz. After two hours, or after the deadline for doing the quiz has elapsed, it's automatically switched off. You will generally have a week to complete a quiz, so do not put it off to the last minute! The quizzes naturally are open book, so you should view them as an opportunity for reviewing the material covered, based on the handouts.

Note: I will not remind you when you have a quiz due. It is your responsibility to keep up with the syllabus/calendar of the course.

If you feel that I have graded anything incorrectly or improperly, please contact me outside of class. I will be happy to discuss your concerns.
Grading scale (scores in percentages):

		B+	87--89	C+	77--79	D+	67--69	E	0--59
A	93--100	B	83--86	C	73--76	D	60--66
A-	90--92	B-	80--82	C-	70--72

Make-up Policy: If you know you won't be able to make a deadline or exam, please see me before you miss the deadline or exam. If you miss the midterm or final, you will have to provide extensive written documentation for your excuse.

As you generally will have a week to take them, there are no make-ups for the quizzes.

Academic Misconduct: To state the obvious, academic dishonesty is not allowed. Cheating on tests or on other assignments will be reported to the University Committee on Academic Misconduct. The most common form of misconduct is plagiarism. Remember that any time you use the ideas or the materials of another person, you must acknowledge that you have done so in a citation. This includes material that you have found on the Web or given to you by another student by email, telephone, in person, etc.

These are some basic class etiquette rules that I will expect you to follow:

Participate: share experiences, ask questions, express your opinions. Ask me to provide more information, send me emails or see me during office hours for help, clarification, or recommendations for further research.
Do not read newspapers, materials from other classes, etc. in class. When in the computer lab, only use the computers when I ask you to do a specific activity -- do not read email or browse the web. Do not pack up early. Switch off your cell phone. If for some reason, you must leave early or you have an important call coming in, notify me before class.

Topics:

Storing language on the computer: Text and speech encoding.

Writing systems used for language. Representing text on the computer. Digital representations of speech.

Searching: web, library catalogs, and other language-based databases

What facilities exist for searching for language-based information? Different query languages and what they allow you to do. Differences between specific and general queries. How to evaluate the results of a search.

Classifying documents: Language identification and spam filtering

Techniques for classifying documents. What language(s) are they written in? Are they junk mail? Are statistical techniques better than rule-based ones, or not? When will the techniques fail?

Writer's aids: Spelling and grammar correction

What do so-called ``grammar checkers'' and ``spelling correctors'' do? What do such programs base their advice on? When does it make sense to use such tools and what kind of errors are to be expected?

Machine translation

What do the free internet-based translation services manage to do---and where do they fail? For what purposes can automatic machine translation work reliably? What translation support functions can a computer provide? A closer look at what makes machine translation such a hard task. Is it the grammar, the meaning, the culture, all three, or something else?

Dialog systems

Eliza and its surprising success in engaging people in conversation. When are dialog systems used, for what purpose? A closer look at the components of a dialog system. Where is what kind of knowledge needed to make it work?

Computer-Aided Language Learning

What is involved in learning a foreign language? What role in language learning can computers play: from vocabulary training, via presentation of learning material, to providing feedback on learner errors and progress.

Social context of language technology use

How do we react to computers that make use of language? What does it mean for the way we see ourselves? What assumptions do we make about every user of language, be it a human or a machine.

Schedule: The latest version of the schedule is always available from our web page. After the lectures, the titles in the schedule below are linked to the handouts we used (in pdf format); the same is true for the homework sheets.

Week	Month	Date	Day	Topic	Assignments (due at 3:30p.m.)
1	Sep	21	Th	Introduction
2		26	T	1. Text and speech encoding (slides) (handout)
		28	Th
3	Oct	3	T
		5	Th	2. Searching (slides) (handout)	Quiz1, HW1
4		10	T
		12	Th
5		17	T	3. Text Classification (Spam filtering) Handout	Quiz2, HW2
		19	Th
6		24	T	4. Writer's aids (handout)
		26	Th		Quiz 3
7		31	T
	Nov	2	Th	Midterm (review sheet)
8		7	T
		9	Th		Quiz 4
9		14	T	5. Machine Translation (handout)
		16	Th
10		21	T		Quiz5 , HW3
		23	Th	No class
11		28	T
		30	Th
12	Dec	5	T	Final (3:30-5:18, CC 345) (review sheet)

Disclaimer: This syllabus is subject to change. All important changes will be made in writing (email), with ample time for adjustment.

Students with Disabilities: Students who need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me as soon as possible to discuss the course format, to anticipate needs, and to explore potential accommodations. I rely on the Office of Disability Services for assistance in verifying the need for accommodations and developing accommodation strategies. Students who have not previously contacted the Office for Disability Services are encouraged to do so (292-3307; http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu).