Computational Sociolinguistics: A Survey

Language is a social phenomenon and variation is inherent to its social nature. Recently, there has been a surge of interest within the computational linguistics (CL) community in the social dimension of language. In this article we present a survey of the emerging field of "Computational Sociolinguistics" that reflects this increased interest. We aim to provide a comprehensive overview of CL research on sociolinguistic themes, featuring topics such as the relation between language and social identity, language use in social interaction and multilingual communication. Moreover, we demonstrate the potential for synergy between the research communities involved, by showing how the large-scale data-driven methods that are widely used in CL can complement existing sociolinguistic studies, and how sociolinguistics can inform and challenge the methods and assumptions employed in CL studies. We hope to convey the possible benefits of a closer collaboration between the two communities and conclude with a discussion of open challenges.Comment: To appear in Computational Linguistics. Accepted for publication: 18th February, 201

Contextual queries and situated information needs for mobile users

The users of mobile devices increasingly use networked services to address their information needs. Questions asked by mobile users are strongly influenced by contextual factors such as location, conversation and activity. We report on a diary study performed to better understand mobile information needs. Participants’ diary entries are used as a basis for discussing the geographical and situational context in which mobile information behaviour occurs. The suitability of user queries to be answered by a portable knowledge collection and web search are also considered. We find that the type of questions recorded by participants varies across their locations, with differences between home, shopping and in-car contexts. These variations occur both in the query terms and in the form of desired answers. Both the location of queries and the participants’ activities affected participants’ questions. When information needs were affected by both location and activity, they tended to be strongly affected by both factors. The overall picture that emerges is one of multiple contextual influences interacting to shape mobile information needs. Mobile devices that attempt to adapt to users’ context will need to account for a rich variety of situational factors