The National Science Foundation has awarded a second grant in two years, for a total of $1 million, to faculty in the University of Washington Computational Linguistics department for research in natural language processing. Emily Bender, Assistant Professor and Director, UW Professional Master’s Program in Computational Linguistics, and faculty member Fei Xia have each received awards for their work in devising methods for converting "natural" language (human languages from English and Spanish to Urdu) into a form that computers can understand and manipulate. Natural language technology is used in applications of strategic importance in business, law, healthcare, and consumer products. These include search engine technology, voice recognition, biomedical informatics, and context sensitive advertising.

UW a premier center in computational linguistics
Business and consumer applications in natural language technology
Computational linguistics research at the UW
UW programs in computational linguistics and natural language technology
Careers in computational linguistics and natural language technology About University of Washington Educational Outreach (UWEO)

UW a premier center in computational linguistics

The two grants, made through the NSF's Faculty Early Career Development Program, are particularly significant because only 14 have been given in the field of computational linguistics since 1997. The NSF presents Career awards to those “teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.” They highlight the UW as a premier center for study in this discipline and its subfield, natural language technology.

The NSF presents Career awards to those "teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization." They highlight the UW as a premier center for study in this discipline that has applications of strategic importance in business, law, healthcare, and consumer products.

Take the sentence, "We gave the monkey the banana because it was overripe." What was given away, the monkey or the banana? Is it the banana that was overripe-or the monkey? Does "overripe" carry positive or negative connotations? Computers can't take into account the actual meaning and context of words in a sentence. This is one of the reasons you're likely to get hundreds of irrelevant matches when you perform an online search.

It's why you may have to wade through page after page of reviews on a travel site to judge whether an airline's flight attendants are friendly. Professionals in the field of computational linguistics are working to resolve these and other issues stemming from the disconnect between computers and human languages. They apply the technology called natural language processing as a means of identifying and accessing electronic information of strategic or commercial importance.

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Business and consumer applications in natural language technology

"You're probably using applications built on computational linguistics and natural language processing many times a day in your everyday life," said Bender. "Spell check, Google key word searches, voice and speech recognition including dialogue software for your car, predictive text input methods in mobile devices: these are just a few of the applications commonly used by consumers."

Business applications include extraction of diagnosis from medical records, litigation support, triage of customer service emails, context-sensitive advertising, and Web monitoring to gauge the reputation of companies and products.

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Computational linguistics research at the UW

Bender's research focuses on "knowledge engineering" approaches where linguists encode knowledge that the computer can use (in this case, to parse and generate sentences of various languages). Xia's work includes research in machine learning, where the computer learns from data that's fed to it. Both build on the benefits of "cross-lingual" study. In other words, languages are related to one another and should be treated as such.

Benefits include the potential for quicker, more precise documentation of languages that are in danger of dying out and cheaper, more efficient development of natural language technology in languages that have not previously received strong focus from computational linguists.

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UW programs in computational linguistics and natural language technology

The University of Washington offers cutting-edge programs in this fascinating interdisciplinary field combining computer science, linguistics, mathematics, logic, psychology, and philosophy. The UW Professional Master's in Computational Linguistics Program is one of only a handful of such programs in the world (see www.compling.washington.edu/compling/people/advisory.asp).

The new online UW Certificate Program in Natural Language Technology, a series of three courses within the Master's program, is the only such online program currently available (see www.extension.washington.edu/ext/certificates/nlt/nlt_gen.asp).

Administered by UW Educational Outreach, the University of Washington's continuing and professional education unit, both programs are designed and scheduled for working professionals. Online students participate live and interactive through AdobeConnect; they also have the option of attending courses onsite at the UW. These programs are steered by an advisory board that includes managers and researchers from many leading technology companies.

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Careers in computational linguistics and natural language technology

The UW Professional Master's Program in Computational Linguistics (see www.compling.washington.edu/compling/people/advisory.asp) counts alumnae among top companies including Amazon, Google, Cataphora, InXight, Cisco Systems, Tegic (AOL), Nuance, and VoiceBox.

Career titles in this field include:

• Computational linguist
• Translation technology specialist
• Language software development engineer
• Data specialist
• Software engineer

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About University of Washington Educational Outreach (UWEO)

UWEO is the continuing and professional education division of the University of Washington, the nationally recognized public research institution based in Seattle. Helping the schools, colleges and departments to administer evening master's degrees, certificate programs, distance and online learning, international outreach, English language programs and more, UWEO is one of the largest and most highly regarded continuing and professional education programs in the U.S. (more information at the UWEO Web site.)

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