computer science

OPENS DOORS

Computational Linguistics Research Group

Computational Linguistics

The aim of computational linguistics is the development of models of human language which are sufficiently precise and detailed to implement in a computer. The ultimate goal is to build computer systems which are able to generate and interpret human language in the same way that people do.

Research in our group currently falls into three categories:

  1. Te Kaitito: NaturalLanguage Processing in English and Māori
    We have a large project to build a translation tool and a language teaching system for the Māori language.
  2. Statistical Parsing
    We are developing a collection of resources for statistical parsing and processing of unrestricted text.
  3. Language and sensorimotor cognition
    On a more theoretical level, we are interested in links between formal models of language and computational models of general sensorimotor cognition. In 2009, we were awarded a 2-years BuildIT postdoctoral fellowship to appoint a postdoctoral fellow for the project The Sensorimotor Grounding of Language: a Computational Model


People

  • Alistair Knott Senior Lecturer
  • Peter Vlugter Research Fellow
  • Lubica Benuskova Senior Lecturer
  • Martin Takac Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Corrin Lakeland (PhD) Lexical approaches to back off in statistical parsing
  • Hayden Walles (PhD) Language and sensory motor cognition
  • Andrew Webb (PhD) Language and sensory motor cognition


Links

If you're interested in finding out more about computational linguistics, here are some good places to start:

And if you have a spare moment and you want to find out how language really works, you can always Ask Mister Language Person.