The Institute offers taught undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Language Technology (also known as Computational Linguistics or Natural Language Processing). The programmes are aimed at students who want to achieve a thorough formation in Language Technology and Artificial Intelligence with an emphasis on the knowledge and skills required to become specialists in the computational analysis of language and the development of intelligent, language-sensitive artificial systems. Examples are machine translation, speech-based interfaces and chatbots.
The programme is a collaboration between the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology and Department of Artificial Intelligence at the ICT Faculty. It covers a broad range of subjects within LT and AI, such as deep learning, speech technology and multilingual computing. It also exposes the students to introductory linguistics courses that give them the knowledge and skills they need to appreciate the issues and challenges that language processing applications need to tackle.
Students are given the possibility to work on projects in which they develop own technical solutions, either in group or individually. One of these projects is carried out in the course of a placement with a company or a research team.
Examples of careers the students could pursue upon completion of the programme are as machine learning specialists who design and implement language-centred systems, data scientists who analyse and interpret textual business data, or as managers who liaise between clients and software engineers. The degree also opens doors for further postgraduate study from Masters to Ph.D. level, both in Malta and abroad.