Poul Andersen * Cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe in Language Engineering

Two projects within CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) :

• BALTIC - Basic and advanced language transnational interactive course

  The objective is to create modular courseware for computer-assisted teaching of English to the citizens of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, that will allow self-teaching, classroom teaching and long distance teaching via an on-line network. BALTIC uses an already existing Italian/English course as a base, implementing the parts that allow the passage to other languages.
  
  

• GLOSSER

  GLOSSER applies NLP techniques, especially morphological processing and corpora analysis, to technology for computer-assisted language learning (CALL), with potential spin-offs in translation technology, information retrieval and text-indexing technologies.

  GLOSSER's aim is to enable speakers of Bulgarian, Hungarian or Estonian who are intermediate language learners/users of English, to read and learn English more fluently. When they read e.g. a software manual on the screen and encounter an unknown word or an unfamiliar use of known words, they can click on it to invoke online help, which will provide them with the following facilities:
  
  

  • a morphological parse, separating the stem and the ending, together with an explanation of the significance of the inflection;
  • the entry to the word in a bilingual X/English or a monolingual English dictionary;
  • (for a small number of words) an audible pronunciation;
  • access to similar examples of the word in online bilingual corpora.

and a speech project:

• SQEL - Spoken Queries in European Languages

  SQEL aims at the development of a multi-lingual and multi-functional information retrieval system, based on an existing, experimental information dialogue system for English, German, French and Spanish, SUNDIAL. Within SQEL, a prototype of such a system will be developed for Czech, Slovak and Slovenian.

8. More information on Concerted Actions and Joint Research Projects

A common home page for all 10 Joint Research Projects and the 2 concerted Actions from the 1994Call for Proposals can be found on the INTERNET, under:

9. Accompanying Measures and Support Actions

Preparatory, accompanying and support measures comprise i.a. the following activities:

• Awareness Seminars, such as the Bucharest Awareness Seminar in January 1996, which are aimed at opinion formers, media, providers, the research/academic community, users and government organisations. Approaching these groups and make them realise the benefits of undertaking initiatives in the Language Engineering field, and the risks of not doing it, are some of the key subjects.
  
  
• Information gathering, in order to identify possible cooperation partners in the area of Language Engineering in Central & Eastern Europe, and subsequently information dissemination to these partners. This information gathering is an important side-effect of the Awareness Seminars, and the Commission's recent, more systematic strategy towards the integration of Central & Eastern Europe into Trans-European cooperation activities started with a small seminar, which took place in Luxembourg in January 1994 and resulted in a first overview over the state of affairs in most of the countries.

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