*** Apologies for multiple postings ***
LRE Journal Special Issue: “Under-resourced
Languages, Collaborative Approaches and Linked Open Data: Resources, Methods
and Applications”
Second Call for Papers
(apologies for multiple postings)
SUBMISSION DATE: November 30, 2014
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Under-resourced languages are generally described as languages that suffer from
a chronic lack of available resources, from human, financial, and time
resources to linguistic ones (language data and language technology), and often
also experience the fragmentation of efforts in resource development. This
situation is exacerbated by the realization that as technology progresses and
the demand for localised languages services over digital devices increases, the
divide between adequately- and under-resourced languages keeps widening. Given
that most of the world’s almost 7000 languages are not adequately resourced,
much work needs to be done in order to support their existence in the digital
age.
Although the destiny of a language is primarily determined by its native
speakers and broader cultural context, the technological development of an
under-resourced language offers such a language a strategic opportunity to have
the same “digital dignity”, “digital identity” and “digital longevity” as
large, well-developed languages on the Web.
The Linked (Open) Data framework and the emerging Linguistic Linked (Open) Data
infrastructure offer novel opportunities for under-resourced languages. On the
one hand, Linked Data offers ways of exposing existing high quality, albeit
small, language resources in the Semantic Web and, on the other hand, allows
for the development of new state-of-the-art resources without necessarily
having to rely on the availability of sophisticated language processing
support.
This special issue arises from the imperative to maintain cultural and language
diversity and from the basic right of all communities, languages, and cultures
to be “first class citizens” in an age driven by information, knowledge and
understanding. In this spirit, this special issue focuses on three strategic
approaches to augment the development of resources for under-resourced
languages to achieve a level potentially comparable to well-resourced,
technologically advanced languages, viz. a) using the crowd and collaborative
platforms; b) using technologies of interoperability with well-developed
languages; and c) using Semantic Web technologies and, more specifically,
Linked Data.
We invite original contributions, not published before and not under
consideration for publication elsewhere, that address one or more of the
following questions by means of one or more of the three approaches mentioned
above:
• How can collaborative approaches and technologies be fruitfully applied to
the accelerated development and sharing of high quality resources for
under-resourced languages?
• How can such resources be best stored, exposed and accessed by end users and
applications?
• How can small language resources be re-used efficiently and effectively,
reach larger audiences and be integrated into applications?
• How can multilingual and cross-lingual interoperability of language
resources, methods and applications be supported, also between languages that
belong to different language families?
• How can existing language resource infrastructures be scaled to thousands of
languages?
• How can research on and resource development for under-resourced languages
benefit from current advances in semantic and semantic web technologies, and
specifically the Linked Data framework?
SUBMISSION DETAILS
Please submit your articles at http://www.editorialmanager.com/lrev/default.asp
Make sure to select “S.I. : Under-resourced languages” when asked to provide
the article type.
For this special issue we only accept full papers that are typically 18-25
pages in length.
Detailed format instructions are available here: http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/linguistics/journal/10579?detailsPage=pltci_1060319
GUEST EDITORS
Laurette Pretorius - University of South Africa, South Africa (pretol AT unisa
DOT ac DOT ac)
Claudia Soria - CNR-ILC, Italy (claudia.soria AT ilc DOT cnr DOT it)
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Sabine Bartsch, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
Delphine Bernhard, LILPA, Strasbourg University, France
Peter Bouda, CIDLeS - Interdisciplinary Centre for Social and Language
Documentation, Portugal
Paul Buitelaar, DERI, Ireland
Steve Cassidy, Macquarie University, Australia
Christian Chiarcos, Frankfurt University, Germany
Philipp Cimiano, Bielefeld University, Germany
Thierry Declerck, DFKI GmbH, Language Technology Lab, Germany
Mikel Forcada, University of Alicante, Spain
Dafydd Gibbon, Bielefeld University, Germany
Yoshihiko Hayashi, Graduate School of Language and Culture, Osaka University,
Japan
Sebastian Hellmann, Leipzig University, Germany
Simon Krek, Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia
Tobias Kuhn, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
Joseph Mariani, LIMSI-CNRS & IMMI, France
John McCrae, Bielefeld University, Germany
Steven Moran, Universität Zürich, Switzerland
Kellen Parker, National Tsing Hua University, China
Patrick Paroubek, LIMSI-CNRS, France
Taher Pilehvar, “La Sapienza” Rome University, Italy
Maria Pilar Perea i Sabater, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
Laurette Pretorius, University of South Africa, South Africa
Leonel Ruiz Miyares, Centro de Linguistica Aplicada (CLA), Cuba
Kevin Scannell, St. Louis University, USA
Ulrich Schäfer, Technical University of Applied Sciences Amberg-Weiden,
Bavaria, Germany
Claudia Soria, CNR-ILC, Italy
Nick Thieberger, University of Melbourne, Australia
Eveline Wandl-Vogt, Austrian Academy of Sciences, ICLTT, Austria
Michael Zock, LIF-CNRS, France