PhD studentship in Translation Technology

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Closing date 20th June 2018, Skype interviews 26th June 2018

The Research Group in Computational Linguistics (http://rgcl.wlv.ac.uk) at the University of Wolverhampton invites applications for a 3-year PhD studentship in the area of translation technology. This PhD studentship is part of a larger university investment which includes other PhD students and members of staff with the aim to strengthen the existing research undertaken by members of the group in this area. This funded student bursary consist of a stipend towards living expenses (£14,500 per year) and remission of fees.

We invite applications in the area of translation technology defined in the broadest sense possible and ranging from advanced methods in machine translation to user studies which involves the use of technology in the translation process. We welcome proposals focusing on Natural Language Processing techniques for translation memory systems and translation tools in general. Given the current research interests of the group and its focus on computational approaches, we would be interested in topics including but not limited to:

– Enhancing retrieval and matching from translation memories with linguistic information – The use of deep learning (and in general, statistical) techniques in translation memories – (Machine) translation of user generated content – The use of machine translation in cross-lingual applications (with particular interest in sentiment analysis, automatic summarisation and question answering) – Phraseology and computational treatment of multi-word expressions in machine translation and translation memory systems – Quality estimation for translation professionals

Other topics will also be considered as long as they align with the interests of the group. The appointed student is expected to work on a project that has a significant computational component. For this reason we expect that the successful candidate will have good background in computer science and programming.

The application deadline is 20th June 2018 and Skype interviews with the shortlisted candidates are planned for the 26th June. The starting date of the PhD position is as soon as possible after the offer is made.

The successful applicant must have:

– A good honours degree or equivalent in Computational Linguistics, Computer Science, Translation studies or Linguistics – A strong background in Programming and Statistics/ Mathematics or in closely related areas (if relevant to the proposed topic). – Experience in Computational Linguistics / Natural Language Processing, including statistical, Machine Learning and Deep Learning, applications to Natural Language Processing. – Experience with translation technology – Experience with programming languages such as Python, Java or R is a plus – An IELTS certificate with a score of 6.5 is required from candidates whose native language is not English. If a certificate is not available at the time of application, the successful candidate must be able to obtain it within one month from the offer being made.

Candidates from both UK/EU and non-EU can apply. We encourage applications from female candidates.

Applications must include:

1. A curriculum vitae indicating degrees obtained, courses covered, publications, relevant work experience and names of two referees that could be contacted if necessary

2. A research statement which outlines the topics of interest. More information about the expected structure of the research statement can be found at https://www.wlv.ac.uk/media/departments/star-office/documents/Guidelines-for-completion-of-Research-Statement.doc

Information on RGCL:

Established by Prof Mitkov in 1998, the research group in Computational Linguistics delivers cutting-edge research in a number of NLP areas. The results from the latest Research Evaluation Framework confirm the research group in Computational Linguistics as one of the top performers in UK research with its research defined as ‘internationally leading, internationally excellent and internationally recognised’. The research group has recently completed successfully the coordination of the EXPERT project a successful EC Marie Curie Initial Training Network promoting research, development and use of data-driven technologies in machine translation and translation technology (http://expert-itn.eu).

Contact:

To find out more, please contact:

Dr Constantin Orasan (Reader in Computational Linguistics , Deputy Head of the Research Group in Computational Linguistics)

Research Group in Computational Linguistics Research Institute of Information and Language Processing University of Wolverhampton MC139 Stafford Street Wolverhampton WV1 1LY

Tel. +44 (0) 1902 321630 Email: C.Orasan at wlv.ac.uk Homepage: http://dinel.org.uk

RGCL PhD Students attend Annual Research Conference

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Last week, the RGCL PhD Students presented their research to their peers and staff members from across the University. The posters were well received.

Richard Evans: ‘Sentence Simplification for Language Processing’

My research is about the development and evaluation of automatic methods for the analysis and simplification of sentences. The analysis step is shallow, making it efficient and robust when processing long complex sentences. The simplification method is iterative, allowing it to simplify sentences containing multiple occurrence and multiple types of complexity.

 

Ahmed Omer: ‘Arabic Stylometry’

Computational Stylometry is the computer analysis of writing style. Successful techniques for computational stylometry characterise the texts under study by large numbers of linguistic features, such as the frequencies of word, character, or sentence length. 

 

The degree of stylistic difference between a pair of documents can then be found by any of a number of measures which compare the sets of linguistic features for each document.

 

Omid Rohanian: ‘ NLP Approaches to estimating Text Difficulty’

I am exploring NLP approaches in investigating text difficulty at the level of concepts. I regard conceptual difficulties, as linguistic phenomena that cause some form of complication in language understanding. This complication can manifest itself in elongation of processing, which could be captured in eye tracking data, or in the form of misunderstanding the intended meaning. Conceptual difficulties alter literal meaning, and in order to comprehend them, one might need to do additional processing.

If you are interested in pursuing a PhD with the Research Group in Computational Linguistics, please find further information on our Master and PhD studies page.

Women in Science Research Seminar

Last week the Research Group in Computational Linguistics hosted a Women in Science Research Seminar.  The invited speaker was Dr Corina Forascu (Faculty of Computer Science, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania Fulbrighter @ University of Rochester, NY, USA)

The seminar was attended by colleagues across the University and there was an engaged discussion after Corina’s talk – perhaps the start of fledgling ‘Women in Science Network’ at Wolverhampton?

Abstract: Let’s do IT, ladies!

Nowadays, with the existing disparity between men and women in IT, there are many initiatives aiming to bridge this gap. The speaker will introduce the main groups and activities related to women in IT, Computer Science and related fields. She will present current openings dedicated to them, like conferences or contests. Based on the initiatives and events organized within the Women in Information Technology of Iasi, the speaker will suggest steps that could be taken by a similar group in University of Wolverhampton.

RGCL staff nominations for VC Awards for Staff Excellence

 

RGCL would like to congratulate two members of staff – Dr Sara Moze and Dr Victoria Yaneava who have both been nominated for a VC Awards for Staff Excellence.

This nomination resulted from the University’s recent student surveys in the Innovation in Student Engagement category!  The question asked in the survey was as follows:

 “Could you tell us about an individual or team who has had a positive impact on your learning experience? This could include through creative and stimulating teaching, learning and assessment methods”

We look forward to the shortlist being announced.

RGCL welcomed Dr Lucas Vieira

Last week, Dr Lucas Vieira from the University of Bristol visited RGCL and gave a seminar as part of the MA Computational Linguistics.  Dr Vieira’s talk was well received by the MA students and attended by members of the Research Group.

Title: UK Cognitive effort and translation technologies

Abstract:

Measuring the level of effort required by translation tasks has several applications in academia and industry, including understanding what goes on in translators’ minds and being able to predict effort when planning and managing translation projects. Effort is therefore a frequently researched topic in translation, but measuring cognitive (or mental) effort is not straightforward. This talk will examine the implications of using different data sources to estimate cognitive effort. First, it will present results of a study where a multivariate analysis was used to investigate the relationship between different measures of cognitive effort in post-editing of machine translation, including eye-movement metrics, pauses, and subjective ratings. It will then provide preliminary results of a second study where eye tracking was used to observe trainee translators’ first-ever interaction with computer-assisted translation tools. The talk will show how mouse clicks can be used to complement eye-movement data in translation research and will argue that care should be taken in choosing appropriate measures of effort depending on the study questions and the sample size. Although different measures of cognitive effort are, as expected, often found to be correlated, it was observed that these measures can be clustered together in different groups, which has implications for research and for how the concept of cognitive effort is formulated and understood.