Proceedings of the 29th international conference on computational linguistics

Abstract

Welcome to COLING 2022 – the 29th International Conference on Computational Linguistics. Held in Gyeongju, this is the first COLING in the Republic of Korea! We visited Gyeongju in 2016, as a site visit together with the local chair Key-Sun Choi, and were amazed by its beauty and its great historical significance. Our report to the ICCL was extremely positive. So here we are, delighted to be General Chairs of COLING in the beautiful capital of the old Silla Kingdom. COLING is organized under the auspices of the International Committee on Computational Linguistics (ICCL, https://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/iccl). The ICCL is a very special committee, with neither bylaws nor bank accounts. The sole function of the ICCL is to ensure that a COLING is held every two years and that the conference is not only scientifically robust but also conducive to the sharing of ideas and cultural experiences in a congenial and inclusive environment. COLING has evolved over the years, together with the changes in our field. But the mission of the ICCL to maintain the COLING “spirit” has never changed: we want COLING to be an inclusive conference that welcomes diversified participants and ideas. We also want to underline the fact that Language is what defines our field and the subject of our scientific inquiries. Thus, we pay special attention to works that help us understand Language, including its complexities, diversity, and robust reflection and facilitation of individual and collective human behaviors and actions. This is why the theme of COLING 2022 is NLP for the Grand Challenges of Our Time. We would like to highlight that, through effective processing of language big data, computational linguistics will play a crucial role in understanding the nature of the grand challenges, how people react to these challenges, and how to manage effective collective behaviors to tackle these challenges. Recall that for COLING the congenial and inclusive environment for exchanges of ideas is part of the gene of the conference that is as important as its scientific excellence. That’s why COLING has kept the tradition of the “excursion” that typically allows participants to be immersed in a new cultural or ecological environment. [excerpt]