The 2001 program is focussed on establishing the groundwork for local inter-disciplinary interaction. The seminars will, for the most part, by led by local academics from different disciplines. Each seminar will explore potential areas of cross-disciplinary interaction with that particular discipline's approach to the study of human language or approach to a particular topic.
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| Introduction: Talking the same language
| John Henderson
Linguistics
| 12:15pm Fri April 6
Social Sciences Rm G207
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The New Whorfian Framework
as a
Structure for Thinking about Inter-
disciplinary Co-operation in the Language Sciences
[abstract]
| Penny Lee
Graduate School of Education
| 1pm Fri May 18
IAS conference room
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Semantics and Pragmatics: Current Developments and Interdisciplinary Research
[abstract]
| Marie-Eve Ritz
Graduate School of Education
| 12:30pm Fri June 1
IAS conference room
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Language-Readiness and The Evolving Mirror System
[abstract] [powerpoint presentation (850k)]
| Michael Arbib
Computer Science, UWA &
USC Brain Project
| 1pm Fri June 29
Social Sciences Rm G202
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| Guest presentation:
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| Evolution and Language
| Prof. Robin Dunbar
University of Liverpool
| 1pm Wed August 1
IAS conference room
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Spoken Language Systems Research and Technology
[abstract][powerpoint presentation (100k)]
| Roberto Togneri
Electrical Engineering
| 12:30pm Wed Oct 24
Linguistics Lab
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Abstracts
| The New Whorfian Framework as a Structure for Thinking about Interdisciplinary Co-operation in the Language Sciences
| | | Penny Lee
Graduate School of Education
| | | Following the opening session for this series on
interdisciplinary cooperation between the various branches of the
language sciences, this seminar will consider the relevance to the
issues we face of Whorf's ideas about relationships between language,
mind, and experience. The name of Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941) is
usually associated with the notion of a 'linguistic relativity
principle', the idea that the languages we know play a significant role
in the way our thinking is organized and focused. What is less well
known is that his thinking about linguistic relativity is just one
strand of a complex interweaving of ideas, some explicitly articulated
and some more embryonic, which together constitute his intellectual
legacy. Although essentially interdependent, the various strands of
this 'theory complex' may be extracted for closer scrutiny (Lee 1996,
2000) and also used to create a framework (e.g. Lee 1997) for thinking
systematically about linguistic issues and concerns in particular
domains of human life. The seminar will introduce the framework,
briefly explaining the nature of each strand and suggesting directions
for interdisciplinary investigation in various areas of application.
- Lee, Penny. 1996 The Whorf Theory Complex: A critical reconstruction.
Studies in the History of the Language Sciences. John Benjamins: Amsterdam
& Philadelphia.
- _____ 1997 Language in Thinking and Learning: Pedagogy and the new
Whorfian framework. Harvard Educational Review, 67, 430-471.
- _____ 2000 When is Linguistic Relativity Whorf's Linguistic
Relativity? In P?tz, Martin and Marjolijn Verspoor (eds) Explorations in
Linguistic Relativity. John Benjamins: Amsterdam & Philadelphia. 45-68.
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| Semantics and Pragmatics: Current Developments and Interdisciplinary Research
| | | Marie-Eve Ritz
Graduate School of Education
| | | | In this seminar, I will present some current
developments in the areas of semantics and pragmatics and discuss how
interdisciplinary research, mainly between semantics/pragmatics and
logic, computer science/automatic translation and psychology has given
the impetus for new directions and provided fertile ground for the
generation of new ideas. Semantics arose out of several disciplines
itself, namely philosophy, logic and linguistics, so it is not
surprising to find that interdisciplinary connections are still strong
and have expanded in recent years.
The talk will start with a discussion of methodological issues before
addressing interdisciplinary connections, and I will use examples from
my own research on tense and aspect to illustrate the various points
covered.
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| Language-Readiness and The Evolving Mirror System
| | | Michael Arbib
Computer Science, UWA &
Brain Project, University of Southern California
| | | | I distinguish "language-readiness" from "language", claiming that
biological evolution yielded a language-ready brain, whereas cultural
evolution erected the diversity of human languages upon this neural
foundation. I will briefly introduce the Mirror System Hypothesis of
Rizzolatti and Arbib, namely that human Broca's area (the frontal speech
area) contains a mirror system for grasping which is homologous to the F5
mirror system of monkey, and that this provides the evolutionary basis for
language parity, the approximate congruence between the meaning of an
utterance for speaker and hearer. The hypothesis is refined by the analysis
of the role of imitation in the evolution of language readiness. The
resulting theory explains why Broca's area in humans is not homologous to
the frontal vocalization area of monkeys, and also explains why deaf
children acquire sign language as readily as hearing children acquire speech.
Click here for the powerpoint presentation for this talk (850k). Comments are solicited: arbib@pollux.usc.edu
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| Basic Principles and some Advanced Ideas in Spoken Language Systems Research and Technology
| | | Roberto Togneri
E&E Engineering, UWA
| | | | Spoken Language Systems (SLS) technology empowers humans to interact with
modern information technology, from personal computers to ATMs, from
telephones to televisions, in the same way humans interact with each
other: by speech. Spoken Language Systems research brings together a
diverse range of disciplines including engineering signal processing and
modelling, computer science artificial intelligence and computational
linguistics, and our understanding of human speech production, audition
and cognition from of phonetics, physiology, linguistics and psychology.
This presentation will present a brief outline of automatic speech
recognition (ASR) systems. ASR involves three main stages for successful
implementation. The first stage is the robust extraction of features from
the audio signal, using signal processing analysis and knowledge of human
audition, phonetics, and perception. The second stage is acoustic
modelling, using advanced statistical signal processing and adaptive
systems theory, to allow recognition of speech in the presence of
environmental changes, speaker changes, and speech co-articulation and
spontaneity effects. The third stage is language modelling and
understanding, using computational linguistics and artificial
intelligence, to constrain the recognition by grammatical and linguistic
considerations and extract the meaning, initiate the action and produce
the required response.
Although state-of-the-art speech recognition systems are now on the market
and impressive recognition rates of 98% and above are possible, most of
these systems can only operate successfully under limited conditions. The
need for improved robustness to environment changes, advanced acoustic
modelling to cope with spontaneity, and more sophisticated language
process is apparent. This presentation will introduce the Hidden Dynamic
Model (HDM), one of the advanced acoustic models currently being
investigated in our research group. The basic tenets of the model, its
strengths and its weaknesses, will be outlined with the main emphasis on
the acoustic phonetic and speech production fundamentals of the paradigm
(rather than the mathematics!). |
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