HC1 2010-2011: Assessed Assignment 2
LITERATURE REVIEW/ESSAY
Choose one of the following two topics
1. Give an overview of mechanisms for generating referring expressions in computational linguistics
2. Give an overview of psychological accounts of naming - how people describe objects and entities
issued on Thursday 10 February, due back 12 noon, Monday 28 February.
One way to better understand human communication is to take a clearly defined
phenomenon and analyse it as exhaustively as possible. One such phenomenon is
referring expressions, i.e. linguistic means of describing an object or an abstract
entity in order to identify it for a listener. (Psychological accounts often
call this "naming".)
Your task is to present a clear picture of (if you choose topic 1) the computational
mechanisms that are used to generate referring expressions or (if you choose
topic 2) the means used by speakers to name objects and entities. Your task
is to review the key theories that attempt to provide an explanation for this
phenomenon and evaluate them with respect to how well they explain it. The questions
that you should address through reviewing the relevant literature are:
- What are the linguistic means used to refer to objects and entities? Illustrate your answer with specific examples.
- Describe each of the key theories that attempt to provide an explanation for these phenomena, firstly providing an overview of each theory and the phenomena it accounts for. Again, provide concrete examples throughout.
- Evaluate these theories in relation to what communication phenomena they account for (or fail to account for) and compare them.
In addressing these, consider what has been presented and discussed in
relevant tutorials:
-
Research the previous research carried out, as presented in published literature, that is relevant to this topic. Use the methods discussed in the tutorial to access this.
- From the relevant sources that you identity, extract significant information and make notes. Be sure to note also the source of the material so that you can cite it in any points made. If you say something like: "The incremental algorithm makes the assumption that ..." then also cite the source of this, usually at the end of the claim that you are making, e.g. "The incremental algorithm makes the assumption that ... (Dale and Reiter, 1992)."
- Integrate your notes in a coherent review about the phenomena involved in referring expressions (naming) and the theories that try to explain these.
-
Cite all literature sources in your review at the appropriate point. DO NOT simply add a list of things you have read at the end.
- Only those references that you cite in support of statements that you make should appear, both as citations in the text and as a list of references at the end of the text.
- Cite author name(s) and year in the text, do not just give numbers. Imagine you are reading the review - do you want to have to jump to the end every time previous research is cited to see who did it?
-
Put the list of references cited at the end, ordered alphabetically by author.
- Any papers available on the web should be cited fully by their original published source. The reason for this is that if we know that something has been published in a reputable journal or a book, we can be more confident of its quality and reliability as it will have been reviewed, as compared to simple subjective statements of opinion.
- Any webpages you do cite (e.g. a relevant society's webpage) should also have the date it was accessed.
Your review should be around 2,000 to 3,000 words - that is about 4 to 6 typed pages, plus the reference list.
Assessments should be submitted to the Informatics Teaching Office
(ITO) in Appleton Tower, Room 4.02, Level 4. You must submit a single
typed copy of each assignment - please make sure you staple the pages
together.
Please make sure that the assignments are clearly
marked with your full name, matriculation number, the course title,
your tutorial group and the assignment number.
Please note the
policy on late assignments.
