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

Flexibility and Interaction at a Distance: A Mixed-Model Environment For Language Learning

This article reports on the process of design and development of two language courses for university students at beginning levels of competence. Following a preliminary experience in a low-tech environment for distance language learning and teaching, and a thorough review of the available literature, we identified two major challenges that would need to be addressed in our design: (1) a necessity to build sufficient flexibility into the materials to cater to a variety of learners' styles, interests and skill levels, therefore sustaining learners' motivation; and (2) a need to design materials that would present the necessary requisites of authenticity and interactivity identified in the examined literature, in spite of the reduced opportunities for face-to-face communication. In response to these considerations, we designed and developed learning materials and tasks to be distributed on CD-ROM, complemented by a WebCT component for added interactivity and task authenticity. Although only part of the original design was implemented, and further research is needed to assess the impact of our environment on learning outcomes, the results of preliminary evaluations are encouraging

Enactivism and Robotic Language Acquisition: A Report from the Frontier

In this article, I assess an existing language acquisition architecture, which was deployed in linguistically unconstrained human–robot interaction, together with experimental design decisions with regard to their enactivist credentials. Despite initial scepticism with respect to enactivism’s applicability to the social domain, the introduction of the notion of participatory sense-making in the more recent enactive literature extends the framework’s reach to encompass this domain. With some exceptions, both our architecture and form of experimentation appear to be largely compatible with enactivist tenets. I analyse the architecture and design decisions along the five enactivist core themes of autonomy, embodiment, emergence, sense-making, and experience, and discuss the role of affect due to its central role within our acquisition experiments. In conclusion, I join some enactivists in demanding that interaction is taken seriously as an irreducible and independent subject of scientific investigation, and go further by hypothesising its potential value to machine learning.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Under-explicit and minimally explicit reference: Evidence from a longitudinal case study

This chapter reports on a 2 ½ year longitudinal case study of one Korean speaker of English, focusing on the development of her command of accessibility marking in referring to persons. The data are derived from informal, open interviews spanning the entire length of the participant’s enrolment in a Bachelor of Nursing programme in New Zealand. These interviews occurred every few weeks during semester (17 in total), and were typically between 45 minutes to one hour in length. The participant reported that she used these interviews as “a kind of reflective journal”, in which she discussed her classes, interactions with classmates, tutors and others, her assignments, and other experiences in New Zealand. The events she reported are rich in references to individuals. Using a previously reported coding scheme (Ryan, 2015), these data were analysed in relation to pragmatic felicity, particularly concerning the felicity of accessibility marking for referents of varying cognitive status in contexts of topic or focus continuity or shift. These data [yet to be analysed] provide evidence of the developmental progression of the participant’s command of reference in English. This chapter contributes substantially to the literature in several ways. In general, there has been a lack of longitudinal case studies of pragmatic development in any domain, including few – if any – previous longitudinal studies focusing on reference; the present analysis is therefore expected to reveal previously unreported details of the trajectory of pragmatic development in reference. The present study is also one of the few working with oral data that was generated in ways other than an elicited communication task. Finally, the study contributes to the somewhat still contentious issue of to what extent mainstream study in an English-speaking context leads to genuine language gains

\u201cImprovisation is not allowed in a second language\u201d: A survey of Italian lecturers\u2019 concerns about teaching their subjects through English

English Medium Instruction (EMI) is increasingly being introduced across European universities in countries where English is not a commonly-used language, such as Italy and other central and southern European countries. However the competences and concerns of the lecturers involved are not always considered when such developments are introduced and support or training may not be offered. This paper reports on a survey on English-Medium Instruction (EMI) to which 115 lecturers in a public university in northern Italy responded. The survey was carried out by the university\u2019s Language Centre as part of the LEAP (Learning English for Academic Purposes) Project which was developed to support lecturers in EMI. The survey sought to identify what the lecturers perceived as their strengths and weakness in English, their concerns and also their evaluations of the experience of teaching through English if they had had any. The findings discussed in this paper shed light on the needs of lecturers that are involved in EMI, which relate to methodology as well as language issues. The implications of this for European Language Centres intending to support EMI at their universities are discussed in the conclusions

Dialogue Management and Language Generation for a Robust Conversational Virtual Coach: Validation and User Study

Designing human–machine interactive systems requires cooperation between different disciplines is required. In this work, we present a Dialogue Manager and a Language Generator that are the core modules of a Voice-based Spoken Dialogue System (SDS) capable of carrying out challenging, long and complex coaching conversations. We also develop an efficient integration procedure of the whole system that will act as an intelligent and robust Virtual Coach. The coaching task significantly differs from the classical applications of SDSs, resulting in a much higher degree of complexity and difficulty. The Virtual Coach has been successfully tested and validated in a user study with independent elderly, in three different countries with three different languages and cultures: Spain, France and Norway.The research presented in this paper has been conducted as part of the project EMPATHIC that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant No. 769872. Additionally, this work has been partially funded by projects BEWORD and AMIC-PC of the Minister of Science of Technology, under Grant Nos. PID2021-126061OB-C42 and PDC2021-120846-C43, respectively. Vázquez and López Zorrilla received a PhD scholarship from the Basque Government, with Grant Nos. PRE 2020 1 0274 and PRE 2017 1 0357, respectively

Using Deep Learning for Identifying Social Media Customer Service Opportunities

Social media is commonly used by organizations to address customer service issues like complaints. For example, this is common in the airline industry, but not all organizations utilize it. However, the latest natural language processing (NLP) techniques can enable organizations to identify complaints—and other social media customer service opportunities—automatically. This exploratory work demonstrates a system for identifying complaints in social media using these NLP techniques that significantly improves upon the current state-of-the-art. We discuss implications for research, practice and future work

Parent-child interaction in Nigerian families: conversation analysis, context and culture

This paper uses a conversation analysis (CA) approach to explore parent child interaction (PCI) within Nigerian families. We illustrate how speech and language therapists (SLTs), by using CA, can tailor recommendations according to the interactional style of each individual family that are consonant with the family’s cultural beliefs. Three parent-child dyads were videoed playing and talking together in their home environments. The analysis uncovered a preference for instructional talk similar to that used in the classroom. Closer examination revealed that this was not inappropriate when considering the context of the activities and their perceived discourse role. Furthermore, this was not necessarily at the expense of responsivity or semantic contingency. The preference for instructional talk appeared to reflect deeply held cultural beliefs about the role of adults and children within the family and it is argued that the cultural paradigm is vitally important to consider when evaluating PCI. Given a potential risk that such young children may be vulnerable in terms of language difficulties, we offer an example of how PCI can be enhanced to encourage language development without disrupting the naturally occurring talk or the underlying purpose of the interaction

GPT Models in Construction Industry: Opportunities, Limitations, and a Use Case Validation

Large Language Models(LLMs) trained on large data sets came into prominence in 2018 after Google introduced BERT. Subsequently, different LLMs such as GPT models from OpenAI have been released. These models perform well on diverse tasks and have been gaining widespread applications in fields such as business and education. However, little is known about the opportunities and challenges of using LLMs in the construction industry. Thus, this study aims to assess GPT models in the construction industry. A critical review, expert discussion and case study validation are employed to achieve the study objectives. The findings revealed opportunities for GPT models throughout the project lifecycle. The challenges of leveraging GPT models are highlighted and a use case prototype is developed for materials selection and optimization. The findings of the study would be of benefit to researchers, practitioners and stakeholders, as it presents research vistas for LLMs in the construction industry.Comment: 58 pages, 20 figure