Call for Papers: Language Resources for European Minority Languages (fwd)

[Andrew Carnie]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 16:35:38 GMT
From: Briony Williams <briony at cstr.ed.ac.uk>
To: celtling at mitvma.mit.edu
Subject: Call for Papers: Language Resources for European Minority Languages



                               Workshop on

             Language Resources for European Minority Languages
             --------------------------------------------------

                  Granada, Spain  -   May 27 1998  (morning)

                          CALL FOR PAPERS

This workshop will be held in conjunction with the International Conference on
Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), Granada, Spain: May 28-30, 1998.

The workshop will provide a forum for researchers working on the development
of speech and language resources for the indigenous minority languages of
Europe.

                       WORKSHOP SCOPE AND AIMS
                       -----------------------

The minority or "lesser used" languages of Europe (e.g.  Basque, Welsh,
Breton) are under increasing pressure from the major languages.  Some of them
(e.g.  Gaelic) are becoming endangered, but others (e.g.  Catalan) are in a
stronger position, with a certain amount of official recognition and funding.
However, the situation with regard to language resources is fragmented and
disorganised.  Some minority languages have been adequately researched
linguistically, but most have not, and the vast majority do not yet possess
basic speech and language resources (such as text and speech corpora) which
are sufficient to permit commercial development of products.

If this situation were to continue, the minority languages of Europe would
fall a long way behind the major languages, as regards the availability of
commercial speech and language products.  This in turn will accelerate the
decline of those languages that are already struggling to survive, as speakers
are forced to use the majority language for interaction with these products.
To break this vicious circle, it is important to encourage the development of
basic language resources.

The workshop is a very small first step towards encouraging the development of
such resources.  The aim is to share information, so that isolated researchers
will not need to start from nothing.  An important aspect will be the forming
of personal contacts, which at present do not exist.  The aim is to make it
easier for isolated researchers with little funding and no existing corpora to
begin developing a usuable speech or text database.  There will be a balance
between presentations of existing language resources, and more general
presentations designed to give background information.

Technical areas covered will include:
-------------------------------------

- Presentation of existing speech and text databases for minority languages,
  with particular emphasis on their design and their annotation.

- Presentation of existing lexicons for minority languages, with particular
  emphasis on fast production methods.

- Encouragement of standardisation, using the recommendations formulated by
  the EAGLES Working Groups.

- Presentation of the EU's policy towards minority languages, and the
  situation of minority languages in Europe.


Papers are invited that will describe existing speech and language resources
for minority languages (speech databases, text databases, and lexicons), also
papers based on the analysis of these resources.  Presentations will last 20
minutes each.  All presentations will be given in English, since it cannot be
assumed that each listener will speak all the minority languages discussed.


Organizers:

   Briony Williams    University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
   Climent Nadeu      Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Catalunya, Spain
   Alex Monaghan      Dublin City University, Ireland


                            PAPER SUBMISSION
                            ----------------

Papers should not exceed 4000 words or 10 pages.  They can be submitted in
one of two ways:  hard copy or electronic submission.  They should be in
A4 size and in English.

A)  Hard copies:

Three hard copies should be sent to:

     Dr. Briony Williams
     CSTR
     80 South Bridge
     Edinburgh EH1 1HN
     Scotland, UK

Please also send an email to Briony Williams (briony at cstr.ed.ac.uk) informing
her of the hard copy submission.  This is in case the hard copy does not reach
its destination.  This email should contain the information specified in the
section below.

B)  Electronic submission:

Electronic submission may be in self-contained Latex, Postcript or MS-Word
format.  Submissions should be sent to briony at cstr.ed.ac.uk.  An electronic
submission should be accompanied by a plain ascii text email message giving
the following details:

# NAME : Name of first author
# TITLE: Title of the paper
# PAGES: Number of pages
# NOTE : Any relevant instructions about the format etc.
# ABSTR: Abstract of the paper
# EMAIL: Email address of the first author
# ADDR:  Postal address of the first author
# TEL:   Telephone number of the first author
# FAX:   Fax number of the first author


IMPORTANT DATES

Paper submission deadline  February 27
Paper notification         March 27
Camera-ready papers due    April 22
Workshop                   May  26



                        CONFERENCE INFORMATION
                        ----------------------

General information about the main conference is at:
http://www.icp.inpg.fr/ELRA/conflre.html

Specific queries about the conference should be directed to:

LREC Secretariat
Facultad de Traduccion e Interpretacion
Dpto. de Traduccion e Interpretacion
C/ Puentezuelas, 55
18002 Granada, SPAIN
Tel: +34 58 24 41 00 - Fax: +34 58 24 41 04
reli98 at goliat.ugr.es

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