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• SLP148

Semester 2, 2009

Faculty: Human Sciences (Linguistics) and Science (Computing)

General Information

Credit points: 3
Convenor: Dr. Rosalind Thornton
Prerequisites: None

Students should read this unit guide carefully at the start of semester. It contains important information about the unit. If anything in it is unclear, please consult one of the teaching staff in the unit.

About This Unit

The goal of the course is to introduce students to the study of language from the differing perspectives of computer scientists and linguists. The course will explore how these fields interact by focusing on how computers and human minds treat words as units of language. The course begins with a seemingly simple question: How do we define a word? Does the definition refer to units of meaning, or to units of sound, or 'shape' (e.g. the spaces on each side), or all of these? On the computational side, we will explore how computers identify words and the sentences they make up. How does a computer count the words in your essay, and how does the spellchecker work? How does a computer deal with searching texts for particular words or phrases? Is a document just a 'bag' of words? What principles underlie web search engines like Google? On the linguistics side, we'll question whether human minds work in the same way as computers by studying word formation processes, and how words combine to form larger units of language. We'll look at the different types of language vocabularies, or lexicons, and their particular organizational principles: computer-based and mental-based lexicons, print and electronic dictionaries, glossaries and terminologies. We emphasize the contribution of linguistic studies in the development of language technologies. The course does not assume any prior knowledge of either linguistics or computing, and it has no prerequisites. Assessment is by means of assignments, in-class tests and an exam.

Teaching Staff

Role	Name	Email	Room	Office hours
Convener, Lecturer	R. Thornton	Rosalind.Thornton@ling.mq.edu.au	TBA	TBA
Lecturer	C. Oliveira	claudia.oliveira@ling.mq.edu.au	C5A548	Forum participation Wed and Fri. Face to face meetings on demand.
Lecturer	R. Schwitter	rolfs@ics.mq.edu.au	E6A333	Face to face meetings on demand.

All emails related to SLP148 should be sent to slp148-admin@ics.mq.edu.au and must include your full name and your student id number.

Teaching and Learning

Classes

Each week you should attend 2 hours of lectures, a one hour tutorial and a one hour practical. For details of days, times and rooms consult the timetables webpage.

Note that tutorials and practicals commence in week 1.

You should have selected a tutorial and a practical session at enrolment. You should attend the tutorial and practical session you are enrolled in. If you do not have a class, or if you wish to change one, you should see the enrolment operators in the E7B courtyard during the first two weeks of the semester. Thereafter you should go to the Student Centre.

To be eligible for special consideration you must show a genuine interest in the unit by participating in its activities.

Resources to assist your learning

Textbook

There is no set textbook for the linguistics portion of the unit; readings will be assigned throughout the semester, in conjunction with lecture notes. Copyright free materials will be published in Moodle; other readings will be made available on e-reserve.

The computational portion of the unit will use the following online text:

• Bird, S., Klein, E., and Loper, E. (2009). Natural Language Processing with Python - Analyzing Text with the Natural Language Toolkit, O'Reilly Media.

Websites

The web page for this unit can be found at http://www.comp.mq.edu.au/units/slp148/index.html. While most of the unit's reference materials are publicly available, the student will need to log into Moodle to access lecture notes, tutorial questions, discussion forums and weekly assessment tasks.

Discussion Boards

The unit will make use of discussion boards hosted within Moodle. Please post questions there, they will be monitored by the staff on the unit.

Staff-Student Liaison Committee

The Department has established a Staff-Student Liaison Committee at each level (100, 200, 300) to provide all students studying a Computing unit the opportunity to discuss related issues or problems with both students and staff.

The committee meets three times during the semester. For each meeting, an agenda is issued and minutes are taken. These are posted on the web at http://www.comp.mq.edu.au/units/100-liaison

If you have exhausted all other avenues, then you should consult the Director of Teaching (Dr. Christophe Doche) or the Head of Department (Assoc. Prof. Bernard Mans). You are entitled to have your concerns raised, discussed and resolved.

Student Support Services

Macquarie University provides a range of Academic Student Support Services. Details of these services can accessed at http://www.student.mq.edu.au.

Assumed knowledge

There are no prerequisites to this unit.

Topic List

In the following table, the prefix L indicates a Linguistics topic and C a Computing topic:

Week	Lecture 1	Lecture 2	Tutorial	Practical
1	L: A Linguistic Perspective	C: A Computational Perspective	L	C
2	L: Corpus Linguistics	C: Counting and Word Frequency	L	C
3	L: Defining Words	C: Working with a Corpus	L	C
4	L: Morphology	C: Tokenization and Regular Expressions	L	C
5	L: Word Classes	C: Stemming and Segmentation	L	C
6	L: Syntax I	C: WordNet and Computing Assignment	L	C
7	L: Syntax II	Mid-semester Test	L	C
Recess
8	Public Holiday	C: Morphological Analysis	L	C
9	L: Words and Meaning	C: Tagging	L	C
10	L: Lexicons	C: Sentence Structures	L	C
11	L: Corpus Lexicography	C: Feature-based Grammars	L	C
12	L: Web as a Corpus	C: Meaning of Sentences	L	C
13	L: Exam	C: Exam

Teaching and Learning Strategy

SLP148 is taught via lectures, tutorials and practical sessions in the laboratory. Lectures are used to introduce new material, give examples of the use of programming methods and techniques and put them in a wider context. While lectures are largely one to many presentations, you are encouraged to ask questions to the lecturer to clarify anything you might not be sure of. Tutorials are small group classes which give you the opportunity to interact with your peers and with a tutor who has a sound knowledge of the subject. You will be given problems to solve each week prior to the tutorial; preparing solutions is important because it will allow you to discuss the problems effectively with your tutor and maximise the feedback you get on your work. Practical classes give you an opportunity to practice your programming skills under the supervision of a practical demonstrator. Each week you will be given a number of tasks in the practical to work on; it is important that you keep up with these tasks as doing so will help you understand the material in the unit and prepare you for the work in assignments.

Each week you should:

• Attend lectures, take notes, ask questions.
• Attend your tutorial, seek feedback from your tutor on your work.
• Attend the practical session, do as many of the practical tasks as you can and seek feedback from the practical demonstrator on your work.
• Read the assigned readings, add to your notes and prepare questions for your lecturer or tutor.
• Prepare answers to the following week's tutorial questions.
• Work on any assignments that have been released.

Lecture notes will be made available each week but these notes are intended as an outline of the lecture only and are not a substitute for your own notes or the assigned readings.

Learning outcomes

It is expected that on completion of this unit/topic, students will

1. be able to interpret formal descriptions of human languages, with special emphasis on words and their make-up;
2. be able to identify the contribution of linguistics-based descriptions and methods in the development of language technologies, and to produce language descriptions for simple appplications;
3. be able to distinguish between different methodological approaches to language studies and explain their suitability to different language processing problems;
4. be able to understand the issues involved in the automated processing of natural language documents;
5. have a working knowledge of Python and be able to implement a simple text processing application in Python.

These learning outcomes (L.O. for short) will be assessed against the following criteria:

• The weekly assessed tasks will assess the student's engagement with the unit's material on a weekly basis (L.O. 1 to 4). There will be 10 assessed tasks, one each week, except weeks 7, 8 and 13.
• The tutorial activities will assess the student's presentation and communication skills on a weekly basis (L.O. 1 to 4).
• The mid-class test will assess the student's understanding of the issues involved in the automated processing of natural language documents (L.O. 3-5).
• The final exam will assess the student's attainment of the basic knowledge and skills involved in study and description of natural languages, with emphasis in applications to language technology (L.O. 1 to 4).
• The assignment in Computing will assess the programming skills and the implementation of a practical system (L.O. 5).
• The assignment in Linguistics will assess the student's ability to conduct the analysis and synthesis of a recent research topic involving the linguistic issues discussed in the context of this unit (L.O. 1 to 3).

Graduate Capabilities

All academic programs at Macquarie University seek to develop a range of graduate capabilities. One of the aims of this unit is that students develop their skills in the following:

• Foundation skills of literacy, numeracy and information technology;
• Self-awareness and interpersonal skills;
• Communication skills;
• Critical analysis skills;
• Problem-solving skills;
• Creative thinking skills.

Assessment

The new assessment policy of Macquarie University implies the use of standards based assessment. In this context, the learning outcomes are aligned with the assessment tasks and the performance of each student is evaluated against a set of predefined criteria and standards.

Assessment tasks

The following tables summarizes the different aspects of the assessment in this unit. In particular, it links each task to the learning outcomes of the unit.

Task	Due Date	Workload	Feedback	Learning outcomes assessed	Weight
Weekly Assessed Tasks	Each week, except weeks 7, 8 and 13 (10 weeks)	30 min per week	within 2 weeks of submission's deadline	L.O. 1-3	10 marks
Tutorial Activities	Each week	50 min	in the tutorial	L.O. 1-4	8 marks
Mid-term Class Test	Week 7	45 min	after the break	L.O. 3-5	10 marks
Assignment in Computing	Week 8	10 hours	within 2 weeks of submission's deadline	L.O. 5	20 marks
Assignment in Linguistics	Week 12	6 hours	within 3 weeks of submission's deadline	L.O. 1 to 3	12 marks
Exam	Week 13	2 x 45 min		L.O. 1 to 5	40 marks

Note that up to 8 marks will be given for tutorial participation: to obtain these marks, the student needs to be present and work actively in at least 8 tutorial sessions.

All assignment tasks should be submitted via the online Moodle system at https://moodle.comp.mq.edu.au by the time specified in the assignment description. All work submitted should be readable and well presented.

Late work will be accepted with a penalty of 20% of the marks for the assignment per day submitted late. Hence, an assignment submitted five days late will not get any marks. If you cannot submit on time because of illness or other circumstances, please contact the lecturer before the due date.

Final Examination

The final exam will take place during the lectures of week 13.

Regarding the examination process, note that

• you must attend all required classes and submit all required assessment, otherwise the Executive Dean of the Faculty or delegated authority has the power to refuse permission to attend the final examination
• the University Examination period in for Second Half Year 2009 is from Wednesday 18th November to Friday 4th December 2009
• you are expected to present yourself for examination at the time and place designated in the University Examination Timetable
• the timetable will be available in Draft form approximately eight weeks before the commencement of the examinations and in Final form approximately four weeks before the commencement of examinations
• no early examinations for individuals or groups of students will be set. All students are expected to ensure that they are available until the end of the teaching semester, that is the final day of the official examination period
• the only exception to not sitting an examination at the designated time is because of documented illness or unavoidable disruption. In these circumstances you may wish to consider applying for Special Consideration.

Standards

Four standards, namely Developing, Functional, Proficient, and Advanced, summarize as many different levels of achievement. Each standard is precisely defined to help students know what kind of performance is expected to deserve a certain grade. Typically, Developing corresponds to F and PC, Functional is for P, Proficient for Cr, and Advanced covers D and HD. The standards corresponding to the learning outcomes and criteria of this unit are given below:

	Standards
Criteria for L.O. 1 to 3	Developing	Functional	Proficient	Advanced
Knowledge and understanding	The work produced fails to demonstrate a satisfactory grasp of the linguistics concepts covered in the unit, or how these concepts articulate with the field of language processing.	The work produced demonstrates a basic understanding of the majority of the linguistic concepts but does not show recognition of the inter-relationships between language and computation.	The work produced demonstrates a sound understanding of the majority of the linguistic concepts but does not show comprehensive understanding of the inter-relationships between language and computation.	The work produced reflects the ability to compare and contrast different linguistic perspectives and frameworks in order to produce original propositions and displays excellent understanding of the inter-relationships between language and computation.
Application	The solutions provided to practical problems convey little evidence of the capacity to recognise when or how to apply different linguistic concepts in effectively analyzing, or solving problems. Few connections are appropriately drawn between relevant concepts and the problems or circumstances to which they are to be applied.	The solutions provided to practical problems demonstrate a limited capacity to critically reflect on, to analyse, or to solve problems. There is evidence of a modest capacity to apply linguistics concepts to the analysis or solution of a particular problem.	The solutions provided to practical problems demonstrate a sound capacity to critically reflect on, to analyse, and to solve problems. There is evidence of the ability to use linguistic concepts to identify, list, classify, enumerate and interpret in a meaningful way.	Practical problems were solved in an insightful, comprehensive, and satisfactory way, demonstrating a good capacity to critically reflect on, to analyse, or to solve problems.
Presentation	Assessed tasks, assignments, or exam paper demonstrate little understanding or appreciation of standards required for academic writing. Improvements in terms of clarity, grammar, spelling, quotations, or referencing are required to achieve an acceptable standard.	Assessed tasks, assignments, and exam paper showed sufficient coherence and clarity for the reader to understand the ideas and arguments being proposed. Improvements to writing such as structure, grammar and referencing are required to meet academic writing standards.	Assessed tasks, assignments, or exam paper were written in a satisfactory manner and the writing is clear, citations used appropriately, grammatically correct and fairly accurate in terms of spelling.	Assessed tasks, assignments, and exam paper have been written to a high academic standard, writing is clear and insightful, citations are highly relevant and actual, grammar is precise.
Criteria for L.O. 4
Knowledge and understanding	Very limited understanding of concepts required for natural language processing.	Can reproduce required facts and definitions but has a limited understand of basic concepts.	Has adequate breadth and depth of understanding the basic concepts.	Shows advanced depth of understanding of relevant concepts for natural language processing.
Technological Literacy	Is uncomfortable in using new algorithms and software modules for text processing.	Is able to use new algorithms and software modules but shows limited capacity to recognise their benefits.	Confident and independent user of new algorithms and software modules for text processing.	A sophisticated adaptor of new algorithms who uses software modules in an innovative way for text processing.
Criteria for L.O. 5
Programming Skills	Shows only limited ability to write error-free Python code.	Writes Python code that is readable only by someone who knows what the code is supposed to be doing.	Writes Python code that works and produces the correct results.	Writes elegant Python code that meets all of the specification.
Documentation	The documentation of the code is cryptic and does not help the reader understand the code.	The documentation of the code is simple commments that directly reflects what the code is doing.	The documentation of the code consists of embedded comments and header comments and is useful in understanding the code.	The documentation of the code is well written and clearly explains what the code is doing.

Grading

For each task, those standards translate into a mark and the different component marks are added up. You will then be given a grade that reflects your achievement in the unit. The following description of the different grades is still in draft form and therefore not official as yet

• Fail (F): does not provide evidence of attainment of all learning outcomes. There is missing or partial or superficial or faulty understanding and application of the fundamental concepts in the field of study; and incomplete, confusing or lacking communication of ideas in ways that give little attention to the conventions of the discipline.
• Conceded Pass (PC): provides limited evidence of attainment of learning outcomes. There is demonstration of varying levels of basic knowledge, skills and application in the field of study; and elementary communication in ways that attempt to address the conventions of the discipline. However, the learning attainment does not provide a basis for further progression in a unit for which that unit is a prerequisite.
• Pass (P): provides sufficient evidence of the achievement of learning outcomes. There is demonstration of understanding and application of fundamental concepts of the field of study; and communication of information and ideas adequately in terms of the conventions of the discipline. The learning attainment is considered satisfactory or adequate or competent or capable in relation to the specified outcomes.
• Credit (Cr): provides evidence of learning that goes beyond replication of content knowledge or skills relevant to the learning outcomes. There is demonstration of substantial understanding of fundamental concepts in the field of study and the ability to apply these concepts in a variety of contexts; plus communication of ideas fluently and clearly in terms of the conventions of the discipline.
• Distinction (D): provides evidence of integration and evaluation of critical ideas, principles and theories, distinctive insight and ability in applying relevant skills and concepts in relation to learning outcomes. There is demonstration of frequent originality in defining and analysing issues or problems and providing solutions; and the use of means of communication appropriate to the discipline and the audience.
• High Distinction (HD): provides consistent evidence of deep and critical understanding in relation to the learning outcomes. There is substantial originality and insight in identifying, generating and communicating competing arguments, perspectives or problem solving approaches; critical evaluation of problems, their solutions and their implications; creativity in application.

Your final grade will depend on your performance in each part of the assessed task separately. In particular, to pass this unit you must meet all the following requirements:

• You must obtain at least 3 marks in the weekly assessed tasks (each week is worth 1 mark); and
• You must get at least 25% of the maximum marks of both the assignment in Computing and the assignment in Linguistics;
• Your combined mark for all assessment tasks must be at least 50% of the maximum mark to pass this unit.

Policies

Macquarie is developing a number of policies in the area of learning and teaching. Approved policies and associated guidelines and procedures can be found at Policy Central. There you will find the University's policy and associated procedures on:

• Assessment
• Special Consideration
• Plagiarism
• Grade Appeal

Assessment

The procedure implementing the new assessment policy can be found here.

Special Consideration

Special Consideration is intended for a student who is prevented by serious and unavoidable disruption from completing any unit requirements in accordance with their ability.
In this case, you should follow the procedure implementing the policy available here.

The actual application form is available here.

If a Supplementary Examination is granted as a result of the Special Consideration process the examination will be scheduled after the conclusion of the official examination period. For details of the Special Consideration policy specific to the Department of Computing, see the Department's policy page.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism involves using the work of another person and presenting it as one's own. The Department, in line with University policy, treats all cases seriously. In particular, the Department, and the University, keeps a record of all plagiarism cases. This record is referred to so that an appropriate penalty can be applied to each case.
More details are available here.

Grade Appeal

In case of problems arising from the final unit grade with the academic staff members, the first step is to request a review of your grade. The Department recommends that you submit a request in writing to the convenor of the unit in order to arrange a review session. If this review does not resolve the problem, a formal Grade Appeal can be lodged.
A draft version of the policy explaining the process can be found here.