Search results for: natural language
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 2227

Search results for: natural language

2227 Natural Language Database Interface for Selection of Data Using Grammar and Parsing

Authors: N. D. Karande, G. A. Patil

Abstract:

Databases have become ubiquitous. Almost all IT applications are storing into and retrieving information from databases. Retrieving information from the database requires knowledge of technical languages such as Structured Query Language (SQL). However majority of the users who interact with the databases do not have a technical background and are intimidated by the idea of using languages such as SQL. This has led to the development of a few Natural Language Database Interfaces (NLDBIs). A NLDBI allows the user to query the database in a natural language. This paper highlights on architecture of new NLDBI system, its implementation and discusses on results obtained. In most of the typical NLDBI systems the natural language statement is converted into an internal representation based on the syntactic and semantic knowledge of the natural language. This representation is then converted into queries using a representation converter. A natural language query is translated to an equivalent SQL query after processing through various stages. The work has been experimented on primitive database queries with certain constraints.

Keywords: Natural language database interface, representation converter, syntactic and semantic knowledge

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2226 Models and Metamodels for Computer-Assisted Natural Language Grammar Learning

Authors: Evgeny Pyshkin, Maxim Mozgovoy, Vladislav Volkov

Abstract:

The paper follows a discourse on computer-assisted language learning. We examine problems of foreign language teaching and learning and introduce a metamodel that can be used to define learning models of language grammar structures in order to support teacher/student interaction. Special attention is paid to the concept of a virtual language lab. Our approach to language education assumes to encourage learners to experiment with a language and to learn by discovering patterns of grammatically correct structures created and managed by a language expert.

Keywords: Computer-assisted instruction, Language learning, Natural language grammar models, HCI.

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2225 Role of Natural Language Processing in Information Retrieval; Challenges and Opportunities

Authors: Khaled M. Alhawiti

Abstract:

This paper aims to analyze the role of natural language processing (NLP). The paper will discuss the role in the context of automated data retrieval, automated question answer, and text structuring. NLP techniques are gaining wider acceptance in real life applications and industrial concerns. There are various complexities involved in processing the text of natural language that could satisfy the need of decision makers. This paper begins with the description of the qualities of NLP practices. The paper then focuses on the challenges in natural language processing. The paper also discusses major techniques of NLP. The last section describes opportunities and challenges for future research.

Keywords: Data Retrieval, Information retrieval, Natural Language Processing, Text Structuring.

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2224 A NXM Version of 5X5 Playfair Cipher for any Natural Language (Urdu as Special Case)

Authors: Muhammad Salam, Nasir Rashid, Shah Khalid, Muhammad Raees Khan

Abstract:

In this paper a modified version NXM of traditional 5X5 playfair cipher is introduced which enable the user to encrypt message of any Natural language by taking appropriate size of the matrix depending upon the size of the natural language. 5X5 matrix has the capability of storing only 26 characters of English language and unable to store characters of any language having more than 26 characters. To overcome this limitation NXM matrix is introduced which solve this limitation. In this paper a special case of Urdu language is discussed. Where # is used for completing odd pair and * is used for repeating letters.

Keywords: cryptography, decryption, encryption, playfair cipher, traditional cipher.

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2223 Context Detection in Spreadsheets Based on Automatically Inferred Table Schema

Authors: Alexander Wachtel, Michael T. Franzen, Walter F. Tichy

Abstract:

Programming requires years of training. With natural language and end user development methods, programming could become available to everyone. It enables end users to program their own devices and extend the functionality of the existing system without any knowledge of programming languages. In this paper, we describe an Interactive Spreadsheet Processing Module (ISPM), a natural language interface to spreadsheets that allows users to address ranges within the spreadsheet based on inferred table schema. Using the ISPM, end users are able to search for values in the schema of the table and to address the data in spreadsheets implicitly. Furthermore, it enables them to select and sort the spreadsheet data by using natural language. ISPM uses a machine learning technique to automatically infer areas within a spreadsheet, including different kinds of headers and data ranges. Since ranges can be identified from natural language queries, the end users can query the data using natural language. During the evaluation 12 undergraduate students were asked to perform operations (sum, sort, group and select) using the system and also Excel without ISPM interface, and the time taken for task completion was compared across the two systems. Only for the selection task did users take less time in Excel (since they directly selected the cells using the mouse) than in ISPM, by using natural language for end user software engineering, to overcome the present bottleneck of professional developers.

Keywords: Natural language processing, end user development; natural language interfaces, human computer interaction, data recognition, dialog systems, spreadsheet.

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2222 JaCoText: A Pretrained Model for Java Code-Text Generation

Authors: Jessica Lòpez Espejel, Mahaman Sanoussi Yahaya Alassan, Walid Dahhane, El Hassane Ettifouri

Abstract:

Pretrained transformer-based models have shown high performance in natural language generation task. However, a new wave of interest has surged: automatic programming language generation. This task consists of translating natural language instructions to a programming code. Despite the fact that well-known pretrained models on language generation have achieved good performance in learning programming languages, effort is still needed in automatic code generation. In this paper, we introduce JaCoText, a model based on Transformers neural network. It aims to generate java source code from natural language text. JaCoText leverages advantages of both natural language and code generation models. More specifically, we study some findings from the state of the art and use them to (1) initialize our model from powerful pretrained models, (2) explore additional pretraining on our java dataset, (3) carry out experiments combining the unimodal and bimodal data in the training, and (4) scale the input and output length during the fine-tuning of the model. Conducted experiments on CONCODE dataset show that JaCoText achieves new state-of-the-art results.

Keywords: Java code generation, Natural Language Processing, Sequence-to-sequence Models, Transformers Neural Networks.

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2221 Structural Parsing of Natural Language Text in Tamil Using Phrase Structure Hybrid Language Model

Authors: Selvam M, Natarajan. A M, Thangarajan R

Abstract:

Parsing is important in Linguistics and Natural Language Processing to understand the syntax and semantics of a natural language grammar. Parsing natural language text is challenging because of the problems like ambiguity and inefficiency. Also the interpretation of natural language text depends on context based techniques. A probabilistic component is essential to resolve ambiguity in both syntax and semantics thereby increasing accuracy and efficiency of the parser. Tamil language has some inherent features which are more challenging. In order to obtain the solutions, lexicalized and statistical approach is to be applied in the parsing with the aid of a language model. Statistical models mainly focus on semantics of the language which are suitable for large vocabulary tasks where as structural methods focus on syntax which models small vocabulary tasks. A statistical language model based on Trigram for Tamil language with medium vocabulary of 5000 words has been built. Though statistical parsing gives better performance through tri-gram probabilities and large vocabulary size, it has some disadvantages like focus on semantics rather than syntax, lack of support in free ordering of words and long term relationship. To overcome the disadvantages a structural component is to be incorporated in statistical language models which leads to the implementation of hybrid language models. This paper has attempted to build phrase structured hybrid language model which resolves above mentioned disadvantages. In the development of hybrid language model, new part of speech tag set for Tamil language has been developed with more than 500 tags which have the wider coverage. A phrase structured Treebank has been developed with 326 Tamil sentences which covers more than 5000 words. A hybrid language model has been trained with the phrase structured Treebank using immediate head parsing technique. Lexicalized and statistical parser which employs this hybrid language model and immediate head parsing technique gives better results than pure grammar and trigram based model.

Keywords: Hybrid Language Model, Immediate Head Parsing, Lexicalized and Statistical Parsing, Natural Language Processing, Parts of Speech, Probabilistic Context Free Grammar, Tamil Language, Tree Bank.

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2220 A Survey of the Applications of Sentiment Analysis

Authors: Pingping Lin, Xudong Luo

Abstract:

Natural language often conveys emotions of speakers. Therefore, sentiment analysis on what people say is prevalent in the field of natural language process and has great application value in many practical problems. Thus, to help people understand its application value, in this paper, we survey various applications of sentiment analysis, including the ones in online business and offline business as well as other types of its applications. In particular, we give some application examples in intelligent customer service systems in China. Besides, we compare the applications of sentiment analysis on Twitter, Weibo, Taobao and Facebook, and discuss some challenges. Finally, we point out the challenges faced in the applications of sentiment analysis and the work that is worth being studied in the future.

Keywords: Natural language processing, sentiment analysis, application, online comments.

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2219 On Dialogue Systems Based on Deep Learning

Authors: Yifan Fan, Xudong Luo, Pingping Lin

Abstract:

Nowadays, dialogue systems increasingly become the way for humans to access many computer systems. So, humans can interact with computers in natural language. A dialogue system consists of three parts: understanding what humans say in natural language, managing dialogue, and generating responses in natural language. In this paper, we survey deep learning based methods for dialogue management, response generation and dialogue evaluation. Specifically, these methods are based on neural network, long short-term memory network, deep reinforcement learning, pre-training and generative adversarial network. We compare these methods and point out the further research directions.

Keywords: Dialogue management, response generation, reinforcement learning, deep learning, evaluation.

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2218 On the Relationship between Language Output and Second Language Acquisition

Authors: Haiyan Wang

Abstract:

Many researchers have been discussing the importance of language input in second language acquisition. The author holds that the bigger problem lies in how to activate language learners' language knowledge and raise their language output consciousness and competence. Analyzing the importance of language output based on theory and reality, this paper mainly explores the essence of language output and its revelation for second language acquisition in order to make second language learners really raise their communicative competence.

Keywords: Language output, second language acquisition, communicative competence.

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2217 User Guidance for Effective Query Interpretation in Natural Language Interfaces to Ontologies

Authors: Aliyu Isah Agaie, Masrah Azrifah Azmi Murad, Nurfadhlina Mohd Sharef, Aida Mustapha

Abstract:

Natural Language Interfaces typically support a restricted language and also have scopes and limitations that naïve users are unaware of, resulting in errors when the users attempt to retrieve information from ontologies. To overcome this challenge, an auto-suggest feature is introduced into the querying process where users are guided through the querying process using interactive query construction system. Guiding users to formulate their queries, while providing them with an unconstrained (or almost unconstrained) way to query the ontology results in better interpretation of the query and ultimately lead to an effective search. The approach described in this paper is unobtrusive and subtly guides the users, so that they have a choice of either selecting from the suggestion list or typing in full. The user is not coerced into accepting system suggestions and can express himself using fragments or full sentences.

Keywords: Auto-suggest, expressiveness, habitability, natural language interface, query interpretation, user guidance.

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2216 A Framework for Urdu Language Translation using LESSA

Authors: Imran Sarwar Bajwa

Abstract:

Internet is one of the major sources of information for the person belonging to almost all the fields of life. Major language that is used to publish information on internet is language. This thing becomes a problem in a country like Pakistan, where Urdu is the national language. Only 10% of Pakistan mass can understand English. The reason is millions of people are deprived of precious information available on internet. This paper presents a system for translation from English to Urdu. A module LESSA is used that uses a rule based algorithm to read the input text in English language, understand it and translate it into Urdu language. The designed approach was further incorporated to translate the complete website from English language o Urdu language. An option appears in the browser to translate the webpage in a new window. The designed system will help the millions of users of internet to get benefit of the internet and approach the latest information and knowledge posted daily on internet.

Keywords: Natural Language Translation, Text Understanding, Knowledge extraction, Text Processing

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2215 An Enhanced Tool for Implementing Dialogue Forms in Conversational Applications

Authors: Ilias Spais, George Bafas

Abstract:

Natural Language Understanding Systems (NLU) will not be widely deployed unless they are technically mature and cost effective to develop. Cost effective development hinges on the availability of tools and techniques enabling the rapid production of NLU applications through minimal human resources. Further, these tools and techniques should allow quick development of applications in a user friendly way and should be easy to upgrade in order to continuously follow the evolving technologies and standards. This paper presents a visual tool for the structuring and editing of dialog forms, the key element of driving conversation in NLU applications based on IBM technology. The main focus is given on the basic component used to describe Human – Machine interactions of that kind, the Dialogue Manager. In essence, the description of a tool that enables the visual representation of the Dialogue Manager mainly during the implementation phase is illustrated.

Keywords: Conversational Applications, Forms Dialogue Manager (FDM), Natural Language Processing, Natural Language Understanding.

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2214 An Integrated Natural Language Processing Approach for Conversation System

Authors: Zhi Teng, Ye Liu, Fuji Ren

Abstract:

The main aim of this research is to investigate a novel technique for implementing a more natural and intelligent conversation system. Conversation systems are designed to converse like a human as much as their intelligent allows. Sometimes, we can think that they are the embodiment of Turing-s vision. It usually to return a predetermined answer in a predetermined order, but conversations abound with uncertainties of various kinds. This research will focus on an integrated natural language processing approach. This approach includes an integrated knowledge-base construction module, a conversation understanding and generator module, and a state manager module. We discuss effectiveness of this approach based on an experiment.

Keywords: Conversation System, integrated knowledge-base construction, conversation understanding and generator, state manager

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2213 Humanoid Personalized Avatar Through Multiple Natural Language Processing

Authors: Jin Hou, Xia Wang, Fang Xu, Viet Dung Nguyen, Ling Wu

Abstract:

There has been a growing interest in implementing humanoid avatars in networked virtual environment. However, most existing avatar communication systems do not take avatars- social backgrounds into consideration. This paper proposes a novel humanoid avatar animation system to represent personalities and facial emotions of avatars based on culture, profession, mood, age, taste, and so forth. We extract semantic keywords from the input text through natural language processing, and then the animations of personalized avatars are retrieved and displayed according to the order of the keywords. Our primary work is focused on giving avatars runtime instruction from multiple natural languages. Experiments with Chinese, Japanese and English input based on the prototype show that interactive avatar animations can be displayed in real time and be made available online. This system provides a more natural and interesting means of human communication, and therefore is expected to be used for cross-cultural communication, multiuser online games, and other entertainment applications.

Keywords: personalized avatar, mutiple natural luanguage processing, social backgrounds, anmimation, human computer interaction

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2212 Teacher Talk and Language Output

Authors: Haiyan Wang

Abstract:

As an important input and teaching media in foreign language teaching classes, teacher talk (TT) has a great effect on language output. This paper explores the problems related to teacher talk (TT) and language output in practical ELT (English Language Teaching) classroom and presents some suggestions for solving the problems which affect learner' effective language output.

Keywords: Second language acquisition, teacher talk, language output.

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2211 Variational Explanation Generator: Generating Explanation for Natural Language Inference Using Variational Auto-Encoder

Authors: Zhen Cheng, Xinyu Dai, Shujian Huang, Jiajun Chen

Abstract:

Recently, explanatory natural language inference has attracted much attention for the interpretability of logic relationship prediction, which is also known as explanation generation for Natural Language Inference (NLI). Existing explanation generators based on discriminative Encoder-Decoder architecture have achieved noticeable results. However, we find that these discriminative generators usually generate explanations with correct evidence but incorrect logic semantic. It is due to that logic information is implicitly encoded in the premise-hypothesis pairs and difficult to model. Actually, logic information identically exists between premise-hypothesis pair and explanation. And it is easy to extract logic information that is explicitly contained in the target explanation. Hence we assume that there exists a latent space of logic information while generating explanations. Specifically, we propose a generative model called Variational Explanation Generator (VariationalEG) with a latent variable to model this space. Training with the guide of explicit logic information in target explanations, latent variable in VariationalEG could capture the implicit logic information in premise-hypothesis pairs effectively. Additionally, to tackle the problem of posterior collapse while training VariaztionalEG, we propose a simple yet effective approach called Logic Supervision on the latent variable to force it to encode logic information. Experiments on explanation generation benchmark—explanation-Stanford Natural Language Inference (e-SNLI) demonstrate that the proposed VariationalEG achieves significant improvement compared to previous studies and yields a state-of-the-art result. Furthermore, we perform the analysis of generated explanations to demonstrate the effect of the latent variable.

Keywords: Natural Language Inference, explanation generation, variational auto-encoder, generative model.

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2210 Evaluating the Role of Multisensory Elements in Foreign Language Acquisition

Authors: Sari Myréen

Abstract:

The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of multisensory elements in enhancing and facilitating foreign language acquisition among adult students in a language classroom. The use of multisensory elements enables the creation of a student-centered classroom, where the focus is on individual learner’s language learning process, perceptions and motivation. Multisensory language learning is a pedagogical approach where the language learner uses all the senses more effectively than in a traditional in-class environment. Language learning is facilitated due to multisensory stimuli which increase the number of cognitive connections in the learner and take into consideration different types of learners. A living lab called Multisensory Space creates a relaxed and receptive state in the learners through various multisensory stimuli, and thus promotes their natural foreign language acquisition. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in two questionnaire inquiries among the Finnish students of a higher education institute at the end of their basic French courses in December 2014 and 2016. The inquiries discussed the effects of multisensory elements on the students’ motivation to study French as well as their learning outcomes. The results show that the French classes in the Multisensory Space provide the students with an encouraging and pleasant learning environment, which has a positive impact on their motivation to study the foreign language as well as their language learning outcomes.

Keywords: Foreign language acquisition, foreign language learning, higher education, multisensory learning, pedagogical approach, transcultural learning.

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2209 Natural Language News Generation from Big Data

Authors: Bastian Haarmann, Lukas Sikorski

Abstract:

In this paper, we introduce an NLG application for the automatic creation of ready-to-publish texts from big data. The resulting fully automatic generated news stories have a high resemblance to the style in which the human writer would draw up such a story. Topics include soccer games, stock exchange market reports, and weather forecasts. Each generated text is unique. Readyto-publish stories written by a computer application can help humans to quickly grasp the outcomes of big data analyses, save timeconsuming pre-formulations for journalists and cater to rather small audiences by offering stories that would otherwise not exist. 

Keywords: Big data, natural language generation, publishing, robotic journalism.

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2208 Part of Speech Tagging Using Statistical Approach for Nepali Text

Authors: Archit Yajnik

Abstract:

Part of Speech Tagging has always been a challenging task in the era of Natural Language Processing. This article presents POS tagging for Nepali text using Hidden Markov Model and Viterbi algorithm. From the Nepali text, annotated corpus training and testing data set are randomly separated. Both methods are employed on the data sets. Viterbi algorithm is found to be computationally faster and accurate as compared to HMM. The accuracy of 95.43% is achieved using Viterbi algorithm. Error analysis where the mismatches took place is elaborately discussed.

Keywords: Hidden Markov model, Viterbi algorithm, POS tagging, natural language processing.

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2207 Native Language Identification with Cross-Corpus Evaluation Using Social Media Data: 'Reddit'

Authors: Yasmeen Bassas, Sandra Kuebler, Allen Riddell

Abstract:

Native Language Identification is one of the growing subfields in Natural Language Processing (NLP). The task of Native Language Identification (NLI) is mainly concerned with predicting the native language of an author’s writing in a second language. In this paper, we investigate the performance of two types of features; content-based features vs. content independent features when they are evaluated on a different corpus (using social media data “Reddit”). In this NLI task, the predefined models are trained on one corpus (TOEFL) and then the trained models are evaluated on a different data using an external corpus (Reddit). Three classifiers are used in this task; the baseline, linear SVM, and Logistic Regression. Results show that content-based features are more accurate and robust than content independent ones when tested within corpus and across corpus.

Keywords: NLI, NLP, content-based features, content independent features, social media corpus, ML.

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2206 Morpho-Phonological Modelling in Natural Language Processing

Authors: Eleni Galiotou, Angela Ralli

Abstract:

In this paper we propose a computational model for the representation and processing of morpho-phonological phenomena in a natural language, like Modern Greek. We aim at a unified treatment of inflection, compounding, and word-internal phonological changes, in a model that is used for both analysis and generation. After discussing certain difficulties cuase by well-known finitestate approaches, such as Koskenniemi-s two-level model [7] when applied to a computational treatment of compounding, we argue that a morphology-based model provides a more adequate account of word-internal phenomena. Contrary to the finite state approaches that cannot handle hierarchical word constituency in a satisfactory way, we propose a unification-based word grammar, as the nucleus of our strategy, which takes into consideration word representations that are based on affixation and [stem stem] or [stem word] compounds. In our formalism, feature-passing operations are formulated with the use of the unification device, and phonological rules modeling the correspondence between lexical and surface forms apply at morpheme boundaries. In the paper, examples from Modern Greek illustrate our approach. Morpheme structures, stress, and morphologically conditioned phoneme changes are analyzed and generated in a principled way.

Keywords: Morpho-Phonology, Natural Language Processing.

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2205 Implementing a Database from a Requirement Specification

Authors: M. Omer, D. Wilson

Abstract:

Creating a database scheme is essentially a manual process. From a requirement specification the information contained within has to be analyzed and reduced into a set of tables, attributes and relationships. This is a time consuming process that has to go through several stages before an acceptable database schema is achieved. The purpose of this paper is to implement a Natural Language Processing (NLP) based tool to produce a relational database from a requirement specification. The Stanford CoreNLP version 3.3.1 and the Java programming were used to implement the proposed model. The outcome of this study indicates that a first draft of a relational database schema can be extracted from a requirement specification by using NLP tools and techniques with minimum user intervention. Therefore this method is a step forward in finding a solution that requires little or no user intervention.

Keywords: Information Extraction, Natural Language Processing, Relation Extraction.

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2204 Links and Blocks: The Role of Language in Samuel Beckett’s Selected Plays

Authors: Su-Lien Liao

Abstract:

This article explores the language in the four plays of Samuel Beckett – Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape, and Footfalls. It considers the way in which Beckett uses language, especially through fragmentation utterances, repetitions, monologues, contradictions, and silence. It discusses the function of language in modern society, in the Theater of the Absurd, and in the plays. Paradoxically enough, his plays attempts to communicate the incommunicability of language.

Keywords: Language, Samuel Beckett, theater of the absurd.

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2203 Computer Aided Language Learning System for Arabic for Second Language Learners

Authors: Osama Abufanas

Abstract:

This paper aims to build an Arabic learning language tool using Flash CS4 professional software with action script 3.0 programming language, based on the Computer Aided Language Learning (CALL) material. An extra intention is to provide a primary tool and focus on learning Arabic as a second language to adults. It contains letters, words and sentences at the first stage. This includes interactive practices, which evaluates learners’ comprehension of the Arabic language. The system was examined and it was found that the language structure was correct and learners were satisfied regarding the system tools. The learners found the system tools efficient and simple to use. The paper's main conclusion illustrates that CALL can be applied without any hesitation to second language learners

Keywords: Arabic Language, Computer Aided Language Learning (CALL), Learner, Material.

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2202 Prospective English Language Teachers’ Views on Translation Use in Foreign Language Teaching

Authors: Ozlem Bozok, Yusuf Bozok

Abstract:

The importance of using mother tongue and translation in foreign language classrooms cannot be ignored and translation can be utilized as a method in English Language Teaching courses. There exist researches advocating or objecting to the use of translation in foreign language learning but they all have a point in common: Translation should be used as an aid to teaching, not an end in itself. In this research, prospective English language teachers’ opinions about translation use and use of mother tongue in foreign language teaching are investigated and according to the findings, some explanations and recommendations are made.

Keywords: Exposure to foreign language, translation, foreign language learning, prospective teachers’ opinions, use of L1.

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2201 Continuous Text Translation Using Text Modeling in the Thetos System

Authors: Nina Suszczanska, Przemyslaw Szmal, Slawomir Kulikow

Abstract:

In the paper a method of modeling text for Polish is discussed. The method is aimed at transforming continuous input text into a text consisting of sentences in so called canonical form, whose characteristic is, among others, a complete structure as well as no anaphora or ellipses. The transformation is lossless as to the content of text being transformed. The modeling method has been worked out for the needs of the Thetos system, which translates Polish written texts into the Polish sign language. We believe that the method can be also used in various applications that deal with the natural language, e.g. in a text summary generator for Polish.

Keywords: anaphora, machine translation, NLP, sign language, text syntax.

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2200 Online Multilingual Dictionary Using Hamburg Notation for Avatar-Based Indian Sign Language Generation System

Authors: Sugandhi, Parteek Kumar, Sanmeet Kaur

Abstract:

Sign Language (SL) is used by deaf and other people who cannot speak but can hear or have a problem with spoken languages due to some disability. It is a visual gesture language that makes use of either one hand or both hands, arms, face, body to convey meanings and thoughts. SL automation system is an effective way which provides an interface to communicate with normal people using a computer. In this paper, an avatar based dictionary has been proposed for text to Indian Sign Language (ISL) generation system. This research work will also depict a literature review on SL corpus available for various SL s over the years. For ISL generation system, a written form of SL is required and there are certain techniques available for writing the SL. The system uses Hamburg sign language Notation System (HamNoSys) and Signing Gesture Mark-up Language (SiGML) for ISL generation. It is developed in PHP using Web Graphics Library (WebGL) technology for 3D avatar animation. A multilingual ISL dictionary is developed using HamNoSys for both English and Hindi Language. This dictionary will be used as a database to associate signs with words or phrases of a spoken language. It provides an interface for admin panel to manage the dictionary, i.e., modification, addition, or deletion of a word. Through this interface, HamNoSys can be developed and stored in a database and these notations can be converted into its corresponding SiGML file manually. The system takes natural language input sentence in English and Hindi language and generate 3D sign animation using an avatar. SL generation systems have potential applications in many domains such as healthcare sector, media, educational institutes, commercial sectors, transportation services etc. This research work will help the researchers to understand various techniques used for writing SL and generation of Sign Language systems.

Keywords: Avatar, dictionary, HamNoSys, hearing-impaired, Indian Sign Language, sign language.

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2199 Chinese Language Teaching as a Second Language: Immersion Teaching

Authors: Lee Bih Ni, Kiu Su Na

Abstract:

This paper discusses the Chinese Language Teaching as a Second Language by focusing on Immersion Teaching. Researchers used narrative literature review to describe the current states of both art and science in focused areas of inquiry. Immersion teaching comes with a standard that teachers must reliably meet. Chinese language-immersion instruction consists of language and content lessons, including functional usage of the language, academic language, authentic language, and correct Chinese sociocultural language. Researchers used narrative literature reviews to build a scientific knowledge base. Researchers collected all the important points of discussion, and put them here with reference to the specific field where this paper is originally based on. The findings show that Chinese Language in immersion teaching is not like standard foreign language classroom; immersion setting provides more opportunities to teach students colloquial language than academic. Immersion techniques also introduce a language’s cultural and social contexts in a meaningful and memorable way. It is particularly important that immersion teachers connect classwork with real-life experiences. Immersion also includes more elements of discovery and inquiry based learning than do other kinds of instructional practices. Students are always and consistently interpreted the conclusions and context clues.

Keywords: A second language, Chinese language teaching, immersion teaching, instructional strategies.

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2198 Age and Second Language Acquisition: A Case Study from Maldives

Authors: Aaidha Hammad

Abstract:

The age a child to be exposed to a second language is a controversial issue in communities such as the Maldives where English is taught as a second language. It has been observed that different stakeholders have different viewpoints towards the issue. Some believe that the earlier children are exposed to a second language, the better they learn, while others disagree with the notion. Hence, this case study investigates whether children learn a second language better when they are exposed at an earlier age or not. The spoken and written data collected confirm that earlier exposure helps in mastering the sound pattern and speaking fluency with more native-like accent, while a later age is better for learning more abstract and concrete aspects such as grammar and syntactic rules.

Keywords: Age, development of language skills, fluency, second language acquisition.

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