• Office: 201a Oxley Hall (enter through 201 computer lab; if locked, knock loudly)
  
  
• Phone: 292-0461 (usually email works better)
  
  
• Email: dm@ling.osu.edu
  
  
• Office hours: Tuesday 11:00-12:00, and by appointment

• Given that homeworks, quizzes, and the exams reflect the material covered in class, attendance is essential for doing well in this class.
  
  
• Homework assignments are due by the beginning of class, on a piece of paper. No late homeworks are accepted.
  
  I encourage group work on the homework assignments, but each of you should write out your own answers. Note that group work means that everyone in the group contributes and fully understands what you turn in---where in doubt, I may ask you individually to explain to me in person what you turned in.
  
  
• Quizzes are administered through WebCT (http://class.osu.edu) and are due by midnight of the day indicated. They will be shut off automatically once the deadline is reached. You will generally have a week to complete a quiz, so do not put it off to the last minute! The quizzes naturally are open book, so you should view them as an opportunity for reviewing the material covered, based on the handouts.
  
  Note: I do not promise to remind you when you have a quiz due. It is your responsibility to keep up with the syllabus.
  
  
• If you feel that I have graded anything incorrectly or improperly, please contact me outside of class. I will be happy to discuss your concerns.
  
  
• Grading scale (scores in percentages):

  		B+	87--89	C+	77--79	D+	67--69	E	0--59
  A	93--100	B	83--86	C	73--76	D	60--66
  A-	90--92	B-	80--82	C-	70--72

• Participate: share experiences, ask questions, express your opinions. Ask me to provide more information, send me emails or see me during office hours for help, clarification, or recommendations for further research.
  
  
• Do not read newspapers, materials from other classes, etc. in class. Do not pack up early. Switch off your cell phone. If for some reason, you must leave early or you have an important call coming in, notify me before class.

Topics:

1. Storing language on the computer: Text and speech encoding.

   Writing systems used for language. Representing text on the computer. Digital representations of speech.

2. Searching: web, library catalogs, and other language-based databases

   What facilities exist for searching for language-based information? Different query languages and what they allow you to do. Differences between specific and general queries. How to evaluate the results of a search.

3. Classifying documents: Language identification and spam filtering

   Techniques for classifying documents. What language(s) are they written in? Are they junk mail? Are statistical techniques better than rule-based ones, or not? When will the techniques fail?

4. Writer's aids: Spelling and grammar correction

   What do so-called ``grammar checkers'' and ``spelling correctors'' do? What do such programs base their advice on? When does it make sense to use such tools and what kind of errors are to be expected?

5. Machine translation

   What do the free internet-based translation services manage to do---and where do they fail? For what purposes can automatic machine translation work reliably? What translation support functions can a computer provide? A closer look at what makes machine translation such a hard task. Is it the grammar, the meaning, the culture, all three, or something else?

6. Computer-Aided Language Learning

   What is involved in learning a foreign language? What role in language learning can computers play: from vocabulary training, via presentation of learning material, to providing feedback on learner errors and progress.

7. Social context of language technology use

   How do we react to computers that make use of language? What does it mean for the way we see ourselves? What assumptions do we make about every user of language, be it a human or a machine.

This document was translated from L^AT_EX by H^EV^EA.