Multilingual Computing

How might we build computers which can be used by everyone around the planet? The problems are complex. Thousands of languages are in active use worldwide. Almost a billion people are unable to read or write. Many languages don’t even have a written form. Yet most interface technologies are tied to specific written languages. This course explores aspects of natural language and language technologies related to the theme of multilingual computing. Topics to be covered include: text, speech, and visual input and output; semantic representations; language translation and trans-lingual communication; language learning by humans and machines; open system development of language technologies; and applications of multilingual computing in developing nations. Readings will draw from a broad number of areas including artificial intelligence, speech processing, linguistics, and media studies.

A set of readings will be distributed on alternate weeks. For a given set of readings, a short written assignment is due on the following Monday. All assignments will be posted on the course web site so that students may view each others ideas before discussion in class. In the following class we will discuss the assignments and readings. For the second week, a design/programming assignment on the topic of the readings will be due, again on the following Monday, forming the basis of discussion for the next class. This cycle will be repeated for five topic areas (see below).

A term programming/design project is required. The goal of the project is to develop a communication, information retrieval, or content authoring system which can be readily adapted to multiple languages. Communication systems involving text, speech and/or visual components may be designed for trans-lingual communication. The last two classes of the term will be devoted to project presentations. A short written project report is also required.

Grades will be determined by written assignments (10%), design assignments (20%), class participation (30%) and final projects (50%).

• Week 1: Introduction and overview
• Week 2 & 3: Spoken vs. written language
• Week 4 & 5: Human language technologies (text, speech, gestures)
• Week 6 & 7: Visual Languages
• Week 8 & 9: Semantic representations (semantic networks, frames, semantics in language)
• Week 10 & 11: Language learning in humans and machines
• Week 12 & 13: Communicating across languages (automatic translation, translation aids, multimodal systems)

• Week 14: TBA

• The Languages of the World (Katzner)
• Multilingualism (Edwards)
• Orality and Literacy (Ong)
• Understanding Media (McLuhan)
• The world on paper (Olson)
• Words and Things: An Introduction to Language (Brown)
• Speech perception in early infancy (Eimas)
• A Framework for Representing Knowledge (Minksy)
• Meaning as Use (Wittgenstein)
• Western Linguistics (Seuren)
• The Language Instinct (Pinker)
• Learning Words from Sights and Sounds (Roy)
• On Automatic Language Acquisition (Gorin)
• The L0 Project (Feldman and Lakoff)
• The Origins of Writing (Senner)
• The Story of Writing (Robinson)
• Selected papers on speech recognition and synthesis (Young, Klatt, others)
• Selected papers and web sites on open source (Raymond, others)
• Machine Translation (Nagoa)

• Survey of the State of the Art in Human Language Technology (Cole et. al)
• Speech Communication: Human and Machine (O’Shaughnessy)