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Language and Computation (UNIB20005)
Undergraduate level 2Points: 12.5Not available in 2017
Overview
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AIMS
Language is the chief manifestation of human intelligence. Through language we express basic needs and lofty aspirations, technical know-how and flights of fantasy. Ideas are shared over great separations of distance and time. Thanks to this richness, the study of language is part of many disciplines including linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, law, literary criticism, hermeneutics, cryptanalysis, speech pathology, forensics and digital signal processing. In computer science, a long-standing challenge has been to build intelligent machines. The holy grail of artificial intelligence, enshrined in the "Turing Test", is to construct an automatic dialogue system that is so adept with language that humans cannot tell it apart from another human.
As fields of inquiry, Language and Computation exist on opposing sides of the divide between the Humanities and the Sciences. However, their history and future are closely intertwined. In the early 1900's, a research program to reconstruct mathematical reasoning using logic led to the notion of language as a formal system amenable to automatic processing, and thence to the development of computer languages. Looking to the future, society faces a huge technological challenge of accessing knowledge from the veritable ocean of textual information that inundates our lives.
INDICATIVE CONTENT
This subject offers students across the University with a range of resources for understanding the formal structure and interpretation of language, and how language can be manipulated intelligently by machines. Students will appreciate linguistic structure at two vastly different levels: the isolated sentence, and the terabytes of text on the web. Topics include: fundamental concepts in the structure and interpretation of sentences, the philosophy of language, applications of information theory, and the limits of machine intelligence
Intended learning outcomes
INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES (ILO)
On completion of this subject, students should be able to analyze the structure and content of natural language texts using formal techniques from logic, linguistics and computer science.
Generic skills
On completion of this subject students should:
- Be able to think critically and to organise information in clear and precise ways
- Have improved skills in formal reasoning
- Be proficient in cross-disciplinary techniques
- Have developed experience and skills in working in a group
- Be able to synthesise informaiton and communicate results effectively.
Last updated: 27 April 2024
Eligibility and requirements
Prerequisites
None
Corequisites
None
Non-allowed subjects
None
Recommended background knowledge
12.5 points of level-1 study in logic, mathematics, informatics, linguistics or equivalent discipline that involves abstract formal reasoning.
Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)
The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.
Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home
Last updated: 27 April 2024
Assessment
Additional details
Hurdle Requirement: Students are required to attend a minimum of 75%, requiring approximately 75 - 80 hours of workshops, and to achieve at least 25/50 for both the continuous assessment and the final exam.
Last updated: 27 April 2024
Dates & times
Not available in 2017
Time commitment details
170 hours
Last updated: 27 April 2024
Further information
- Texts
Prescribed texts
Natural Language Processing in Python (S Bird, E Klein, E Loper, 2009.)
- Subject notes
INDICATIVE KEY LEARNING RESOURCES
The key learning resource is the Natural Language Toolkit and associated data and documentation, available from nltk.org. Readings and worksheets will be posted online. Lecture recordings will be available.
CAREERS / INDUSTRY LINKS
This subject is relevant to careers in the sciences and humanities that involve analysis of written language such as investigating the effectiveness of media campaigns as reflected in blog posts, or identifying the required reading age of a document, or translating information needs into database queries. Students will work with substantial quantities of real world data and gain experience working with language as it is used in popular culture.
- Breadth options
This subject is available as breadth in the following courses:
- Available through the Community Access Program
About the Community Access Program (CAP)
This subject is available through the Community Access Program (also called Single Subject Studies) which allows you to enrol in single subjects offered by the University of Melbourne, without the commitment required to complete a whole degree.
Entry requirements including prerequisites may apply. Please refer to the CAP applications page for further information.
Additional information for this subject
Subject coordinator approval required
Last updated: 27 April 2024