| CODE | LIN1301 | |||||||||
| TITLE | Quantitative Approaches to Natural Language Analysis | |||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course | |||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 5 | |||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | |||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology | |||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This unit will introduce students to basic statistical techniques for use in experimental and data-driven analyses of Natural Language. Such techniques are fundamental in the analysis and interpretation of data in many domains, but are particularly useful in the area of Computational Linguistics, which frequently relies on large corpora to establish linguistic generalisations. The study-unit will focus on the following areas: 1. An introduction to basic probability theory; 2. The notion of a distribution, with particular reference to some fundamental distributions such as the normal and zipfian distributions; 3. Basic measures of central tendency and dispersion in samples and populations; 4. Correlation and regression techniques; Throughout, an emphasis will be placed on practical applications, with students being given the opportunity to deploy their newly acquired skills to analyse linguistic data, such as (a) child language data, (b) data from psycholinguistic experiments, and (c) data from special-purpose corpora, such as wordlists, collocations, etc. An important feature of this course is that it also introduces students to the use of software packages for statistical analysis, such as SPSS and/or R. Study-unit Aims The unit aims to give students a grounding in basic techniques for data analysis. In addition, a strong practical component is intended to help the students learn how to deploy the techniques to answer specific questions about trends and distributions observed in large data samples. Learning Outcomes 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - understand basic statistical concepts, especially probability, distributions, and measures of central tendency and dispersion; - identify the correct procedures for data analysis in specific instances. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - use appropriate software packages for statistical analysis; - analyse linguistic using appropriate statistical techniques. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings - A. Woods, P. Fletcher and A. Hughes (1986). Statistics in Language Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press - R. H. Baayen (2008). Analyzing Linguistic Data: A Practical Introduction to Statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Practicum | |||||||||
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| LECTURER/S | Albert Gatt (Co-ord.) Patrizia Paggio |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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