This course is compulsory for the EM/LCT students. As its name implies, it aims to introduce the topic of Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications to students. The course has two parts: the lectures and the software project.
1. Lecture (Sai Qian)
The lecture starts with a basic introduction to the motivation and history of NLP, together with current developments in this area. It then presents the relation between linguistics and NLP, using the five conventional evels in linguistics (Phonology/Phonetics, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics). After that, some more specific NLP applications will be described in details, such as Information Retrieval (IR), Information Extraction (IE) and Classification & Clustering. Finally, the NLTK (Natural Language Toolkit) in Python will be shown to students, who will have the chance to see how the theoretical matter in the first part of the course can really be carried out, without great difficulties.
2. Software Project (Claire Gardent)
The course has a substantial practical component. At the start of the course, software projects will be assigned, and students be grouped into project teams to solve them collaboratively. Every group is required to present the result of their project at the end of the semester. More information on the project will be distributed in the first 2 weeks of the course.
Attention: the course also requires that the students attend the TALC Research Seminar on every Tuesday afternoon, regular attendances will also count in the final result. For the timetable for this, refer to the webpage of the seminar.
