Date: 01 May 1996 ----------------- ====================================================================== TOPICS: 1. INLG'96: Registration (Deadline 8 May) 2. JOB OPPORTUNITY: Linguistic Data Consortium 3. PROGRAMME: Teaching and Language Corpora 96 (9-12 Aug 96, Lancaster UK) 4. Call for course/workshop proposals: ESSLLI'97 Aix-en-Provence 5. CFP: logical aspects of computational linguistics (Deadline May31) 6. NEW BOOK: Language Behaviour: Acquisition and Evolutionary History ====================================================================== Topic 1: INGL'96 Registration From: Cecile.Paris@itri.brighton.ac.uk (Cecile Paris) Please find below the registration form for the 1996 International Workshop on Natural Language Generation, which will take place at Herstmonceux Castle, UK, June 13-15, 1996. See Web Page: http://www.itri.brighton.ac.uk/events/INLG-96/ for details of the workshop, including the programme. Note: - The registration deadline is 8 May 1996. - The facilities at the workshop venue dictate that attendance be limited to approximately 70 participants. Should more people wish to attend than can be accommodated, attendance will be on a first come first served basis after preference has been given to those who submitted papers. Note that your interest will be indexed from the time we receive your payment rather than from when we receive your registration form. - Payment is to be made in pounds sterlings. ======================================================================= INLG-96 REGISTRATION FORM PERSONAL DETAILS Name: _______________________________________________ Organisation: _______________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ FAX: _______________________________________________ email: _______________________________________________ REGISTRATION (all prices are in Pounds Sterling) >From Academia 120.00 [ ] >From Industry 150.00 [ ] ACCOMMODATION (includes meals, reception, banquet, and lodging for 12-14 June) Single rooms: Single without private bath 112.50 [ ] additional Saturday night 27.50 [ ] Single with bath 180.00 [ ] additional Saturday night 50.00 [ ] Double rooms (cost per person): Double with twin beds without private bath 105.00 [ ] additional Saturday night 25.00 [ ] Double with twin beds and bath 150.00 [ ] additional Saturday night 40.00 [ ] Double with double bed and bath 150.00 [ ] additional Saturday night 40.00 [ ] Preferred room-mate: _____________________________________ Vegetarian Meal Option [ ] CONCERT (see below) 15.00 [ ] TOTAL COST: _________ ------------------------------------------------------------------ NOTES: The registration deadline is 8 May 1996. Payment should be made in pounds sterling (e.g., with an international money order or Euro-cheque) made out to "the University of Brighton". Students should indicate their interest as soon as possible (i.e., before registering) as additional funds may be available to reduce their registration fee. Return the form and the payment to the following address (the form can be submitted electronically if you prefer, with the payment to follow shortly by paper mail): INLG-96 ITRI, University of Brighton Lewes Road Brighton BN2 4AT UK phone: +44 (0) 1273 642900 fax: +44 (0) 1273 606653 email: inlg96@itri.brighton.ac.uk The facilities at the workshop venue dictate that attendance be limited to approximately 70 participants. Should more people wish to attend than can be accommodated, attendance will be on a first come first served basis after preference has been given to those who submitted papers. Note that your interest will be indexed from the time we receive your payment rather than from when we receive your registration form. The accommodation is dormitory-style, but is very nicely fitted out. The shared bathrooms are clean, accessible, and the showers are good (i.e., not usual British trickle). Linen and towels are provided. The accomodation block is a short walk from the conference rooms. We are delighted to announce that on Saturday night, following the workshop, the Castle will be hosting an outdoor Summer Proms Classics concert by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, followed by a fireworks display. We recommend that you buy tickets for the concert on the registration form, but they will also be available from the castle during the workshop. More information is available from the INLG-96 web page, http://www.itri.brighton.ac.uk/events/INLG-96/ ====================================================================== Topic 2: Job Opportunity-Linguistic Data Consortium From: Rebecca Finch The Linguistic Data Consortium, a nonprofit organization that is part of the University of Pennsylvania, assembles and redistributes a wide range of databases for purposes of linguistic research. We are looking for someone with programming experience to assist our senior programmer in the preparation and publication of multilingual text databases for use by researchers. Duties will include, but not be limited to, quality assessment of text data received from various sources; analysis and description of their formats; defintion and creation (or adaptation) of software tools to filter and condition text data to a uniform format and level of quality; maintainence of processed text collections for publication on CD-ROM or the World Wide Web. This person should possess a BA/BS in computer science or equivalent; one to two years of programming and systems experience; familiarity with the UNIX operating system and utilities; X Window user interface, EMACS and programming languages used in text manipulation (C, AWK and Perl); candidates with data stream processing experience desired. Must possess valid U.S. working papers. Salary range $26,000-$34,000. For more information, contact David Graff at graff@unagi.cis.upenn.edu; phone (215) 898-0887. Rebecca Finch | Linguistic Data Consortium Director, Text Resource Development | 441 Williams Hall finch@unagi.cis.upenn.edu | University of Pennsylvania Tel: 215/898-0464 / Fax: 215/573-2175 | Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 ====================================================================== Topic 3: Teaching and Language Corpora 96 - Call for Participation From: mcenery@sbu.ac.uk CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS TALC96 - TEACHING AND LANGUAGE CORPORA Lancaster University, UK, 9th-12th August, 1996 INCLUDED IN THIS EMAIL: General Details Provisional Programme Registration Details AIMS OF THE CONFERENCE While the use of computer text corpora in research is now well established, they are now being used increasingly for teaching purposes. This includes the use of corpus data to inform and create teaching materials; it also includes the direct exploration of corpora by students, both in the study of linguistics and of foreign languages. Talc96 will build upon the success of Talc94, which brought together researchers and teachers who are involved in such work, to take part in an international exchange of current experience and expertise. THEMES KEY THEME: Talc96 will have a special focus on evaluating the claims made for corpora in linguistics and language teaching. OTHER THEMES: which the conference is expected to cover include - 1.) The use of corpora in student led learning and investigation. 2.) Software for corpus based language and linguistics learning. 3.) Developing corpora for teaching purposes. 4.) The exploitation of corpus based teaching and learning materials. 5.) The theory and practice of corpus based teaching and learning. Papers presented at the conference will be of the typical 20 minutes talk plus ten minutes of questions format. WORKSHOPS Talc96 will also host several workshops related to teaching and language corpora. To give an example of what those workshops may be, Talc94 had a variety of workshops such as "Multilingual Corpus Building" and "Concordancing and Corpus Retrieval". Workshops will be of one to two hour duration. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TALC96 - Provisional Programme. Day One (9th August): 12 noon - 15.00: Registration and Welcome. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15.00 - 17.00: General Issues in Teaching and Language Corpora I 1. Issues in Applied Corpus Linguistics, Lynne Flowerdew, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 2. Corpus Linguistics - evaluating the diffusion of an innovation, Chris Kennedy, University of Birmingham 3. Concordancing in English Language Teaching, Bernhard Kettemann, University of Graz 4. The Role of the Corpus Based 'Phrasicon' in English Language Teaching, Stephen Magee, University of St Andrews and Michael Rundell ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19.00 - Dinner ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Two (10th August) 9.00-11.00: Parallel Corpora in Language Teaching and Translation 1. Parallel Texts in Language Teaching, Michael Barlow, Rice University 2. Corpora and Terminology: Software for the Translation Programme at Goteborg University, Pernilla Danielson & Daniel Ridings, Goteborg University 3. Parallel and Comparable Bilingual Corpora in Language Teaching and Learning, Carol Peters, CNR, Pisa 4. COSMAS - a multipurpose system for the exploitation of text corpora, F. Bodmer, J Cloeren & R. Neumann, Institut fur Deutsche Sprache & Royal Spanish Academcy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 11.00: Refreshments Break ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.30 - 13.00: Creating Materials and Tests 1. CALL Materials Derived from Integrating 'Expert' and 'Interlanguage' Corpora Findings, Lynne Flowerdew, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 2. MultiConc and the Lingua Project, Francine Roussel, University of Nancy 3. Using Corpus Word Frequency Data in the Automatic Generation of English Language Cloze Tests, David Coniam, Chinese University of Hong Kong ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13.00 Lunch ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.30-18.00: Workshops (Parallel Sessions) Parallel Workshop Session A Michael Barlow (Rice University) "ParaConc" (14:30 - 16:00) Chris Tribble (Lancaster University): "Developing Corpora for Teaching Purposes" (14:30 - 16:00) Parallel Workshop Session B Philip King, Tim Johns, David Wools (Birmingham University): "The Lingua Project - Parallel Concordancing" (16:00 - 18:00) Knut Hofland, "The ICAME Archive & Concordancing" (Bergen University) (16:00 - 18:00) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19.00: Dinner ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Three (11th August) 9.00-11.00: Corpora in Supporting ESP/EAP 1. Encouraging Students to Explore Language and Culture in Early Modern English Pamphlets, Josef Schmied, University of Chemnitz 2. The Ideology of Science as a Collocation: how Corpus Linguistics can Expand the Boundaries of Genre Analysis, Chris Gledhill, Aston University 3. Corpora, Genre Analysis and Dissertation Writing: An Evaluation of the Potential of Corpus-Based Techniques in the Study of Academic Writing, Chris Carne, University of Reading 4. Investigating Grounding Across Narrative and Oral Discourse with Students, Tony Jappy, University of Perpignan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.00: Refreshments -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.30-13.00: Teaching Languages other than English Using Corpora 1. An Experiment in the Learning of French through Corpus Linguistics, Glyn Holmes, University of Western Ontario 2. A Corpus for Teaching Portuguese, A. Berber Sardinha, University of Liverpool 3. Research into the Functions of Particles in a Corpus, Marta Fernandez-Villaneuva ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13.00 Lunch ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.30-16.00: Corpora and Student Writing 1. Exploiting Learner Corpus Data in the Classroom: Form Focused Instruction and Data Driven Learning, Sylviane Granger, Universite Catholique de Louvain 2. Approaching the Assessment of Performance Unit Archive of Schoolchildren's Writing from the Point of View of Corpus Linguistics, M. Shimazumi & A Berber Sardinha, University of Liverpool 3. A Comparison of L1 and L2 writing in the Classroom, Robert Faingold ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16.00: Refreshments ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16.30-18.00: Special Session on the British National Corpus 16:30 The British National Corpus as a Language Learner Resource, Guy Aston,University of Bologna 17:00 An Introduction to Retrieval from the BNC Using Sara, Lou Burnard, OUCS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19.00 Dinner -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Four (12th August) 9 am-11.00: Corpus Resources and Systems 1. Teaching Terminology Using Corpora, Jennifer Pearson, Dublin City University 2. A Textual Clues Approach for Generating Metaphors as Explanations by an Intelligent Tutoring System, V. Prince & S. Ferrari, LIMSI-CNRS 3. Designing a CALL System Using Corpora for Speakers of Cantonese, John Milton, City University Hong Kong 4. Marrying VERBALIST to concordance data, John Higgins, University of Stirling -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.00: Refreshments ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11.30-13.00: General Issues in Teaching and Language Corpora II 1. Evaluating Corpora - are we Asking the Right Questions?, Marina Dossena, Bergamo University 2. Corpus Linguistics as an Academic Subject, Ouriana Hatzidaki, University of Birmingham 3. A Corpus Based Description of Headline Grammar, John Morley, University of Sienna -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13.00: Lunch ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.30: Close of Conference ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ======================================================================== TALC96 REGISTRATION. ==================== To register, you may either: 1. Send this form by surface mail to: TALC96, Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YT United Kingdom 2. Or fax it to: +44 - 1524 - 843085 3. Or email it to: mcenery@computing.lancaster.ac.uk or mcenery@comp.lancs.ac.uk 4. Or fill in the interactive form on the World Wide Web at the URL http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/ucrel/talc/ Please register BEFORE 1st June 1996, otherwise we cannot guarantee availability of accommodation. The fee for TALC96 includes the following: Attendance at all TALC96 sessions Conference Pack including Book of Abstracts Accommodation on 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th August Meals: 9th August: afternoon coffee and dinner 10th August: breakfast plus mid-morning coffee, lunch, afternoon coffee and dinner. 11th August: breakfast plus mid-morning coffee, lunch, afternoon coffee and dinner. 12th August: breakfast plus mid-morning coffee, lunch. Accommodation is provided in single study bedrooms on the Lancaster University main campus. Payment Details: Fees are payable in Pounds Sterling or US Dollars. Please make cheques payable to 'Lancaster University'. Sterling money orders can also be used for payment, and must be made payable to 'Lancaster University'. US Dollar cheques are also acceptable, using a fixed exchange rate of 1.5 $US to the Pound. Unfortunately, we cannot accept credit card payments. ================================================================ REGISTRATION FORM ================= Name: _______________________________________________ Title: _______________________________________________ Department: _______________________________________________ Institution/ Organisation: _______________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________ Postcode/City: _______________________________________________ Country _______________________________________________ Telephone: ____________________________ Fax: ____________________________ Email: ____________________________ Attendance at TALC96 [ ] Residential #225.00 [ ] Student #170.00 [ ] Non-Residential #90.00 [ ] NOTE: Students must provide written evidence of their full time student status, such as an official headed letter from their supervisor. Special dietary requirements: None [ ] Vegetarian [ ] Vegan [ ] Other [ ] Please specify: _______________ ______________________________ Any other comments: ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Local Organising Committee Gerry Knowles - Lancaster University, UK Tony McEnery - Lancaster University, UK Anne Wichmann - Central Lancashire University, UK Simon Botley - Lancaster University, UK General Organising Committee Bernhard Kettemann - Graz, AU Lou Burnard - Oxford University, UK Tim Johns - Birmingham University, UK ====================================================================== Topic 4: ESSLLI'97 Call for Proposals From: "Bill Keller" CALL FOR COURSE, WORKSHOP AND SYMPOSIUM PROPOSALS ESSLLI'97 European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information - Aix-en-Provence, August 11-22, 1997 - The ESSLLI'97 Programme Committee invites proposals for courses, workshops and symposia for the 9th annual Summer School, to be held in Aix-en-Provence, from August 11th to 22nd, 1997. ESSLLI'97 is organised under the auspices of the European Association for Logic, Language and Information (FoLLI). Previous summer schools have been highly successful, attracting around 500 students from Europe and elsewhere. The school has developed into an important meeting place and forum for discussion for researchers and students interested in the interdisciplinary study of Logic, Language and Information. Proposals are sought for courses, workshops and symposia on a wide range of topics in the following fields: Language Language & Logic Logic Logic & Computation Computation Language & Computation. The Programme Committee for ESSLLI'97 comprises: Language & Computation: Bill Keller, CHAIR (Sussex) billk@cogs.susx.ac.uk Language: Daniele Godard (Paris) Daniele.Godard@linguist.jussieu.fr Language & Logic: Dag Westerstahl (Stockholm) dag.westerstahl@philosophy.su.se Logic: Sergei Artemov (Moscow) artemov@math.cornell.edu Logic & Computation: Georg Gottlob (Vienna) gottlob@dbai.tuwien.ac.at Computation: Gert Smolka (Saarbrueken) smolka@dfki.uni-sb.de If you are interested in lecturing, or organising a workshop or symposium at the summer school, please read the following information carefully. COURSES Courses at the ESSLLI schools are offered at either introductory or advanced level. Introductory courses are central to the activities of the Summer School. They are intended to provide students and young researchers with a solid grounding in a field's key concepts and techniques, and to foster interdisciplinary links by allowing more experienced researchers to acquire competence in neighbouring disciplines. In the three core fields (i.e. Language, Logic and Computation) introductory courses should be aimed at non-specialists. For example, an introductory course on logic should address linguists and computer scientists, not logicians. Introductory courses in the interdisciplinary fields (i.e. Language & Logic, Logic & Computation and Language & Computation) on the other hand, may build on knowledge of the relevant sub-fields. Thus, an introductory course in computational linguistics may assume familiarity with the basics of both linguistics and computation. In view of the importance placed on introductory courses, the number of such courses that will be offered at ESSLLI'97 has been increased. For this reason, the Programme Committee is particularly keen to attract proposals for introductory courses. Advanced courses assume a higher level of background knowledge than introductory courses. Indeed they may well be of a highly specialised nature, especially within the three core fields. As a rough guide, prospective lecturers should assume that advanced courses address PhD students actively working towards mastery of the field in question. Courses are taught by 1 or (maximally) 2 lecturers. They consist of five sessions (a one-week course) or ten sessions (a two-week course). A session lasts either 45 or 90 minutes. The most common formats are ten 45-minute sessions or five 90-minute sessions; the two other combinations are less usual, but not impossible. WORKSHOPS The aim of the workshops is to provide a forum for PhD students and other young researchers to present and discuss their work, both with colleagues and with senior researchers. Typically, over 75% of the workshop speakers should be Ph.D students or other your researchers. A workshop has a theme and one organiser. The organiser should be a specialist in the theme of the workshop and give a general introduction in the first session. The organizer is also responsible for the programme of the workshop (i.e. for finding speakers). A workshop consists of five sessions (a one-week workshop) or ten sessions (a two-week workshop) where each session lasts 45 or 90 minutes. SYMPOSIA Symposia should provide specialists in a given field with a forum for in-depth discussion. A symposium has one organiser, who should be a senior researcher in the relevant field, and who is responsible for the programme. Symposia have a maximum of 5 sessions (no two-week symposia!) and each session lasts 45 or 90 minutes. Please note that in order to keep down costs, the organisers of symposia are kindly requested to recruit speakers, as far as possible, from the ESSLLI teaching staff, or to provide a supplementary budget from sources other than ESSLLI. This means that symposium organisers will have to work closely with both the program committee and the organising committee. FORMAT FOR PROPOSALS Please submit your proposal in the following format: Name: --- Name(s) of proposed lecturer(s)/organiser. Address: --- Contact addresses of proposed lecturer(s)/organiser. Where possible, please include phone and fax numbers. Title: --- Title of proposed course/workshop/symposium. Type: --- State whether this is a workshop, a symposium, an introductory course, or an advanced course. Section: --- Which of the six sections (Language, Logic, Computation, Logic & Computation, Language & Computation or Language & Logic) does the proposal belong to? While it may be difficult in some cases to decide which section is the most appropriate, please just name one. Description: --- A description of the proposed contents. Not more than 150 words. SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS Please email your proposal to the Programme Chair and the member of the Committee responsible for the section named in your proposal, by May 13th 1996. Notification of acceptance of submitted proposals will be given by September 1st 1996. When you email your proposal, please use the following subject line: ESSLLI97 PROPOSAL FINANCIAL ASPECTS Prospective lecturers and workshop/symposium organisers should be aware that all teaching and organising at the summer schools is done on a voluntary basis in order to keep the participants' fees as low as possible. Lecturers and organisers are not paid for their contribution, but are reimbursed for travel and accommodation. (However please note that the organisers appreciate it if, whenever possible, lecturers and organisers find alternative funding to cover travel and accommodation expenses.) Workshop organisers get a maximum amount of money to be used for the expenses of the speakers in their workshops (typically about 500 ECU). Please note that workshop speakers do not get free registration at the School, but will be entitled to a discount on the registration fee. As most workshop speakers are expected to be Ph.D students or other young researchers, they have a lot to gain from attending. The organiser of a workshop provides the Summer School organiser with a budget (before the Summer School) and with a statement of accounts afterwards. Symposia should as far as possible be self-financing (for instance through sponsorship by projects or research groups). The organiser is responsible for coming up with a budget, in collaboration with the Organising Committee. Finally, it should be stressed that while proposals from all over the world are welcomed, the Summer School can only afford the travel costs for a small number of lecturers/organisers from outside Europe. PUBLICATIONS Lecturers and organizers of workshops and symposia are encouraged to think about publications arising from their lectures or events. Workshop and symposium organizers are especially encouraged to do so, as this may help in raising funds for their speakers. FoLLi has its own book series, Studies in Logic, Language and Information, which is published by CSLI Publications, Stanford. Lecturers and orgainizers are invited to contact the editorial board if they have publication plans. (See the FoLLI Home Page at http://www.fwi.uva.nl/research/folli/ for addresses). FURTHER BACKGROUND INFORMATION Prospective lecturers unfamiliar with the ESSLLI schools should consider consulting the program of the 8th Summer School, which is being held in Prague from August 12th to 23rd, 1996. Information about the Prague school can be obtained from the ESSLLI'96 Website (http://ufal.ms.mff.cuni.cz) or from ESSLLI'96, UFAL MFF UK, Malostranske' na'm. 25, 118 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic Fax: +42-2-2191-4-309 Phone: +42-2-2191-4-255 E-mail: esslli@ufal.mff.cuni.cz ====================================================================== Topic 5: CFP:Logical aspects of Comp. Linguistics From: Christian.Retore@loria.fr (Christian RETORE) Preliminary call for papers --- see URL: http://www.loria.fr/~retore/LACL.html ============================================================================== LOGICAL ASPECTS OF COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS ============================================================================== Nancy, 23-25 september 1996 General topic: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ There has been a growing interest in the use of logic in natural language processing, both for syntactical and semantical models. Some recent examples include logical deduction as a basis for parsing/generation, the use of non-commutative linear logic as a syntactical model, the relation between categorial grammars, CFG and TAG, natural language interfaces for automatic theorem proving, unification for anaphora resolution, and linear logic semantics for LFG. This workshop is aimed at bringing together linguists, logicians, philosophers and computer scientists in order to present the latest results in these areas and to discuss the different approaches. Topics (not exclusive): ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Proof-theoretical aspects of the syntactical and semantical models of natural languages. The use of classical and non-classical logics in computational linguistics. Formal grammars for natural languages and their parsing: categorial grammars, TAGs, LFGs etc. Relations between models. Submissions: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Authors are invited to submit before May 31 a 4-page abstract of a paper which has not been submitted elsewhere. The favoured format is electronic submission of a LaTeX, PostScript, dvi or ascii file. Email submissions should be made to retore@loria.fr Authors can also use surface mail or FAX: LACL c/o Christian Retore INRIA-Lorraine & CRIN-C.N.R.S. B.P. 101 615, rue du jardin botanique 54602 Villers les Nancy cedex FRANCE FAX: +33 83 27 83 19 Full papers (up to 20 pages) will be due at conference time, 23 september 96. After the full papers are refereed, we intend to publish them as a special issue of a journal, or as a volume in some series of lecture notes (this will be made precise in a later announcement). Schedule: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 31 May: 4-page abstract due 14 july: notification of acceptance 23 september: final paper due at the conference Program commitee: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ M. Abrusci (U. di Bari & U. di Roma) P. Blackburn (U. Sarrebruck) M. Dymetman (Rank-Xerox, Grenoble) M. Johnson (Brown U. , Providence) A. Lecomte (U. Grenoble 2 & INRIA-Lorraine) M. Moortgat (OTS, Utrecht) G. Morrill (UPC, Barcelona) A. Ranta (U. Helsinki & U. Tampere) C. Retore (INRIA-Lorraine & CRIN-CNRS) E. Villemonte de la Clergerie (INRIA, Rocquencourt) Organising commitee: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ B. Lang (INRIA, Rocquencourt) D. Bechet, Ph. de Groote, F. Lamarche, and C. Retor\'e (INRIA-Lorraine & CRIN-CNRS, Nancy) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The list of invited speakers will be given in a later version of this announcement. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WWW homepage: http://www.loria.fr/~retore/LACL.html contact: retore@loria.fr tel: +83 59 20 17 ====================================================================== Topic 6: New book: Language Behaviour: Acquisition and Evolutionary History From: Sasikumar M Introducing a new book ...... Language Behaviour: Acquisition and Evolutionary History by R Narasimhan National Centre for Software Technology, Bombay rn@saathi.ncst.ernet.in The Contents page of the book follows: -------------------------------------- 1. Introduction I The Present 1. Studying Language Behaviour Acquisition 1.1 Paradigm Shift? A Critique 1.2 Behavioural Pragmatics: Object of Study 1.3 Ethological Approach: A Research Strategy 1.4 Early Language Environment: A Field Study 1.5 Language Behaviour Structures 1.6 Language Behaviour Acquisition Processes 1.7 General Discussion 2. Language Acquisition Without Input? 2.1 The Motherese Controversy 2.2 Acquisition with Reduced Input 2.3 Continuity or Discontinuity? 3. Language Acquisition in Exceptional Circumstances 3.1 Some Case - Studies 3.2 General Discussion 4. Language Behaviour and Linguistics 4.1 Literacy: What Grammars are About 4.2 Orality: Language Behaviour as Social Action 4.3 Schemata and Memory Structures II The Past 5. The Continuity Puzzle 5.1 Bickerton's Solution to the Continuity Puzzle 5.2 Some General Criticisms of Bickerton's Solution 6. The Kanzi Project: What Does it Really Teach Us? 6.1 The Kanzi Project 6.2 Language Behaviour Pragmatics of Kanzi and Alia 6.3 Lessons to Learn from Ape-language Projects 7. Missing Behavioural Links 7.1 Do Apes Ape? 7.2 Do Chimpanzees Have a Theory of Mind? 8. The Continuity Puzzle Revisited 8.1 The Importance of Gestures III The Future 9. The Future of Language Behaviour Studies: Some Open Issues 9.1 Conversational Language Behaviour: Control Issues 9.2 Biological Bases of Language Behaviour 9.3 In Conclusion Appendix 1 Developmental Details: Vanitha Corpus References -------------------------------------- Here is a review of the book: -------------------------------------- Once in a while a book appears that takes material from diverse sources, interprets it as part of a cogently argued thesis, and presents it with such persuasion that one is forced to reexamine and rethink the existing mainstream theories in the field. Narasimhan's book does just that for the acquisition of language behaviour. The point of departure is in fact in the use of the term `language behaviour' rather than `knowledge of language'. A child is said to have learnt (or acquired) a language when "he can use it to interact with others in the language modality...."(p.9). The claim, on the other hand, that "the knowledge of language exists in the child as a set of rules" (ie, the grammar of the language in the linguists' sense) could only be validated "through the performance of another behavioural system which, given these rules in this specific form .... is able to exhibit (similar) language behaviour..." but otherwise not. In the context of first language acquisition by children, making theoretical distinctions between competence and performance, or between knowledge and behaviour, is untenable. With the above viewpoint, behavioural pragmatics becomes the object of study. A detailed field study is described using the Vanitha corpus, which illustrates explicitly the different stages of child language acquisition. The learning process begins to fall in place when one uses notions from pragmatics rather than "syntax". The corpus shows among other things the language schemata used by adults while interacting with Vanitha. Narasimhan argues that a child is exposed to highly structured language data ("motherese" schemata) rather than to linguistically degenerate inputs. And this happens in situations in which the child has relevant contextual information arrived at through his sensory-motor modalities. Thus, the child is able to relate language expressions to sensory-motor inputs characteristic of highly structured situations. But language goes beyond this. The sensory-motor behaviour system deals only with the now and what is out there. With the language capability one is able to refer to and talk about (or discuss) aspects of the world distanced from one in space and time. In pavlovian terms, the language modality is a second signal, ie., a signal of signals. It is this capability that allows it to be deployed for strategic purposes (eg., planning, problem-solving, social manoeuvring), as opposed to mere instrumental usage (eg., describing, commanding). One sees ample evidence of it in the corpus, where the child is not just relating language expressions to other sensory-motor inputs, but is also relating them to her needs of exploring and manipulating as well. Narasimhan analyzes data from the kanzi (chimpanzee) experiment to show that kanzi uses his language capability at most in the instrumental mode. In contrast, alia (the human child also involved in the experiment) deploys her language capability to strategic ends. Imitation and rehearsal have been observed in any learning, including that of language behaviour. Lately their importance has been denied as a result of the influence of the Chomskyan paradigm. In their place, experiments have been conducted to study the outcomes of exposing children to syntactic structures graded in terms of their structural complexity. Results of such studies have belied the expectations of the paradigm. Narasimhan points to several such studies in the literature and for some of them shows how the "anomalous" data are not anomalous any more if one views them from pragmatics. The impulse to imitate, the urge to tell one's experience to others, and the capacity for role playing (imitation, rehearsal and analogizing) form important behaviural processes for learning. Language behaviour is learnt through the same processes as used in learning other skills and abilities. Narasimhan also considers the issue of the theory of mind. He considers the works of Premack and Woodruff (1978), Olson (1988), Savage-Rumbaugh et al. (1993) etc. and relates them to his overall thesis. I would recommend readers to look at Table 8.1 for a summary of the increasingly complex levels of language modality. An implication is that what distinguishes humans from animals is not tool-use but language-use; that too, not in mere instrumental usage but in the ability to model others' minds and deploy such a model for strategic purposes. The book contains a wealth of information besides the above. The author also discusses language acquisition studies related to the blind and the deaf and what these tell us about the language acquisition process. He also dwells on orality-literacy studies and argues that the heavy duty theories of syntax might apply to modeling literate language (primarily written, but derivatively spoken) but not to modeling oral language (which is naturally learnt). He considers the controversy regarding the evolution of language and what implications it has for language acquisition. What does the book imply for natural language processing (NLP) and machine translation (MT)? It says that while acquiring language, humans learn the pragmatics of its use. The learning involves learning myriads of facts and fragments, rather than a few rules of syntax. Learning of discrete syntactic rules, if any, is tied to the rest of the system in terms of their pragmatics. This is close to the modern trend of corpus based processing in NLP and MT. Memory-based or example-based approaches are closer to the thesis. Rule based approaches such as those used in case-based theories and Paninian grammar (Bharati et al., 1995) might be useful adjuncts if they relate to semantics and pragmatics. The current need for man-machine interaction in the language modality is already bringing in pragmatics into NLP in a big way. This book with its panoramic view of diverse researches relating to language (eg., orality - literacy, child and chimpanzee language studies, linguistics and psychology) must be read by every serious researcher. It presents a framework in which real questions relating to language use can begin to be posed and answered. Thus, it paves the way for a fresh new approach to language-related research which can serve as a foundation for viewing and combining the different pieces of the language puzzle. References: Astington, J.W., P.L. Harris, and D.R. Olson (eds.), Developing Theories of Mind, Cambridge Univ. Press, UK, 1988. Bharati, Akshar, Vineet Chaitanya, and Rajeev Sangal. Natural Langauge Processing: A Paninian Perspective, Prentice-Hall of India, New Delhi, 1995. Olson, D.R. On the Origins of Beliefs and other Interntional States in Children, in Astington etc. (eds.) (1988), pp. 414-426. Premack D., and G. Woodruff, Does a Chimpanzee have a Theory of Mind?, Brain and Behavioural Sciences, 4, 1978, pp. 515-526. Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S., J. Murphy, R.A. Sevcik, K.E. Brakke, S.L. Williams and D.M. Rumbaugh, Langauge Comprehension in Ape and Child, Monograph of the Society for Research in Child Development, 58, Nos. 3 & 4, 1993. REVIEWED BY: Rajeev Sangal, IITK Centre for NLP Centre for A.L.T.S., University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500 046 Email: sangal@iitk.ernet.in -------------------------------------- Enquiries regarding the book, any comments/discussions, etc may please be addressed to Prof Narasimhan at the address: rn@saathi.ncst.ernet.in -------------------------------------- ====================================================================== eof ======================================================================