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In this talk I examine the role of humanities research where nearly every aspect of human experience is turned into data and analysed, in many cases to model, predict and modify behaviour. As a result and through advances in computing technology, artificial intelligence systems have colonised traditional areas of humanities research, including linguistics and language studies. Today, large multimodal models (LMM) can process text, images, videos and sound, potentially leading to the development of algorithmic approaches to modelling society and culture. In this talk, I explore how humanities researchers can leverage the benefits and mitigate the risks of these latest technological developments and prepare scholars for the challenges which lie ahead. I provide some examples from the Digital Media and Society Institute (DMSI) at the University of Liverpool where communication and media researchers are working with data scientists to investigate how multimodal information is re-contextualised across online media platforms. This includes new methods for studying information distortions (e.g. misinformation, disinformation and memes) and public reactions to key events.
Event date: 31/03/2025
Speaker: Professor Kay O’HALLORAN (University of Liverpool)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
- Keywords:
- Artificial intelligence Research Humanities -- Research
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
People are now regularly interacting with voice assistants (VAs), which are conversational agents that allow users to use spoken language to interface with a machine to complete tasks. The huge adoption and daily use of VAs by millions of people - and its increasing use for financial, healthcare, and educational applications - raises important questions about the linguistic and social factors that affect spoken language interactions with machines.
We are exploring issues of linguistic and social biases that impact speech communication in human-computer interaction - particularly during cross-language transfer, learning, or adaptation of some kind. In this talk, I will present two case studies illustrating some of our most recent work in this area. The first study looks at a case of cross-language ASR transfer. We find systematic linguistic and phonetic disparities in language transfer by machines trained on a source language to speech recognition of a novel target, low-resource language. The second study looks at a case of social bias in word learning by humans using voice-enabled apps. We find the word learning is inhibited when there are mismatching social cues presented by the voice and the linguistic information.
Together, along with highlights from other ongoing work in my lab, the aim of this talk is to underscore that human-computer linguistic communication is a rich testing ground for investigating issues in speech and language variation. Examining linguistic variation during HCI can enrich and elaborate linguistic theory, as well as present opportunities for linguists to provide insights for improving both the function and fairness of these technologies.
Event date: 25/03/2025
Speaker: Professor. Georgia ZELLOU (University of California, Davis)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
- Subjects:
- Communication and Language and Languages
- Keywords:
- Linguistics English language -- Variation Speech processing systems English language -- Spoken English Human-computer interaction
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
In this talk, I will present the results of several studies examining qualitative and quantitative empirical research articles from applied linguistics. The studies use both corpus-based analyses and rhetorical genre analysis to describe similarities and differences across the two paradigms. Each of the studies draws on a corpus of published studies from journals that regularly publish both quantitative and qualitative articles on the topic of language learning and teaching.
I first describe the compilation of the corpus, which currently includes 863 studies from 2013 to 2023, and explain some of the challenges involved in using copyrighted materials in a time of calls for open science. Next, I explain the rationale for comparing qualitative and quantitative research in a subfield of applied linguistics. Specifically, I talk about the challenges of a field in which there appears to be a widening divide in the nature of research in the two paradigms along with unsubstantiated claims in research manuals characterizing the two paradigms.
The bulk of the talk will focus on my and my collaborators’ research agenda using our created corpus. Two of the studies focus on the role of theory in the empirical studies. The first study used a corpus-based analysis of the frequency and collocations of the lemma theor- while the second used rhetorical move analysis to show how theory was used in structuring literature reviews. Both studies revealed differences in the role of theory in the two paradigms that show how language choice and rhetorical moves reflect their epistemologies. The third study focused on citation use and revealed some differences, but more similarities. Finally, we have two studies in progress examining article structure and lexical bundles. Taken together, both studies show that quantitative research is more structured and predictable. I end by suggesting possible extensions of our research using qualitative methods.
The final part of this talk will explain the relevance of this research to both teaching academic writing and to the field of applied linguistics. With regard to teaching writing, I will give specific examples of how the various analyses used in the five studies can be transferred to heterogeneous writing classes to help students explore conventions in their own fields. Second, I explain how the studies suggest a widening gap between the two paradigms and how this gap presents problems for graduate programs, journals, and professional organizations, all of which, I argue, need to be more sensitive to acknowledging research in both paradigms.
Event date: 12/03/2025
Speaker: Professor Charlene POLIO (Michigan State University)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
- Subjects:
- English Language
- Keywords:
- Applied linguistics -- Research Corpora (Linguistics) Academic writing
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
This presentation examines the urgent need to decolonize English Medium Instruction (EMI) in higher education by challenging the dominance of native English norms, addressing linguistic imperialism, and critically assessing the pervasive influence of imported Western curricula. Often, these resources reinforce colonial power dynamics by prioritizing Western perspectives and marginalizing local knowledge systems. Through Global Englishes frameworks, I will explore strategies for inclusive EMI practices that integrate diverse linguistic and cultural perspectives. Such strategies aim to foster curricula that respect local identities and empower students and educators in non-Anglophone contexts. Drawing on data from the Southeast Asian context, I will explore ways to foster an equitable, decolonized approach to internationalization in higher education that aligns with broader goals of internationalisation and linguistic justice.
Event date: 29/11/2024
Speaker: Dr. Nicola GALLOWAY (University of Glasgow)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
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Video
The idea of translanguaging has disrupted much of the thinking about language, communication and learning and raised some fundamental questions about human language and human cognition. One of these questions concerns an assumption that seems to underlie a great deal of the work on intercultural communication, and that is, speakers of different named languages not only use language differently, but also think differently and have different worldviews. In this talk, I want to invite the participants to rethink about this issue, from the perspective of Translanguaging, which posits that bilinguals and multilinguals do not think unilingually and thinking goes beyond named languages and indeed beyond what has traditionally been conceived as linguistic versus non-linguistic processes. I offer my views on the existing work in intercultural communication and cross-linguistic studies of cognitive processing and Linguistic Relativity. Implications of this common-humanity-based conceptual stance for intercultural communication including business and workplace lingua franca communication, as well as for language learning and pedagogy, and research design are discussed.
Event date: 18/07/2024
Speaker: Prof. Wei LI (University College London)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
- Subjects:
- Language and Languages
- Keywords:
- Communicative competence Translanguaging (Linguistics) Multilingualism Intercultural communication Language awareness
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
I will discuss how co-speech (i.e., speech-accompanying) gestures relate to language and conceptualisation underlying language. I will focus on “representational gestures”, which can depict motion, action, and shape or can indicate locations. I will provide evidence for the following two points. Various aspects of language shape co-speech gestures. Conversely, the way we produce co-speech gestures can shape language. I will discuss these issues in relation to manner and path in motion event descriptions, clause-linkage types in complex event descriptions, and metaphor. I will conclude that gesture and language are parts of a "conceptualisation engine”, which takes advantage of unique strengths of spatio-motoric representation and linguistic representation.
Event date: 26/02/2024
Speaker: Prof. Sotaro Kita (University of Warwick)
Hosted by: Faculty of Humanities
- Subjects:
- Language and Languages
- Keywords:
- Nonverbal communication Language languages Gesture
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
In this CIHK webinar, we will discuss the material conditions of and historical background to the use of Classical Chinese or Literary Sinitic in writing-mediated brush conversation between literati of Sinitic engaged in cross-border communication within Sinographic East Asia or the Sinographic cosmopolis, which corresponds with today’s China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan (including Okinawa, formerly the Ryukyu Kingdom) and Vietnam. Compared with speech as a modality of communication, real-time writing-mediated interaction between talking humans, synchronously face-to-face, seems uncommon. In any society, speaking is premised on one condition: the interlocutors must have at least one shared spoken language at their disposal, but even then, there are circumstances under which speaking is either physically not feasible or socially inappropriate. Could writing function as an alternative modality of communication when speaking is not an option due to the absence of a shared spoken language, as in cross-border communication settings? Whereas real-time writing-mediated face-to-face interaction is rare where a regional lingua franca was known to exist (e.g., Latin and Arabic), there is ample historical evidence of literati of Classical Chinese or Literary Sinitic from different parts of Sinographic East Asia conducting ‘silent conversation’, synchronously and interactively in writing mode using brush, ink, and paper. Such a pattern of writing-assisted interaction is still practiced and observable in pen-assisted conversation – pen-talk – between Chinese and Japanese speakers today, thanks to the pragma-linguistic affordance of morphographic, non-phonographic sinograms (i.e., Chinese characters and Japanese kanji). We will outline the historical spread of Classical Chinese or Sinitic texts from the ‘center’ to the ‘peripheries’, and the historical background to the acquisition of literacy in Sinitic by the people there. Their shared knowledge of Sinitic helps explain why, for well over a thousand years until the 1900s, literati from these places were able to speak their mind by engaging in ‘Sinitic brush-talk’ 漢文筆談 in cross-border communication.
Event date: 13/5/2022
Speaker: Prof. David C. S. Li
Hosted by: Confucius Institute of Hong Kong, Department of Chinese Culture
- Subjects:
- Language and Languages and Chinese Language
- Keywords:
- History China Written communication Chinese characters Chinese language -- Written Chinese East Asia
- Resource Type:
- Video
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Video
In 16 episodes, Taylor Behnke teaches you linguistics! The content is based on an introductory university-level curriculum, curated by a team of linguists: Lauren Gawne, Jessi Grieser, and Gretchen McCulloch. By the end of this course, you will be able to: * Understand how linguists approach analyzing language, including our ethical responsibility to use our increased understanding of how language works to be more compassionate with language * Identify and analyze the structural features of language, across different levels, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics * Apply this structural approach to describe language as it is used, including its social functions, how people learn language, and how language is used in technology * Recognize that there are thousands of spoken languages and hundreds of signed languages in the world * Identify the International Phonetic Alphabet and understand the system behind how the IPA chart is organized"
- Subjects:
- English Language
- Keywords:
- Linguistics
- Resource Type:
- Video