Understanding Language Understanding
Understanding Language Understanding

Author: Ashwin Ram

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 9780262181921

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This book highlights cutting-edge research relevant to the building of a computational model of reading comprehension, as in the processing and understanding of a natural language text or story. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of reading, with contributions from computer science, psychology, and philosophy. Contributors cover the theoretical and psychological foundations of the research in discussions of what it means to understand a text, how one builds a computational model, and related issues in knowledge representation and reasoning. The book also addresses some of the broader issues that a natural language system must deal with, such as reading in context, linguistic novelty, and information extraction.

Spoken Language Understanding
Spoken Language Understanding

Author: Gokhan Tur

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2011-05-03

Total Pages: 443

ISBN-13: 1119993946

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Spoken language understanding (SLU) is an emerging field in between speech and language processing, investigating human/ machine and human/ human communication by leveraging technologies from signal processing, pattern recognition, machine learning and artificial intelligence. SLU systems are designed to extract the meaning from speech utterances and its applications are vast, from voice search in mobile devices to meeting summarization, attracting interest from both commercial and academic sectors. Both human/machine and human/human communications can benefit from the application of SLU, using differing tasks and approaches to better understand and utilize such communications. This book covers the state-of-the-art approaches for the most popular SLU tasks with chapters written by well-known researchers in the respective fields. Key features include: Presents a fully integrated view of the two distinct disciplines of speech processing and language processing for SLU tasks. Defines what is possible today for SLU as an enabling technology for enterprise (e.g., customer care centers or company meetings), and consumer (e.g., entertainment, mobile, car, robot, or smart environments) applications and outlines the key research areas. Provides a unique source of distilled information on methods for computer modeling of semantic information in human/machine and human/human conversations. This book can be successfully used for graduate courses in electronics engineering, computer science or computational linguistics. Moreover, technologists interested in processing spoken communications will find it a useful source of collated information of the topic drawn from the two distinct disciplines of speech processing and language processing under the new area of SLU.

Understanding Second Language Processing
Understanding Second Language Processing

Author: Bronwen Patricia Dyson

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2017-05-24

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 9027265879

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This book aims to help researchers and teachers interested in language processing and Processability Theory (PT) to understand this theory and its applications. PT is an influential account of second language processing which hypothesizes that, due to the architecture of language processing, learners acquire second languages in developmental stages. This book lays out PT’s predictions and research on the development of diverse target languages – particularly English and Scandinavian languages – by learners of various categories. It discusses the typological issues facing PT and its contribution to an understanding of variation and cognitive constraints on pedagogy. However, the book also raises a critical eye to the literature which, after almost twenty years of evolution, requires explanation, clarification and, in some cases, extension. Why do some phenomena belong to different stages in different languages? Why are important types of variation under-represented? Is teaching as constrained as proposed in PT?

Learning a Foreign Language
Learning a Foreign Language

Author: Alex Poole

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 1475854196

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This text helps monolinguals achieve their dream of learning another language. Each chapter explains and exemplifies issues inherent in the language learning process that readers need to understand. These include maintaining motivation, dealing with errors, being strategic, and assessing progress. Readers receive advice on the practical steps they can take to make learning more effective and enjoyable. They also gain exposure to the methods and techniques used to research language learning. While doing so, they become aware of child language development, the evolution of language, language’s relationship to culture, and other fundamental areas of linguistics. Readers also confront limitations related to age and learn about the necessity of having realistic expectations concerning pronunciation, grammar production, word usage, and cultural knowledge. Questions following the end of every chapter encourage readers to reflect on the information presented and how they can use it. The text’s focus on first-time language learners and straightforward style make it accessible for high school students, college language majors, and those independently pursuing a language.

Understanding Language
Understanding Language

Author: Donald Fairbairn

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2011-07-20

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0813218667

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Understanding Language includes major sections on the noun and verb systems of the classical languages.

Understanding Language
Understanding Language

Author: Roger Fowler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-02-23

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1000573982

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It is widely recognized that language is humanity’s most distinctive and valuable faculty. In this work, originally published in 1974, Roger Fowler explains the character and absorbing interest of language. Designed as an introductory text for students and others concerned with human communication, the book is clearly and concisely written, yet it in no way oversimplifies its rich and complicated subject. The opening chapters set the scene by a discussion of the power of language in the social and psychological life of a man, while the main body of the book is an introduction to linguistics, the science of language study. Coverage is provided of the main topics in linguistic description – semantics, syntax, phonetics – as well as of the functions of language, its status in society and its relation to the individual. The reader is invited to participate in some advanced thinking within an up-to-date and consistent linguistic theory. Particular attention is given to the individual as language-learner, since the process of language acquisition illuminates most clearly the naturalness and the complexity of language. The author’s arguments are illustrated with hundreds of examples from English and other languages. Suggestions for further reading are included in the exposition, and the reader who follows the arguments and pursues the carefully arranged bibliographical recommendations will acquire a substantial insight into contemporary linguistics – the most important and advanced of the modern human sciences.

Understanding Language Change
Understanding Language Change

Author: April M. S. McMahon

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994-03-17

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 9780521446655

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This textbook analyses changes from every area of grammar and addresses recent developments in socio-historical linguistics.

Understanding Second Language Acquisition
Understanding Second Language Acquisition

Author: Lourdes Ortega

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-04

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 144411705X

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Whether we grow up with one, two, or several languages during our early years of life, many of us will learn a second, foreign, or heritage language in later years. The field of Second language acquisition (SLA, for short) investigates the human capacity to learn additional languages in late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, after the first language --in the case of monolinguals-- or languages --in the case of bilinguals-- have already been acquired. Understanding Second Language Acquisition offers a wide-encompassing survey of this burgeoning field, its accumulated findings and proposed theories, its developed research paradigms, and its pending questions for the future. The book zooms in and out of universal, individual, and social forces, in each case evaluating the research findings that have been generated across diverse naturalistic and formal contexts for second language acquisition. It assumes no background in SLA and provides helpful chapter-by-chapter summaries and suggestions for further reading. Ideal as a textbook for students of applied linguistics, foreign language education, TESOL, and education, it is also recommended for students of linguistics, developmental psycholinguistics, psychology, and cognitive science. Supporting resources for tutors are available free at www.routledge.com/ortega.

Understanding Semantics
Understanding Semantics

Author: Sebastian Loebner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-23

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 1134647158

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This series provides approachable, yet authoritative, introductions to all the major topics in linguistics. Ideal for students with little or no prior knowledge of linguistics, each book carefully explains the basics, emphasising understanding of the essential notions rather than arguing for a particular theoretical position. Understanding Semantics offers a complete introduction to linguistic semantics. The book takes a step-by-step approach, starting with the basic concepts and moving through the central questions to examine the methods and results of the science of linguistic meaning. Understanding Semantics unites the treatment of a broad scale of phenomena using data from different languages with a thorough investigation of major theoretical perspectives. It leads the reader from their intuitive knowledge of meaning to a deeper understanding of the use of scientific reasoning in the study of language as a communicative tool, of the nature of linguistic meaning, and of the scope and limitations of linguistic semantics. Ideal as a first textbook in semantics for undergraduate students of linguistics, this book is also recommended for students of literature, philosophy, psychology and cognitive science.