32.261, Internships: Computational Linguistics; General Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Text/Corpus Linguistics; Translation; Call for 6 internships on Gender bias and Automatic Translation, Machine Translation Research Unit, FBK

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-261. Tue Jan 19 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.261, Internships: Computational Linguistics; General Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Text/Corpus Linguistics; Translation; Call for 6 internships on Gender bias and Automatic Translation, Machine Translation Research Unit, FBK

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Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 15:35:07
From: Beatrice Savoldi [beatrice.savoldi at unitn.it]
Subject: Computational Linguistics; General Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Text/Corpus Linguistics; Translation; Call for 6 internships on Gender bias and Automatic Translation, Machine Translation Research Unit, FBK, Trento, Italy

 

University or Organization: Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy
Department: Machine Translation
Web Address: https://ict.fbk.eu/units/hlt-mt/

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics
                     General Linguistics
                     Language Acquisition
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics
                     Translation

Voluntary
Minimum Education Level: No Minimum
Description:
The Machine Translation (MT) group at Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Trento, Italy)
is looking for proactive and dynamic young students, with good organizational,
relational skills and an inclination for team-work, strongly motivated to work
on innovative and interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of language
and translation technology (and which are frequently addressed to third party
companies). 

Title: Gender Bias and Automatic Translation

Language technology has provided us with beneficial breakthroughs like
predictive texts, automatic speech transcription and spam filtering. However,
in the last years, these systems displayed unfair behaviors: recruiting tools
dismissed women’s curricula and chatbots spitted out sexist slurs. In other
words, such technologies can learn and reproduce existing social asymmetries,
gender bias included. 

These kinds of biases affect Automatic translation systems as well. In
particular, this problem becomes evident when translating from English into
languages with grammatical gender like Italian, Spanish or French. In fact, it
has been shown that such systems mirror stereotypical gender roles - for
instance systematically translating the English "doctor" as "dottore" - and
that they suffer from a generic masculine default (e.g. I’ve been there → sono
stato) although it is a woman talking. As a result, translation models
encounter a performance loss whether they should generate feminine forms, but
most importantly, they learn and amplify the under- and mis-representation of
a demographic group. 

We can offer an important training opportunity to deepen and experiment in the
field of Gender Bias in Automatic Translation with the scope of advancing our
understanding of the problem and the dynamics leading to its emergence. 

In particular, candidates will carry out manual analysis of the (biased)
outputs of translation models. Strong focus will be placed on contrastive
variation across different languages, with qualitative and quantitative
interpretations of the analysis outcomes. 

Candidate requirements: 
- Ongoing academic background in Linguistics/Translation Studies/Computational
Linguistics
- Good knowledge of written and spoken English 
- Excellent knowledge of one or more of the following languages: French,
Italian, Spanish.
- (Optional) Computational skills for textual analysis. 

Motivated students are invited to submit their applications by 15.02.2021
through the form available at this link (https://forms.gle/xk8MzF1K3jMt5Bpx7).
The internship starting date is mid-March 2021 with a flexible duration of 1-3
months. Candidates will be asked to specify their preferred starting date and
duration in the application form. Due to the current health situation, the
internship will be done remotely. A minimum of two regular weekly meetings is
planned: depending on the candidate’s needs and preference, such meetings can
take place both in presence or remotely. 

More information about the Machine Translation Research Unit is available here
(https://ict.fbk.eu/units/hlt-mt/).

Contacts: Luisa Bentivogli (FBK) and Beatrice Savoldi (FBK/UNITN)


Application Deadline: 15-Feb-2021

Web Address for Applications:https://forms.gle/xk8MzF1K3jMt5Bpx7
Contact Information:
	Beatrice Savoldi
	Email: beatrice.savoldi at unitn.it


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