36.1324, Summer Schools: Analysing Multimodal Language Data for Quantitative Social Science (United Kingdom)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1324. Wed Apr 23 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1324, Summer Schools: Analysing Multimodal Language Data for Quantitative Social Science (United Kingdom)

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Date: 22-Apr-2025
From: Charles Redmon [c.redmon at essex.ac.uk]
Subject: Analysing Multimodal Language Data for Quantitative Social Science


Analysing Multimodal Language Data for Quantitative Social Science

Host Institution: University of Essex
Website:
https://essexsummerschool.com/summer-school-facts/courses/ess-2025-course-list/2r/

Dates: 21-Jul-2025 - 01-Aug-2025
Location: Hybrid: University of Essex / Online, United Kingdom

Minimum Education Level: All welcome (student, faculty, researcher,
etc.)

Focus: Language data analysis and computing, with a particular
emphasis on challenges in handling multimodal (text, audio, video)
data.

Description:

As part of the 58th Annual Essex Summer School in Social Science Data
Analysis, we are hosting a two-week course on the analysis of
multimodal (text, audio, video) language data. This course will be
taught by Drs Nina Markl and Charles Redmon in coordination with wider
work on computational linguistics at the Institute for Analytics and
Data Science and the Department of Language and Linguistics at the
University of Essex.
Summary:
While there is great research interest in multimodal data (e.g.,
social media video), the large-scale analysis of such data is
challenging. Complementing ESS courses on text analysis, we will focus
on state-of-the-art tools to facilitate automatic transcription of
audio and video data and handwritten or printed (non-digitised) text.
We will furthermore briefly explore tools to automatically annotate
video. These systems allow students to make use of complex multimodal
data such as social media videos.
The first half of the course focuses on the theoretical background,
introducing core concepts and techniques to ensure students have a
basic understanding of the underlying technologies. The second half of
the course focuses on the application of state-of-the-art tools. Each
day consists of one theory session and one practical session, and
students will be a completing in-class programming exercises. During
the second week, students will complete a small data analysis project,
including analysis design, data extraction, data analysis and
visualisation.
Outcomes:
By the end of this course, students will:
Understand the theoretical foundations of state-of-the-art
(multimodal) large language models, and more conventional tools for
automatic speech recognition, and optical character recognition
Understand the limitations of state-of-the-art language technologies
Be able to design an appropriate data analysis methodology for audio,
video and text data using state-of-the-art language technologies
Be able to prepare video, audio and non-digitised text data for
semi-automated analysis
Be able to analyse and visualise text data
Prerequisites:
Some familiarity with Python recommended but not required; attendees
should bring laptops for practical work
Outline:
Week 1: Introducing multimodal language analysis
This week is focused on the core background theory and methodology,
with sample problem sets after each topic to apply concepts to
concrete data.
    Day 1: Introduction
    Day 2: Optical Character Recognition
    Day 3: Automatic Speech Recognition and Transcription
    Day 4: Image and video analysis
    Day 5: Large Language Models
Week 2: Developing data analysis protocols
This week is focused on applying the previous week's tools to the
students' own particular data analysis problems, as well as
illustrating a best practice for a general project pipeline. Students
are encouraged to bring existing work of their own that they'd like
input on and assistance with.
    Day 6: Designing Data Analysis
        Data Ethics
        Developing a Data Collection Protocol
        Exploratory Analysis
        System validation
    Day 7: Extracting digitised text data from different sources
        Automatic Transcription
        Optical Character Recognition
        Data Wrangling
        Data validation
    Day 8: Text analysis
        Understanding differences between text and transcripts
        Making use of multimodality
    Day 9: Data Visualisation
        Visualising data
        Interpreting data
    Day 10: Future directions and limitations
        Developing independent data analysis protocols

Tuition: Depends on origin
Tuition Explanation: Please see
https://essexsummerschool.com/summer-school-facts/fee-structure/ for
details.

Financial Aid Applications accepted until 15-Apr-2025

Essex Summer School Scholarship for PhD students in the Global South
The Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis is excited to
announce the Essex Summer School Scholarship for PhD students in the
Global South. These awards intend to provide advanced methodological
training for graduate students in political science in the Global
South. We offer access to the training and the materials used in our
intermediate and advanced methods courses.
The Global South scholarship is open to students currently enrolled in
Political Science PhD programs in institutions located in the Global
South. The scholarship provides a tuition waiver to attend  one of our
two-week intermediate or advanced sessions in the 2025 Essex Summer
School in Social Science Data Analysis (ESS). Students can attend in
person or virtually. Introductory courses do not qualify for the
Global South scholarship, but applicants are welcome to enrol in
introductory courses at their own expense.

Financial Aid Instructions:
Please see the following page for more information:
https://essexsummerschool.com/summer-school-facts/scholarship-opportunities/global-south-scholarship/

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics
                     Language Documentation
                     Lexicography
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics
                     Translation

Registration Open until 04-Jul-2025

Contact Person: Dr Charles Redmon
                Email: c.redmon at essex.ac.uk

Apply by Email: esumsda at essex.ac.uk
Apply on the web: https://essexsummerschool.com/application/

Registration Instructions:
Please see the following page for more details on the application
process:
https://essexsummerschool.com/summer-school-facts/fees/



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