LINGUIST List 15.975

Tue Mar 23 2004

Calls: Computational Ling/Spain; General Ling/USA

Editor for this issue: Andrea Berez <andrealinguistlist.org>

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Directory

  • rmalouf, ACL04 Workshop: Tackling the Challenges of Terascale Human Language Problems
  • fbechter, Deaf Studies' Critical Challenge to Social Theory (AAA meetings)

    Message 1: ACL04 Workshop: Tackling the Challenges of Terascale Human Language Problems

     Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 23:23:55 -0500 (EST)
    From: rmalouf <rmaloufmail.sdsu.edu>
    Subject: ACL04 Workshop: Tackling the Challenges of Terascale Human Language Problems


    ACL04 Workshop: Tackling the Challenges of Terascale Human Language Problems Short Title: Terascale NLP 2004

    Date: 26-Jul-2004 - 26-Jul-2004 Location: Barcelona, Spain Contact: Rob Malouf Contact Email: rmaloufmail.sdsu.edu Meeting URL: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~malouf/terascale04.html

    Linguistic Sub-field: Computational Linguistics

    Call Deadline: 18-Apr-2004

    Meeting Description:

    Machine learning methods form the core of most modern speech and language processing technologies. Techniques such as kernel methods, log-linear models, and graphical models are routinely used to classify examples (e.g., to identify the topic of a story), rank candidates (to order a set of parses for some sentence) or assign labels to sequences (to identify named entities in a sentence). While considerable success has been achieved using these algorithms, what has become increasingly clear is that the size and complexity of the problems---in terms of number of training examples, the size of the feature space, and the size of the prediction space---are growing at a much faster rate than our computational resources are, Moore's Law notwithstanding. This raises real questions as to whether our current crop of algorithms will scale gracefully when processing such problems. This workshop will bring researchers together who are interested in meeting the challenges associated with scaling systems for natural language processing. Machine learning methods form the core of most modern speech and language processing technologies. Techniques such as kernel methods, log-linear models, and graphical models are routinely used to classify examples (e.g., to identify the topic of a story), rank candidates (to order a set of parses for some sentence) or assign labels to sequences (to identify named entities in a sentence). While considerable success has been achieved using these algorithms, what has become increasingly clear is that the size and complexity of the problems---in terms of number of training examples, the size of the feature space, and the size of the prediction space---are growing at a much faster rate than our computational resources are, Moore's Law notwithstanding. This raises real questions as to whether our current crop of algorithms will scale gracefully when processing such problems. For example, training Support Vector Machines for relatively small-scale problems, such as classifying phones in the speech TIMIT dataset, will take an estimated six years of CPU time (Salomon, et al. 2002). If we wished to move to a larger domain and harness, say, all the speech data emerging from a typical call center, then very clearly enormous computational resources would be needed to be devoted to the task.

    Allocation of such vast amounts of computational resources is beyond the scope of most current research collaborations, which consist of small groups of people working on isolated tasks using small networks of commodity machines. The ability to deal with large-scale speech and language problems requires a move away from isolated individual groups of researchers towards co-ordinated `virtual organizations'.

    The terascale problems that are now emerging demand an understanding of how to manage people and resources possibly distributed over many sites. Evidence of the timely nature of this workshop can be seen at this year's ''Text Retrieval Conference'' (TREC), which concluded with the announcement of a new track next year which would be specifically devoted to scaling information retrieval systems. This clearly demonstrates the community need for scaling human language technologies.

    In order to address large scale speech and language problems that arise in realistic tasks, we must address the issue of scalable machine learning algorithms that can better exploit the structure of such problems, their computational resource requirements and its implications on how we carry out research as a community.

    This workshop will bring researchers together who are interested in meeting the challenges associated with scaling systems for natural language processing. Topics include (but are not limited to):

    + exactly scaling existing techniques

    + applying interesting approximations which drastically reduce the amount of required computation yet do not sacrifice much in the way of accuracy

    + using on-line learning algorithms to learn from streaming data sources

    + efficiently retraining models as more data becomes available

    + experience with using very large datasets, apply for example Grid computing strategies technologies

    + techniques for efficiently manipulating enormous volumes of data

    + human factors associated with managing large virtual organizations

    + adapting methods developed for dealing with large-scale problems in other computational sciences, such as physics and biology, to natural language processing

    Message 2: Deaf Studies' Critical Challenge to Social Theory (AAA meetings)

     Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 14:40:23 -0500 (EST)
    From: fbechter <fbechteruchicago.edu>
    Subject: Deaf Studies' Critical Challenge to Social Theory (AAA meetings)


    Deaf Studies' Critical Challenge to Social Theory (AAA meetings)

    Date: 17-Nov-2004 - 21-Nov-2004 Location: San Francisco, California, United States of America Contact: Frank Bechter Contact Email: fbechteruchicago.edu Meeting URL: http://www.aaanet.org/mtgs/mtgs.htm

    Linguistic Sub-field: General Linguistics Subject Language: American Sign Language Subject Language Family: Deaf Sign Language

    Call Deadline: 29-Mar-2004

    Meeting Description:

    Call for papers for a proposed session at the American Anthopological Association meetings, emphasizing the challenge that Deaf Studies (including the study of signed languages) poses to social theory and linguistic theory. Aspects of deaf culture and language which are unorthodox paradigmatically from the standpoint of basic approaches to culture and language (including formal linguistic description) are advanced as particularly worth studying -- as opposed to the general practice of studying only those aspects of deaf culture and language which seem consistent with received understandings. The session is conceived as the first stage in pursuing an edited volume. Please forward to interested colleagues. DEADLINE VERY SOON.

    This is a call for papers for a proposed session at the American Anthropological Association meetings, November 17-21 in San Francisco. Since sessions must be submitted by April 1, please indicate interest as soon as possible to session organizers -- Frank Bechter (fbechteruchicago.edu) and Peter Graif (pjgraifuchicago.edu). We will need to have rough descriptions by Monday, March 29, at the latest (i.e., in one week's time), and participants must submit completed abstracts (250 words) on-line to the AAA by April 1. Below is the session abstract, to be supplemented once proposals are received. The session is conceived as the first stage in pursuing an edited volume.

    For conference information and guidelines, go to http://www.aaanet.org/mtgs/mtgs.htm. Feel free also to contact Frank Bechter (fbechteruchicago.edu) with questions.

    Deaf Studies' critical challenge to social theory

    In the past two decades, anthropological study of deaf signers has shown that primary categories of social description -- language, culture, ''ethnicity,'' identity -- can be applied to the deaf. In this way, and against a long history of systematic disenfranchisement of deaf signers, the categories of social and linguistic theory are thus employed to understand deaf signers as a more-or-less ''normal'' linguistic minority, having their own community organizations, folklore, literary forms, etiquette, internal sociolinguistic variation, and even typical forms of gender, race and class bias. The deaf cultural community is thus advanced as an ethnographic domain wherein already-constituted insights of social and linguistic theory can be evidenced, albeit with minor adjustments to account for signing versus speaking. In this way, the study of the deaf not only legitimates the deaf along particular theoretical dimensions, but, indeed, functions to legitimate these theoretical dimensions themselves, with the unstated corollary that any aspect of deaf social life which violates precepts of these scholarly discourses will be quietly sidelined.

    But what if heretofore sidelined aspects of deaf life are, in fact, what is most fundamental to the deaf, and to any understanding of them? Indeed, what are the precepts at issue? Thus, for example, the study of the deaf has focused on deaf families, where cultural transmission is in sympathy with a classic perspective -- and yet, deaf signers come overwhelmingly from non-deaf families. Linguists, meanwhile, have argued for an SVO structure to ASL, but the highest aesthetic form of signing (''ASL storytelling'') often contains no SVO constructions, nor, indeed, any linear syntax whatsoever.

    This panel takes the empirical facts of deaf signing populations (in the US and elsewhere) as its starting points, granting from the outset the ''cultural'' status of deaf signing communities, and the ''linguistic'' status of deaf signing systems, as essentially obvious -- not in need of legitimization, but rather standing as daunting invitations to better theorization of culture and language. Paper abstracts are thus invited which pursue this aim. On the one hand, the goal of the panel is simply to understand the deaf community and its forms. At the same time, however, we maintain that this is not possible in the absence of real theoretical innovation. Such innovations should be of value in a range of cultural and ethnographic contexts, and papers exploring this possibility are encouraged.

    Session organizers:

    Frank Bechter - fbechteruchicago.edu Peter Graif - pjgraifuchicago.edu Dept. of Anthropology University of Chicago Chicago, IL 60637