National language technology platform for public administration

This article presents the work in progress on the collaborative project of several European countries to develop National Language Technology Platform (NLTP). The project aims at combining the most advanced Language Technology tools and solutions in a new, state-of-the-art, Artificial Intelligence driven, National Language Technology Platform for five EU/EEA official and lower-resourced languages.peer-reviewe

The Integration of Immigrants in Iceland : Subjective indicators of integration based on language, media use, and creative practice

This PhD project investigates aspects of immigrants’ integration in Iceland based on language use, media use, and creative practice. Traditionally, studies present integration as a linear process focussing on objective measures. Less attention has been paid to the immigrants’ subjective perceptions of integration, which provide insights into immigrants’ personal evaluations of integration processes. Integration, in this thesis, is understood as a multifaceted process covering social, economic, and political factors and subjective perceptions (life satisfaction and immigrants’ trust in the receiving society.) This thesis aims to answer the research question of how immigrants in Iceland experience integration. Statistical analysis of quantitative data conducted amongst immigrants (N=2139) and Icelanders (N=3395) was combined with qualitative analysis of interviews (N=15). In addition, this thesis incorporates a cross analysis of the research conducted and studies conducted by the article co-authors in Iceland, a comparative approach combining research conducted in Iceland and in the Faroe Islands by a co-author of an article, and an analysis of an artistic event at the Reykjavík City Library. Immigrants’ embeddedness in the receiving society was most relevant for their life satisfaction in the receiving society. The immigrants’ linguistic profile was less pertinent, challenging the common notion of language as being key to integration. Immigrants were generally motivated to learn Icelandic, but immigrants also recognized limitations to linguistic integration considering prevailing language attitudes and a lack of quality courses that are accessible. Immigrants simultaneously participate in multiple online and offline communities. Those who are frequently in contact with their countries of origin through media and social media were less involved in their receiving communities offline but more involved online. Findings show that integration is a highly contextual, individual experience conditioned by the immigrants’ aspirations and capabilities and the framework provided by the receiving society. Immigrants can further experience feelings of belonging and integration in multiple communities simultaneously

Icelandic digital practices on Facebook : Language use in informal online communication

The dissertation addresses informal Icelandic writing practices in online communication, often referred to as computer-mediated communication (CMC). Specifically, the dissertation studies the linguistic practices of native Icelandic speakers on Facebook and seeks to gain insight on how the broader public evaluates such practices. Accordingly, the dissertation is influenced by linguistic research on language attitudes, superdiversity, and multilingualism in the context of digital environments. It is interested in the formal characteristics of Icelandic CMC and tries to explore what linguistic and semiotic resources users draw upon, how different communicative functions and contextual factors affect those choices, and how the users’ digital practices relate to language regard and linguistic ideology in Iceland. The dissertation comprises different investigations: First, a language attitudes study examines subconscious language attitudes toward informal language use in online environments. Second, the dissertation presents a detailed quantitative and qualitative corpus analysis of informal digital writing practices of Icelandic native speakers on Facebook. The research is especially relevant against the backdrop of changing linguistic practices among (young) Icelanders, not least in digital media, that contrast with Icelandic language ideology and that have raised concerns regarding a weakened status of Icelandic in digital environments.Verkefnið kannar málnotkun Íslendinga á netinu. Nánar tiltekið er fjallað um málnotkun í óformlegum samskiptum á Facebook með tilliti til tilhvata fólks í vali á tungumáli og málsniði, en einnig er hugað að viðhorfum málnotenda til óformlegrar málnotkunar á netinu. Markmið verkefnisins er að skoða hvaða leiðir málhafar nota til tjáningar á Facebook og af hverju. Í brennidepli rannsóknarinnar er form, hlutverk og félagsmálfræðilegt gildi íslensku í óformlegum netsamskiptum. Gerð er rannsókn á fjöltungumálnotkun (multilingualism) og ofurfjölbreytni (superdiversity) í netumhverfi sem og rannsókn á ómeðvituðum viðhorfum til breytileika í íslensku máli. Viðhorfskönnuninni á málnotkun á netinu er sérstaklega beint að óformlegri ritmálsnotkun á Facebook og er beitt aðlagaðri útgáfu „grímuprófsins” sem svo er kallað (matched-guise test). Meginrannsóknin á raunverulegri málnoktun Íslendinga á netinu beitir aftur á móti megindlegri og eigindlegri rannsókn á Facebook-færslum og byggir á hugmyndum og kenningum sem þróaðar hafa verið í rannsóknum á nýjum lestrar- og skriftarvenjum (new literacies) og í rannsóknum á notkun fleiri en eins tungumáls í ofurfjölbreytilegum félagshópum. Rannsóknin er sérstaklega tímabær í ljósi þess að breytingar virðast eiga sér stað um þessar mundir í málumhverfi og málvenjum meðal (ungra) Íslendinga, ekki síst í stafrænum miðlum, en það hefur vakið áhyggjur um veika stöðu íslenskunnar í stafrænu umhverfi.The Icelandic Research Fund (grant number 163110-052

Assessing Vocoders for English and Icelandic

A vocoder is a mechanism that encodes and decodes a speech signal so that it can be represented and/or transmitted in an efficient way. Vocoders are widely used in statistical parametric and neural speech synthesis where a regressor is used to predict the vocoder's representation by using input text. This study assesses five different vocoders based on three fundamentally different approaches with the aim to show how robust they are with respect to Icelandic. The study shows that the Wavenet and Magphase vocoders have the best performance in terms of retaining quality but the Wavenet vocoder uses by far the most resources, both in terms of computation and memory. The study also shows that the vocoders perform equally well for English and Icelandic, but the Wavenet vocoder trained on English needs to be adapted using Icelandic data in order for it to maintain good performance.This project was funded by the Language Technology Programme for Icelandic 2019-2023. The programme, which is managed and coordinated by Almannarómur (https://almannaromur.is/), is funded by the Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science and Culture

Aðlögun og umbætur á hlutaþáttara

IceNLP is a set of tools for processing and analysing the Icelandic language. One of these tools is IceParser, a shallow parser, whose purpose is to annotate flat phrase structure and syntactic functions. The input to IceParser are tokenised sentences, tagged with part-of-speech (POS) tags from the Icelandic POS tagset. This tagset was revised recently which means that many tools need to be revised to accurately handle the changes. In this project, we, first, present the changes made to IceParser with regard to the tagset revision. Second, we describe improvements made to individual components of IceParser, for the purpose of increasing its precision and coverage. Third, we perform an evaluation of the functionality of IceParser after the changes and, finally, perform preliminary error analysis.IceNLP er safn hugbúnaðartóla til að vinna með og greina íslenskan texta. Eitt þessara tóla er IceParser, hlutaþáttari með þann tilgang að greina setningarliði og setningafræðileg hlutverk. Inntak IceParser eru tilreiddar setningar sem hafa verið markaðar samkvæmt íslenska markamenginu. Íslenska markamengið var nýlega uppfært og þurfa tól IceNLP uppfærslu til að taka á breytingum markamengisins vegna þess. Í þessari ritgerð kynnum við breytingar sem hafa verið gerðar á IceParser. Við kynnum einnig almennar umbætur á einstökum hlutum IceParser sem eru gerðar í þeim tilgangi að bæta nákvæmni og griphlutfall. Við framkvæmum mælingu á virkni IceParser eftir breytingarnar og að lokum framkvæmum við villugreiningu.This project was funded by the Language Technology Programme for Icelandic 2019-2023. The programme, which is managed and coordinated by Almannarómur (https://almannaromur.is/), is funded by the Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science and Culture