Assignment # 6 Mareena Fayyaz M.

Phil P-97

IMAPCT OF COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS ON BOTH

THE RESEARCHERS AND LANGUAGE USERS.
What is computational Linguistics?
Computational linguistics is the scientific and engineering discipline concerned with
understanding written and spoken language from a computational perspective, and building
artifacts that usefully process and produce language, either in bulk or in a dialogue setting.
To the extent that language is a mirror of mind, a computational understanding of language
also provides insight into thinking and intelligence. And since language is our most natural
and most versatile means of communication, linguistically competent computers would
greatly facilitate our interaction with machines and software of all sorts, and put at our
fingertips, in ways that truly meet our needs, the vast textual and other resources of the
internet.
Applications of Computational Linguistics for Researchers and Language Users
Computational linguistics (CL) is the application of computer science to the analysis,
synthesis and comprehension of written and spoken language. Computational linguistics
is used as following
 Instant machine translation
 Speech recognition (SR) systems
 Text-to-speech (TTS) synthesizers,
 Interactive voice response (IVR) systems,
 search engines
 text editors and
 language instruction materials
The interdisciplinary field of study requires expertise in machine learning (ML), deep
learning (DL), artificial intelligence (AI), cognitive computing and neuroscience. 
Example of Computational linguistics users
A computational understanding of language provides human beings with insight into
thinking and intelligence. Computers that are linguistically competent not only help facilitate
human interaction with machines and software, but also make the textual and other
resources of the internet readily available in multiple languages.
Business goals of computational linguistics include:
 Translating text from one language to another.
 Retrieving text that relates to a specific topic.
 Analyzing text or spoken language for context, sentiment or other affective qualities.
 Answering questions, including those that require inference and descriptive or
discursive answers.
 Summarizing text.
 Building dialogue agents capable of completing complex tasks such as making a
purchase, planning a trip or scheduling maintenance.’
Assignment # 6 Mareena Fayyaz M.Phil P-97

 Creating chat-bots capable of passing the Turing-Test. 

Benefits to Researcher and Users

 Most work in computational linguistics which has both theoretical and applied
elements, is aimed at improving the relationship between computers and basic
language. It involves building artifacts that can be used to process and produce
language. Building such artifacts requires data scientists to analyze massive
amounts of written and spoken language in
both structured and unstructured formats.
 Typically, computational linguists are employed in universities, governmental
research labs or large enterprises. In the private sector, vertical companies, like
Caterpillar typically employ computational linguists to authenticate the accurate
translation of technical manuals. Tech software companies, such as Microsoft,
typically hire computational linguists to work on natural language processing (NLP),
helping programmers to create voice user interfaces (VUIs) that will eventually allow
humans to communicate with computing devices as if they were another person.  
 More job opportunities exist for linguistics experts to help developers improve
Internet search engines, build virtual assistants and integrate speech
recognition with other language processing techniques. Demand is also growing for
computational linguists in the public sector as government grapple with the
continuous growth of unstructured data. 
 Although the concept of CL is often associated with AI, CL pre-dates AI’s
development, according to the Association for Computational Linguistics.