LING052
Freshman Seminar: Big Data in Linguistics

Spring 2014

Instructor: Mark Liberman

Time:	MW 3:00-4:30
Place:	Fishbowl Seminar Room, Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, 3401 Walnut St., Suite 400A
Course description:	Big, fast, cheap, computers; ubiquitous digital networks and data streams; huge and growing digital archives; good and improving algorithms for automatic analysis of text and speech: All of this creates a cornucopia of research opportunities for practical applications from politics to marketing and finance, and for fundamental research in areas from medicine and literary analysis to linguistics.  This course will survey the history and prospects of "Big Data" research involving speech, text, and communication, through a combination of readings and class projects. Programming ability is not required, though interested participants will have an opportunity to apply any computational skills that they have or wish to develop. See the overview for the general plan of the course; and the schedule for details and links to lecture notes, outside readings and other assignments.