230104 Introduction to Linguistic Programming for English Studies (Do 16-18)

Class notes

Goals: The basic concepts of programming will be introduced in the context of three practical tasks which are closely related to modern practice in the language professions. At the end of the course, participants will be able to perform the following three tasks:

1. Represent and automatically re-format texts in `computer-readable' notation (including construction of typical interactive World Wide Web pages);
2. Construct interactive computer dictionaries for use on the Internet;
3. Design an automatic grammar checker for simple English sentences.

Addressees: Students of English in the Grundstudium, primarily M.A. students, but also Lehramt. It is particularly suited to students who are interested in using modern Internet technology in their future careers.

Students should be familiar with basic tasks involving PCs, including use of a standard Word Processor; further knowledge is not presupposed.

Methods: Introductory lectures and exercises will be given, and all students are expected to prepare practical material for the classes, test their results outside class and present results in class. In general, students will work together in teams of two or three.

Selected reading: It will be helpful to acquire some basic knowledge about the Internet and the HTML formatting language by doing some Web surfing, and about computational linguistics by looking at the initial chapters of:

Gazdar, G. & C. Mellish (1989). Natural Language Programming in Prolog.. Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley.

Check my web pages:

http://coral.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/Classes/Winter98/

including reference materials from previous classes.