13.2056, Calls: Theoretical Ling, Controlled Translation & Lang

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-13-2056. Fri Aug 9 2002. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 13.2056, Calls: Theoretical Ling, Controlled Translation & Lang

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry, Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org):
	Simin Karimi, U. of Arizona
	Terence Langendoen, U. of Arizona

Consulting Editor:
        Andrew Carnie, U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Editors (linguist at linguistlist.org):
	Karen Milligan, WSU 		Naomi Ogasawara, EMU
	James Yuells, EMU		Marie Klopfenstein, WSU
	Michael Appleby, EMU		Heather Taylor, EMU
	Ljuba Veselinova, Stockholm U.	Richard John Harvey, EMU
	Dina Kapetangianni, EMU		Renee Galvis, WSU
	Karolina Owczarzak, EMU		Anita Wang, EMU

Software: John Remmers, E. Michigan U. <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
          Gayathri Sriram, E. Michigan U. <gayatri at linguistlist.org>
          Zhenwei Chen, E. Michigan U. <zhenwei at linguistlist.org>

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Editor for this issue: Renee Galvis <renee at linguistlist.org>
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=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Thu, 08 Aug 2002 14:46:21 -0600
From:  hdls <hdls at unm.edu>
Subject:  2nd notice: 5th HDLS Conf at UNM - abstract deadline extended

2)
Date:  Wed, 7 Aug 2002 17:08:50 +0100 (IST)
From:  "Andy.Way" <away at computing.dcu.ie>
Subject:  Controlled Language Translation

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 08 Aug 2002 14:46:21 -0600
From:  hdls <hdls at unm.edu>
Subject:  2nd notice: 5th HDLS Conf at UNM - abstract deadline extended

The abstract deadline has been extended to August 25th for the 5th
Annual High Desert Linguistics Conference

 University of New  Mexico,  Albuquerque, NM
               November 1 - 2, 2002.
    (http://www.unm.edu/~hdls/conf/2002/index.htm)


Keynote speakers:

      Ronald Langacker, University of California, San Diego

      Barbara King, College of William & Mary



We invite the submission of proposals for 20-minute talks with 10
minute discussion sessions in any area of linguistics from any
theoretical perspective.  Papers in the following areas are especially
welcome:

Evolution of language, Language change & variation, Grammaticization,
Applied linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Researching Metaphor &
Metonymy, Signed languages, Native American languages, and
Computational linguistics.

The Call for Papers can be found at
http://www.unm.edu/~hdls/conf/2002/call.htm

In addition, the guidelines for abstracts can be found at
http://www.unm.edu/~hdls/conf/2002/abstract.htm

The new deadline for submitting abstracts is August 25th, 2002 and the
acceptance & notification date will be August 28th, 2002

If you have any questions or need for further information please
contact either Christopher Shank (chrc at unm.edu) or Gabe Waters at
(watersg at unm.edu)


-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Wed, 7 Aug 2002 17:08:50 +0100 (IST)
From:  "Andy.Way" <away at computing.dcu.ie>
Subject:  Controlled Language Translation

                         Preliminary Call For Papers

  Joint Conference combining the 7th International Workshop of the European
     Association for Machine Translation and the 4th Controlled Language
                           Applications Workshop

           Main Conference theme: Controlled Language Translation

                  Location: Dublin City University, Ireland

                         Dates: 15th-17th May, 2003

Conference URL: http://www.eamt.org/eamt-claw03/

This document constitutes the preliminary call for papers for the 2003
joint conference of the European Association for Machine Translation
(EAMT) and the Controlled Language Applications Workshop (CLAW). The
main theme of the conference is controlled translation. It is
envisaged that papers addressing this theme will be featured on the
middle day of the conference, with the first day given over to more
general papers on machine translation (MT), and the final day
dedicated to other papers focussing more on controlled language
issues.

Over the years, there have been many conferences on MT, involving
rule-based approaches, statistical and example-based approaches,
hybrid and multi-engine approaches as well as those limited to
particular sublanguage domains. In addition, there has been an
increased level of interest in controlled languages, culminating in
the series of Workshops on controlled language applications. These
have given impetus to both monolingual and multilingual guidelines and
applications using controlled language, for many different languages.

Controlled languages are subsets of natural languages whose grammars
and dictionaries have been restricted in order to reduce or eliminate
both ambiguity and complexity. Traditionally, controlled languages
fall into two major categories: those that improve readability for
human readers, particularly non-native speakers, and those that
improve computational processing of the text. It is often claimed that
machine-oriented controlled language should be of particular benefit
when it comes to the use of translation tools (including machine
translation, translation memory, multilingual terminology tools etc.).

Experience has shown that high quality MT systems can be designed for
specialized domains (e.g. METEO). However, the area of controlled
translation has remained relatively unaddressed. This is rather
strange given its undoubted importance. Such examples that exist use
rule-based MT (RBMT) systems to translate controlled language
documentation, e.g.  Caterpillar's CTE and CMU's KANT system, and
General Motors CASL and LantMark, etc. However, fine-tuning general
systems designed for use with unrestricted texts to derive specific,
restricted applications is complex and expensive.

There are several examples of using Translation Memory (TM) tools in a
controlled language workflow, yet these have been primarily for
combining T M and MT tools. Very few attempts have been made where
Example-based MT (EBMT) systems have been designed specifically for
controlled language applications and use. This is even harder to
fathom: using traditional RBMT systems leads to the well-known
`knowledge acquisition bottleneck', which can be overcome by using
corpus-based MT technology. Furthermore, the quality of EBMT (and
Translation Memory) systems depends on the quality of the reference
translations in the system database; the more these are controlled,
the better the expected quality of translation output by the system.

The primary aim of this unique conference, therefore, is to elicit
papers on controlled translation, and provide a forum in which the
problems may be outlined, possible solutions proposed, and in general
to bring together developers, implementors, researchers and end-users
from the publications, authoring, translation and localization fields
to discuss how ideas from both the authoring and translation camps
might be integrated in this common area. Some specific topics which
might be addressed include:

   * What is controlled translation?
   * RBMT and controlled translation.
   * TM/EBMT and controlled translation.
   * Influence and interplay of controlled language upon both
     source-language parsing and target-language generation in an MT
     system.
   * Role of the lexicon in controlled translation.
   * Can we expect better controlled translations from a hybrid
     approach? Or from a multi-engine approach?
   * Towards a Roadmap for controlled translation - the way ahead?

In addition, we welcome contributions on MT as well as on controlled
language which do not address the main theme per se. Suitable example
topics include, but are not restricted to, the following:

Machine Translation

   * MT for the Web;
   * Practical MT systems;
   * Methodologies for MT;
   * Speech and dialogue translation;
   * Text and speech corpora for MT and knowledge extraction from
     corpora;
   * MT evaluation techniques and evaluation results;
   * MT postediting.

Controlled Language

   * Examples of controlled languages: their definition, by whom, and
     intended usage;
   * Consequences for technical authors and implications for Natural
     Language Processing;
   * Practical experiences of teaching and using controlled languages;
   * Application of controlled languages in speech systems.

Finally, intentions to present system demonstrations are particularly
welcomed. Abstracts for demos must not exceed 400 words. Developers
should outline the design of their system and provide sufficient
details to allow the evaluation of its validity, quality, and
relevance to controlled language. Pointers to web sites running the
demo preview and/or screen camcorder video clips will also be helpful.

Programme

It is anticipated that papers which address the central theme of the
joint conference, controlled translation, will be featured on the
middle day of the three. The first day will be given over to papers
focussing primarily on MT, and the third day will feature papers
focussing more on controlled language issues. Papers will each be
allowed 30 minutes, including questions.

Invited Speakers

We are pleased to announce that invited speakers for the conference
will include Steven Krauwer, University of Utrecht and Coordinator of
ELSNET, and Lou Cremers, Oce Technologies. We anticipate that the
speakers will provide a sharp and stimulating focus on the theme of
the conference.

Attendance Fees and Registration

Details of registration procedures, including registration fees, will
be announced as soon as they become available. It is anticipated that
participants will be able to register for the MT part, the joint
session, and the CLAW day separately, or in various combinations. But
we expect by far the best value option to be a package deal which
allows attendance at all three days. In addition, there will be a
discount for early registration, the deadline for which will be 31st
March, 2003.

Important Dates

              Draft papers due             29th November, 2002
                Reviews due                 31st January, 2003
         Notification of acceptance        14th February, 2003
 Camera-ready papers & pre-registration due  31st March, 2003

Submission Details

Papers accepted for the conference will be published in a proceedings
volume available to all attendees. Papers should describe unique work
not published before. Papers that are being submitted to other
conferences should include this information on the first page. Paper
submissions should follow these conventions:

   * Maximum length is 4000 words
   * 8.5" x 11" page size
   * Single-column, single-spaced, 1" margins
   * 12 point font
   * Include title, authors, and contact info centered at the top of
     the first page
   * Include an abstract of about 100 words

Electronic submission is strongly encouraged. We prefer PDF files,
sent as EMail attachments. Electronic submissions should be sent to
Eric Nyberg (ehn at cs.cmu.edu), with `Submission for EAMT-CLAW 2003' in
the Subject line of the email.

Papers for each of the three sessions will be reviewed
separately. Please indicate which session your paper is to be reviewed
under.

Please note that papers will not be accepted (at the camera-ready copy
stage) unless at least one of the authors has pre-registered for the
conference.

Organizing Committee

The Organizing Committee consists of:

   * John Hutchins (WJHutchins at compuserve.com), on behalf of the EAMT,
   * Arendse Bernth (arendse at us.ibm.com), on behalf of CLAW,

together with three local Organizers:

   * Dorothy Kenny (Dorothy.Kenny at dcu.ie)
   * Sharon O'Brien (Sharon.OBrien at dcu.ie)
   * Andy Way (away at computing.dcu.ie)

Contact any of the above for more details.

Programme Committee

The programme committee will include, among others:

Jeff Allen (Mycom France and MIT2, France), Arendse Bernth (IBM Watson
Research, USA), Kurt Godden (Lockheed Martin, USA), John Hutchins
(EAMT President, University of East Anglia, UK), Dorothy Kenny (Dublin
City University, Ireland), Jaro Lajovic (Dept. of Intelligent Systems
Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia), Bente Maegaard (Center for Language
Technology, Copenhagen, Denmark), Teruko Mitamura (Carnegie Mellon
University, USA), Eric Nyberg (Carnegie Mellon University, USA),
Sharon O'Brien (Dublin City University, Ireland), Ursula Reuther (IAI,
University of Saarbrucken, Germany), Joerg Schotz (IAI, University
of Saarbrucken, Germany), Harold Somers (UMIST, UK), Andy Way
(Dublin City University, Ireland), Rick Wojcik (Boeing, USA)

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