LINGUIST List 12.437

Fri Feb 16 2001

Calls: Ling/Southwest, Spoken Lang Generation

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Mary Jane Hurst, The Linguistic Association of the Southwest: LASSO 2001
2. Marilyn A. Walker, Computer Speech and Language on Spoken Language Generation

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 30th annual meeting of
The Linguistic Association of the Southwest (LASSO)
will be held 28-30 September 2001
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, hosted by the
University of New Mexico.

Conference theme: Language Use and Structure.

Plenary addresses by John Baugh of Stanford University
and Pamela Munro of UCLA.

Presidential address by Harmon Boertien of
the University of Houston.

Abstracts for papers in any area of linguistics are welcome,
though proposals on the theme "Language Use and Structure"
are particularly encouraged.

Deadline for abstracts: June 1, 2001.

Send abstracts to Program Chair MaryEllen Garcia
at <mgarciautsa.edu>.

For more information, visit the LASSO web site at
http://www.tamu-commerce.edu/swjl/lasso.html


Mary Jane Hurst, Ph.D.
Professor of English and Associate Dean
College of Arts and Sciences

Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX 79409-1034
Phone 806-742-3833; Fax 806-742-3893
<maryjane.hurstttu.edu>
http://english.ttu.edu/faculty/hurst/

 COMPUTER SPEECH AND LANGUAGE
 Special Issue on Spoken Language Generation


There are long traditions of research in both natural language
generation and speech synthesis. However recently, as applications
have emerged requiring spoken language output, such as spoken dialog
systems, speech-to-speech translation systems, automated sports
commentators, and directions systems, there has been an increase in
research that relates these two strands of work. This research is
motivated by the goal of producing higher quality spoken output by
using knowledge that the system has about the purpose, meaning and
linguistic form of the communication. Research challenges include:
the generation of utterances in interactive dialogue that are
sensitive to listeners' working memory constraints, the generation of
speech acts whose purpose is other than to describe or inform,
determining the appropriate prosody for spoken output, and
incorporating corpus-based or statistical knowledge into the
generation and synthesis processes. In the past there has not been
much contact between the generation and synthesis communities. The
purpose of this special issue is to collect papers of interest to both
communities. We encourage the submission of papers in both generation
and synthesis oriented towards use in spoken language systems, and we
especially welcome those describing work at the intersection of these
two fields.


Submissions should meet the following criteria:

* Describe completed and original work not published
 elsewhere. (Extensions of workshop or conference
publications are
 acceptable.)

* Make clear how the research described contributes to
generating spoken language.

* Include an empirical component, in the form of a
corpus-based or machine-learning
 methodology, and/or in the form of an empirical
evaluation.


Important Deadlines:

* Submissions due: July 31st, 2001.

* Notification of acceptance: September 28th, 2001.

Manuscript Submission:

The Computer Speech and Language home page is at:

http://www.academicpress.com/csl

where you can find instructions for authors, latex templates,
electronic submission, and other information under the "information"
box.

Please note that the journal encourages electronic submission and that
your submission may include audio files where relevant. Manuscripts
should be sent in triplicate to:

Academic Press Editorial Services Office
Block A2, Westbrook Centre
Milton Road
Cambridge CB4 1YG, U.K.


Authors should clearly mark their submission for the CSL Special Issue
on Spoken Language Generation.

Please send email with any questions to
walkerresearch.att.com.

Editors of the Special Issue

Marilyn Walker & Owen Rambow
AT&T Labs Research
Room E103
180 Park Ave.
Florham Park, New Jersey 07932