Similar Languages, Varieties, and Dialects : A Computational Perspective

Studying language variation requires comprehensive interdisciplinary knowledge and new computational tools. This essential reference introduces researchers and graduate students in computer science, linguistics, and NLP to the core topics in language variation and the computational methods applied to similar languages, varieties, and dialects.

Language resources and computational models are becoming increasingly important for the study of language variation. A main challenge of this interdisciplinary field is that linguistics researchers may not be familiar with these helpful computational tools and many NLP researchers are often not familiar with language variation phenomena. This essential reference introduces researchers to the necessary computational models for processing similar languages, varieties, and dialects. In this book, leading experts tackle the inherent challenges of the field by balancing a thorough discussion of the theoretical background with a meaningful overview of state-of-the-art language technology. The book can be used in a graduate course, or as a supplementary text for courses on language variation, dialectology, and sociolinguistics or on computational linguistics and NLP. Part 1 covers the linguistic fundamentals of the field such as the question of status and language variation. Part 2 discusses data collection and pre-processing methods. Finally, Part 3 presents NLP applications such as speech processing, machine translation, and language-specific issues in Arabic and Chinese.