Exploring the Robustness of Task-oriented Dialogue Systems for Colloquial German Varieties

Mainstream cross-lingual task-oriented dialogue (ToD) systems leverage the transfer learning paradigm by training a joint model for intent recognition and slot-filling in English and applying it, zero-shot, to other languages. We address a gap in prior research, which often overlooked the transfer to lower-resource colloquial varieties due to limited test data. Inspired by prior work on English varieties, we craft and manually evaluate perturbation rules that transform German sentences into colloquial forms and use them to synthesize test sets in four ToD datasets. Our perturbation rules cover 18 distinct language phenomena, enabling us to explore the impact of each perturbation on slot and intent performance. Using these new datasets, we conduct an experimental evaluation across six different transformers. Here, we demonstrate that when applied to colloquial varieties, ToD systems maintain their intent recognition performance, losing 6% (4.62 percentage points) in accuracy on average. However, they exhibit a significant drop in slot detection, with a decrease of 31% (21 percentage points) in slot F1 score. Our findings are further supported by a transfer experiment from Standard American English to synthetic Urban African American Vernacular English.Comment: To appear in EACL 2024 (main

An Overview of Indian Spoken Language Recognition from Machine Learning Perspective

International audienceAutomatic spoken language identification (LID) is a very important research field in the era of multilingual voice-command-based human-computer interaction (HCI). A front-end LID module helps to improve the performance of many speech-based applications in the multilingual scenario. India is a populous country with diverse cultures and languages. The majority of the Indian population needs to use their respective native languages for verbal interaction with machines. Therefore, the development of efficient Indian spoken language recognition systems is useful for adapting smart technologies in every section of Indian society. The field of Indian LID has started gaining momentum in the last two decades, mainly due to the development of several standard multilingual speech corpora for the Indian languages. Even though significant research progress has already been made in this field, to the best of our knowledge, there are not many attempts to analytically review them collectively. In this work, we have conducted one of the very first attempts to present a comprehensive review of the Indian spoken language recognition research field. In-depth analysis has been presented to emphasize the unique challenges of low-resource and mutual influences for developing LID systems in the Indian contexts. Several essential aspects of the Indian LID research, such as the detailed description of the available speech corpora, the major research contributions, including the earlier attempts based on statistical modeling to the recent approaches based on different neural network architectures, and the future research trends are discussed. This review work will help assess the state of the present Indian LID research by any active researcher or any research enthusiasts from related fields

The dawn of the human-machine era: a forecast of new and emerging language technologies

New language technologies are coming, thanks to the huge and competing private investment fuelling rapid progress; we can either understand and foresee their effects, or be taken by surprise and spend our time trying to catch up. This report scketches out some transformative new technologies that are likely to fundamentally change our use of language. Some of these may feel unrealistically futuristic or far-fetched, but a central purpose of this report - and the wider LITHME network - is to illustrate that these are mostly just the logical development and maturation of technologies currently in prototype. But will everyone benefit from all these shiny new gadgets? Throughout this report we emphasise a range of groups who will be disadvantaged and issues of inequality. Important issues of security and privacy will accompany new language technologies. A further caution is to re-emphasise the current limitations of AI. Looking ahead, we see many intriguing opportunities and new capabilities, but a range of other uncertainties and inequalities. New devices will enable new ways to talk, to translate, to remember, and to learn. But advances in technology will reproduce existing inequalities among those who cannot afford these devices, among the world's smaller languages, and especially for sign language. Debates over privacy and security will flare and crackle with every new immersive gadget. We will move together into this curious new world with a mix of excitement and apprehension - reacting, debating, sharing and disagreeing as we always do. Plug in, as the human-machine era dawn

Wanca in Korp : Text corpora for underresourced Uralic languages

Peer reviewe

Border crossing and trespassing? : Expanding digital humanities research to developing peripheries with the novel digital technologies

Peer reviewe

Standardizing Minority Languages

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781138125124, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. This volume addresses a crucial, yet largely unaddressed dimension of minority language standardization, namely how social actors engage with, support, negotiate, resist and even reject such processes. The focus is on social actors rather than language as a means for analysing the complexity and tensions inherent in contemporary standardization processes. By considering the perspectives and actions of people who participate in or are affected by minority language politics, the contributors aim to provide a comparative and nuanced analysis of the complexity and tensions inherent in minority language standardisation processes. Echoing Fasold (1984), this involves a shift in focus from a sociolinguistics of language to a sociolinguistics of people. The book addresses tensions that are born of the renewed or continued need to standardize ‘language’ in the early 21st century across the world. It proposes to go beyond the traditional macro/micro dichotomy by foregrounding the role of actors as they position themselves as users of standard forms of language, oral or written, across sociolinguistic scales. Language policy processes can be seen as practices and ideologies in action and this volume therefore investigates how social actors in a wide range of geographical settings embrace, contribute to, resist and also reject (aspects of) minority language standardization

Endangered Languages and Languages in Danger

This peer-reviewed collection brings together the latest research on language endangerment and language rights. It creates a vibrant, interdisciplinary platform for the discussion of the most pertinent and urgent topics central to vitality and equality of languages in today’s globalised world. The novelty of the volume lies in the multifaceted view on the variety of dangers that languages face today, such as extinction through dwindling speaker populations and lack of adequate preservation policies or inequality in different social contexts (e.g. access to justice, education and research resources). There are examples of both loss and survival, and discussion of multiple factors that condition these two different outcomes. We pose and answer difficult questions such as whether forced interventions in preventing loss are always warranted or indeed viable. The emerging shared perspective is that of hope to inspire action towards improving the position of different languages and their speakers through research of this kind

Talanoa, Manulua and Founga Ako: frameworks for using enduring Tongan educational ideas for Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Educational achievement for Pacific students is a Government priority according to the Pacific Plan 2009- 2012 (Ministry of Education, 2009). For Tongan students though, Thaman (1988) highlights major differences in Pacific parents educational aims stating that for them, there is a focus on social and moral aspects of learning and the utilisation of learned capabilities for the common good, rather than a sole focus on individual advancement (pp. 236-237). Education for Tongan students then may need a different approach to recognise Thaman’s finding. This thesis advocates for the inclusion of Tongan educational concepts and values in teaching and learning in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This thesis also argues that in Aotearoa/New Zealand’s schools, Tongan students should be exposed to their own language, moral, social and spiritual concepts, important elements of their culture. The central proposition of this thesis is that Tongan students will achieve better and more meaningful educational outcomes in the country’s primary, secondary and tertiary institutions through improved self-esteem, stemming from an acknowledgement of their Tongan identity and the knowledge that their unique ways of learning are respected in Aotearoa/New Zealand’s education system. To provide a context for my argument, I begin with the journey that I undertook with the support of my fonua, which eventually led me to write this thesis. My approach to addressing the research question involved both an extensive review of the literature as well as numerous talanoa with groups and individuals in several countries. In order to gather the information I required, it was necessary to develop a method that respected the polity and culture of the Tongan people with whom I worked. The appropriate Tongan approach was one that employed the metaphor of the kakala (Thaman, 1993a, 1997a) as an integrating framework for what I term as Talanoa Research Methodology. The information gained and knowledge co-constructed from application of this methodology form the substance of the thesis. From using the Talanoa Research Methodology, information gathered and co-created from numerous talanoa, were used to create an ideal sense of being for a Tongan which is one who is a balanced spiritual social being who is at harmony with self, family, the environment and his/her God/s. This ideal context incorporates an ongoing fusion, negotiation and balancing of supernatural beliefs with the demands of contemporary living. This state is symbolically represented by the ancient motif of manulua. It is proposed that fostering this ideal cultural state in the classroom should be a central aim in education for Tongans. An integrated learning approach that can be used by both teachers and students, one that employs the Tongan educational concepts of ‘ofa, ‘ilo, poto, fatongia and fonua, is suggested to guide teaching and learning that could prepare them to a balanced and harmonious life where they culturally function fully in their own community. I call this integrated learning framework or pedagogy, Founga Ako. Founga Ako framework, along with Talanoa Research Methodology and Manulua gifted from ancestors, kaunga fau and kau nga fa’u represent the three completed kalala I am preparing to luva from this thesis. These are indicative of my ‘ofa and gratitude to my former teachers, family members, inspirational Pacific and other leaders who have nurtured me. The learnings for Tongan students will then be more holistic and aligned to their cultural ways and the aspirations of their communities