Technology and linguistics
Language technology[edit | edit source]
Language technology or Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield of linguistics that studies and develops computational understanding and processing of human language. Applications include for example machine translation, speech synthesis, search engines, and even neural networks developed for recognizing handwriting.[1] Computational models and mathematical processing can also be used in studying large corpora and for example semantic meanings and relations.
Analyzing, storing, and sharing data[edit | edit source]
Technology is increasingly present in every part of academic work. Not counting tools developed specifically for linguistics, applications like Microsoft Excel are utilized in research across disciplines, and linguistics can be used in order to develop the technology further. For example autocorrection requires linguistic processing.
To a large extent, storing and sharing (see: publishing) data also happens via computers, databases and the internet. To a degree, technologies like Zoom allow linguistic work to be done even from a distance.
Ethical considerations[edit | edit source]
One of the main considerations with linguistics-related technology is the availability. Interfaces and autocorrect features among others are only programmed for a certain number of languages, limiting their availability. Dependence on third party tools can also be seen as not sustainable, since the researchers are not in control of them.
