Prof Robert Dale, Macquarie University

Language technology is all about getting machines to do useful things with human language. Language Technology is all around you, on your desktop when you use Microsoft Word's grammar checker, on the web when you search via Google, and on the phone when you book a taxi by talking to a machine. This course is intended for those who are not researchers in this area, but are curious to know what is involved in developing applications like these. In the course, we'll survey the present and future uses of language technology, and look under the covers to see what's involved in making them work. The focus is on developing a big-picture view of what's possible and what's not; prior technical exposure in the area is not required. Does language technology need linguistics, or is it all just a bunch of engineers hacking away? Come to this course and find out!