Ling848, Fall 2015

LING848, FALL 2015.

Advanced Seminar in Computational Linguistics: Computational Social Science

Instructor

Philip Resnik

Where/When

Marie Mount Hall 1108B, Wednesdays 2-4:30pm.

Where to get information

Meetings

See http://psr.youcanbookme.com or e-mail me.

Description

In their 2009 Science article, “Computational Social Science”, David Lazer and colleagues wrote that our online activity “leaves digital traces that can be compiled into comprehensive pictures of both individual and group behavior, with the potential to transform our understanding of our lives, organizations, and societies.” Many of those digital traces involve language behavior (social media being the most obvious example), which creates some incredibly interesting opportunities for computational linguists.

Now, "social science" is an unmanageably huge topic. The Wikipedia page on Social Science includes disciplines ranging from archaeology to social work. In this seminar, we'll narrow the field by focusing specifically on the idea of linguistic signal for underlying mental state, organizing the content largely around two main areas of study.

This seminar will mainly involve readings and in-class discussion, helped along by participation in discussions on Piazza. The class will be graded as follows:


Philip Resnik, Professor
Department of Linguistics and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies


Department of Linguistics
1401 Marie Mount Hall            UMIACS phone: (301) 405-6760       
University of Maryland           Linguistics phone: (301) 405-8903
College Park, MD 20742 USA	   Fax: (301) 314-2644 / (301) 405-7104
http://umiacs.umd.edu/~resnik	   E-mail: resnik AT umd _DOT.GOES.HERE_ edu