[RNLD] Call for Papers: LREJ Special Issue on under-resourced languages

[Claudia Soria]

LRE Journal Special Issue: "Under-resourced Languages, Collaborative 
Approaches and Linked Open Data: Resources, Methods and Applications"

Second Call for Papers

(apologies for multiple postings)

SUBMISSION DATE: November 30, 2014

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Under-resourced languages are generally described as languages that 
suffer from a chronic lack of available resources, from human, 
financial, and time resources to linguistic ones (language data and 
language technology), and often also experience the fragmentation of 
efforts in resource development. This situation is exacerbated by the 
realization that as technology progresses and the demand for localised 
languages services over digital devices increases, the divide between 
adequately- and under-resourced languages keeps widening. Given that 
most of the world's almost 7000 languages are not adequately resourced, 
much work needs to be done in order to support their existence in the 
digital age.

Although the destiny of a language is primarily determined by its native 
speakers and broader cultural context, the technological development of 
an under-resourced language offers such a language a strategic 
opportunity to have the same "digital dignity", "digital identity" and 
"digital longevity" as large, well-developed languages on the Web.

The Linked (Open) Data framework and the emerging Linguistic Linked 
(Open) Data infrastructure offer novel opportunities for under-resourced 
languages. On the one hand, Linked Data offers ways of exposing existing 
high quality, albeit small, language resources in the Semantic Web and, 
on the other hand, allows for the development of new state-of-the-art 
resources without necessarily having to rely on the availability of 
sophisticated language processing support.

This special issue arises from the imperative to maintain cultural and 
language diversity and from the basic right of all communities, 
languages, and cultures to be "first class citizens" in an age driven by 
information, knowledge and understanding. In this spirit, this special 
issue focuses on three strategic approaches to augment the development 
of resources for under-resourced languages to achieve a level 
potentially comparable to well-resourced, technologically advanced 
languages, viz. a) using the crowd and collaborative platforms; b) using 
technologies of interoperability with well-developed languages; and c) 
using Semantic Web technologies and, more specifically, Linked Data.

We invite original contributions, not published before and not under 
consideration for publication elsewhere, that address one or more of the 
following questions by means of one or more of the three approaches 
mentioned above:

. How can collaborative approaches and technologies be fruitfully 
applied to the accelerated development and sharing of high quality 
resources for under-resourced languages?

. How can such resources be best stored, exposed and accessed by end 
users and applications?

. How can small language resources be re-used efficiently and 
effectively, reach larger audiences and be integrated into applications?

. How can multilingual and cross-lingual interoperability of language 
resources, methods and applications be supported, also between languages 
that belong to different language families?

. How can existing language resource infrastructures be scaled to 
thousands of languages?

. How can research on and resource development for under-resourced 
languages benefit from current advances in semantic and semantic web 
technologies, and specifically the Linked Data framework?

SUBMISSION DETAILS
Please submit your articles at 
http://www.editorialmanager.com/lrev/default.asp
Make sure to select "S.I. : Under-resourced languages" when asked to 
provide the article type.
For this special issue we only accept full papers that are typically 
18-25 pages in length.
Detailed format instructions are available here: 
http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/linguistics/journal/10579?detailsPage=pltci_1060319 


GUEST EDITORS
Laurette Pretorius - University of South Africa, South Africa (pretol AT 
unisa DOT ac DOT ac)
Claudia Soria - CNR-ILC, Italy (claudia.soria AT ilc DOT cnr DOT it)

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Sabine Bartsch, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
Delphine Bernhard, LILPA, Strasbourg University, France
Peter Bouda, CIDLeS - Interdisciplinary Centre for Social and Language 
Documentation, Portugal
Paul Buitelaar, DERI, Ireland
Steve Cassidy, Macquarie University, Australia
Christian Chiarcos, Frankfurt University, Germany
Philipp Cimiano, Bielefeld University, Germany
Thierry Declerck, DFKI GmbH, Language Technology Lab, Germany
Mikel Forcada, University of Alicante, Spain
Dafydd Gibbon, Bielefeld University, Germany
Yoshihiko Hayashi, Graduate School of Language and Culture, Osaka 
University, Japan
Sebastian Hellmann, Leipzig University, Germany
Simon Krek, Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
Tobias Kuhn, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
Joseph Mariani, LIMSI-CNRS & IMMI, France
John McCrae, Bielefeld University, Germany
Steven Moran, Universität Zürich, Switzerland
Kellen Parker, National Tsing Hua University, China
Patrick Paroubek, LIMSI-CNRS, France
Taher Pilehvar, "La Sapienza" Rome University, Italy
Maria Pilar Perea i Sabater, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
Laurette Pretorius, University of South Africa, South Africa
Leonel Ruiz Miyares, Centro de Linguistica Aplicada (CLA), Cuba
Kevin Scannell, St. Louis University, USA
Ulrich Schäfer, Technical University of Applied Sciences Amberg-Weiden, 
Bavaria, Germany
Claudia Soria, CNR-ILC, Italy
Nick Thieberger, University of Melbourne, Australia
Eveline Wandl-Vogt, Austrian Academy of Sciences, ICLTT, Austria
Michael Zock, LIF-CNRS, France

-- 
Claudia Soria

Researcher
Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale "A.Zampolli"
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Area della Ricerca di Pisa San Cataldo
Via G. Moruzzi 1 - 56124 PISA (Italy)

phone:       +39-050-315-3166
fax:      +39-050-315-2839


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