Monash University Handbook 2010 Undergraduate - Unit

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Offered	Clayton Second semester 2010 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Simon Musgrave

Synopsis

This unit introduces students to the field of computational linguistics, an increasingly important area within linguistics. The course will include an overview of the development of the field and its relation to other developments in linguistics and outside of it. The main approaches used, both rule-based and probabilistic will be discussed and the basic techniques in each approach will be studied and practised. The major applications of computational techniques in linguistics, including machine translation, data mining and corpus linguistics will also be examined along with current achievements in these areas.

Objectives

On completion of this unit, students will have gained an understanding of:

1. the history of the use of computers in linguistics
2. the intellectual context of such work
3. the computational implementation of rules in phonology, morphology and syntax
4. the principles of probabilistic analysis of language
5. and the application of computational techniques to various real-world problems.

Students will also have gained experience in:

6. using simple software for linguistic analysis including parsing
7. using software for quantitative analysis of large bodies of language data
8. and designing and implementing a small research project using computational techniques.

Students will also develop their skills in:

9. rigorous analysis of language data
10. critical thinking
11. and developing research projects.

In addition, students at level 3 will develop their skills in presenting the results of their work.

Assessment

Assignment 1 (500 words) 10%
Assignment 2 (500 words) 15%
Assignment 3 (2000 words) 40%
Class test (2 hours, equivalent to 1000 words) 25%
Participation - includes oral presentation of results (500 words equivalent) 10%
The class test will include additional questions for level 3 students.

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Simon Musgrave

Contact hours

2 hours per week

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Linguistics

Prerequisites

1st year sequence in Linguistics (LIN1010 + LIN1020)

Prohibitions

LIN2180