Web 2.0, language resources and standards to automatically build a multilingual named entity lexicon

This paper proposes to advance in the current state-of-the-art of automatic Language Resource (LR) building by taking into consideration three elements: (i) the knowledge available in existing LRs, (ii) the vast amount of information available from the collaborative paradigm that has emerged from the Web 2.0 and (iii) the use of standards to improve interoperability. We present a case study in which a set of LRs for different languages (WordNet for English and Spanish and Parole-Simple-Clips for Italian) are extended with Named Entities (NE) by exploiting Wikipedia and the aforementioned LRs. The practical result is a multilingual NE lexicon connected to these LRs and to two ontologies: SUMO and SIMPLE. Furthermore, the paper addresses an important problem which affects the Computational Linguistics area in the present, interoperability, by making use of the ISO LMF standard to encode this lexicon. The different steps of the procedure (mapping, disambiguation, extraction, NE identification and postprocessing) are comprehensively explained and evaluated. The resulting resource contains 974,567, 137,583 and 125,806 NEs for English, Spanish and Italian respectively. Finally, in order to check the usefulness of the constructed resource, we apply it into a state-of-the-art Question Answering system and evaluate its impact; the NE lexicon improves the system’s accuracy by 28.1%. Compared to previous approaches to build NE repositories, the current proposal represents a step forward in terms of automation, language independence, amount of NEs acquired and richness of the information represented

The Role of First Language Literacy on Second Language Literacy: The Perceptions of Graduate Saudi Students in US Universities

AbstractAlrayes, Muhammad AbdulMohsin. PhD. The University of Memphis. May 2020. The Role of First Language Literacy on Second Language Literacy: The Perceptions of Graduate Saudi Students in US Universities. Major Professor: Dr. Emily Thrush.ArrayThis study attempted to gather the perceptions of graduate Saudi students in the United States about the role of their first/second languages\u27(L1/L2) literacy transfer during their graduate work. The ultimate goal of this study is to reach a level of understanding about what specific role a students L1 literacy and educational background could play in shaping their L2 literacyduring graduate studies in an ESL context. Building on existing literature of L1/L2 literacy transfer, this study asks: How do graduate Saudi students in the US perceive their L1/L2 literacy transfer during their graduate work? The main theoretical framework this study follows is James Cummins\u27 Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP).ArrayA mixed-methods approach is used to achieve the purpose of this study. A questionnaire was distributed among fifty participants, who were divided into two groups: 25 males and 25 females. The questionnaire was followed up by a semi-structured interview wherefour of the participants were selected using purposive sampling serving the purpose of this study. The qualitative analysis model followed in this study during the different stages of analyzing the interviews includes: organizing the data, categorizing and coding the data, proposing themes based on the categories made previously, and writing the results.ArrayThe findings of this study support the existence of L1/L2 literacy transfer, whether it is negative or positive. There was emphasis on the need to improve the teaching of L1 literacy skills in Saudi Arabia, according to the participants of this study. Also, the findings revealed that participants\u27 L2 academic writing was a challenging stage they have faced during their L2 learning journey, due to the negative L1/L2 transfer. Finally, some participants indicated the positive transfer role of their rich L1 vocabulary toward their L2 literacy success. However, further longitudinal/comparative studies are recommended to focus on specific learners with strong/limited L1 literacy skills who continue their studies in the second language

A survey on opinion summarization technique s for social media

The volume of data on the social media is huge and even keeps increasing. The need for efficient processing of this extensive information resulted in increasing research interest in knowledge engineering tasks such as Opinion Summarization. This survey shows the current opinion summarization challenges for social media, then the necessary pre-summarization steps like preprocessing, features extraction, noise elimination, and handling of synonym features. Next, it covers the various approaches used in opinion summarization like Visualization, Abstractive, Aspect based, Query-focused, Real Time, Update Summarization, and highlight other Opinion Summarization approaches such as Contrastive, Concept-based, Community Detection, Domain Specific, Bilingual, Social Bookmarking, and Social Media Sampling. It covers the different datasets used in opinion summarization and future work suggested in each technique. Finally, it provides different ways for evaluating opinion summarization

Factors affecting code switching between Arabic and English

Code switching in the Arab world has been discussed extensively. This study explores different factors that affect the process of code switching between English, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic among a specific cohort. It examines how speakers position themselves and reflect their identities by using different associations of different codes in formal and informal settings. Data were collected through observations, a demographic questionnaire and interviews from eight board members at the Leo Club of Alexandria, Egypt, a charity and community service club. Five general and board meetings were recorded and transcribed in order to investigate the occurrence of code switching during these meetings. The eight participants filled out the demographic questionnaire. Interviews with the participants were then conducted in an attempt to examine their perceptions about code switching and why they personally use a specific code in different situations. Results reveal that social class, education, and gender appear to be the most important factors affecting participants’ choice of codes. In addition, most of the participants were found to use code switching in order to position themselves in a powerful state that gives them confidence and authority