LINGUIST List 14.290

Tue Jan 28 2003

FYI: MA in Forensic Linguistics, Corpus Lexicography

Editor for this issue: James Yuells <jameslinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Janet Cotterill, MA in Forensic Linguistics
2. Amy Neale, Human Language Technology for Corpus Lexicography

Dear Colleagues

This is just to let you know that the MA in Forensic Linguistics at
Cardiff University, UK is now up and running with a full cohort, and
is recruiting for 2003/04.

The full-time MA/Diploma/Certificate programme offers a unique
opportunity to focus on the study of language in the legal and
judicial process at Masters level and includes modules in language
description, sociolinguistics, discourse, lexis and phonology in
addition to the two modules in Forensic Linguistics. The forensic
modules cover issues such as authorship and speaker identification in
confessions, threats and ransom demands, as well as the discourse
characteristics of a range of forensic settings, from emergency call
centres and hostage negotiations to police interviews and adversarial
courtrooms.

Students taking courses in Forensic Linguistics in previous years have
gone on to undertake doctoral-level research in this growing field,
further legal training to be barristers and solicitors, and a number
have joined the police force, immigration services and associated
professions.

Applicants for the programme should hold a related university degree
or equivalent qualifications or experience. Speakers whose first
language is not English are normally required to have an IELTS score
of at least 7.



Further information is available from: 

Julia Bullough Senior Administrator, Centre for Language and
Communication Research, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF10 3XB. United
Kingdom. Email: bulloughcardiff.ac.uk

Completed forms/academic queries should be returned to: Dr Janet
Cotterill, Director of Studies/Admissions Tutor, Centre for Language
and Communication Research, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF10
3XB. United Kingdom. Email: cotterilljcardiff.ac.uk

8 day Short Course in Human Language Technology for Corpus Lexicography
25 - 28 Feb; 3 - 6 March 2003
ITRI, University of Brighton,
UK

This eight-day course offers those working in linguistic disciplines
the chance to discover how language technologies can add to their
research capabilities.

The course teaches the language technologies that can be used to
process text corpora. A study is also made of existing lexical
resources produced by, or for, language technology, and the dominant
formalisms in use.

Course Details:
On completing this course students will be able to:

 1. Describe the ways in which language corpora can be enriched using
 a variety of language technologies.
 2. Critically evaluate these technologies, and determine their
 usefulness for linguistic research and lexicography.
 3. Work with different algorithms and strategies for lemmatisation,
 part-of-speech tagging, parsing and word sense disambiguation.
 4. Describe and evaluate other computational lexical resources that
 are available.
 5. Interpret data in a variety of leading formalisms for lexical
 representation.

Course Content:

 * Lemmatization, for English and for languages with more complex
 morphology
 * Local grammars for proper names, dates, places, etc
 * Part-of-speech tagging for English and other languages: tagsets
 and training corpora; manual rule-writing approaches
 * Grammars and Parsing: history; context-free grammars; dependency
 grammars; deep and shallow parsing; parser evaluation
 * Word sense disambiguation; word senses, norms and exploitations;
 dictionary-based methods; supervised training methods; senses and
 domains; evaluation
 * Feature structures as a way of holding lexical information
 * Lexical entries in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
 * Key initiatives in lexical resource development and
 standardisation: EAGLES, SIMPLE, WordNets, FrameNet
 * Machine learning strategies, to include Bayesian approaches,
 Markov Models, Maximum Entropy, Transformation-Based Learning and
 Decision trees and lists.

Course Dates and Venue:
Human Language Technology for Corpus Lexicography will run from 25 - 28 
February, and 3 - 6 March, 2003 at the Information Technology Research 
Institute (ITRI) at the University of Brighton, East Sussex, U.K. ITRI 
is an internationally-known centre of excellence in the field of Human 
Language Technology. Brighton is a lively, cosmopolitan city on England 
s south coast, one hour from London by train, and 30 minutes from London 
Gatwick Airport.

Course Fees:
The full fee for this two-week course is �1645.00 (including VAT) for 
the first delegate. Second and subsequent delegates from the same 
institution qualify for a reduced rate of �1292.50. Places are limited 
and early registration is recommended.

For more information and details of how to register please visit: 
http://www.itri.bton.ac.uk/courses/CPDLex/modules/LCM07.html Or contact 
us at itelbrighton.ac.uk