6 May: Kees van Deemter -- "Utility and language generation: the case of

Dublin Computational Linguistics Research Seminar: Index of May 2009 | Dublin Computational Linguistics Research Seminar - Index of year: 2009 | Full index

[NOTE: There is no DCLRS on May 8, 2009; below is the announcement for
Friday, May 15]

Seminar Announcement:

Dublin Computational Linguistics Research Seminar
DCLRS 2008/2009
DCU DIT TCD UCD

Venue: Jonathan Swift Lecture Theatre (Arts Building 2041a)
Trinity College Dublin
Time: 16:00, Friday, May 15, 2009

Title:

Utility and language generation: the case of vagueness

Speaker:

Kees van Deemter
University of Aberdeen

Abstract:

This talk will start by bringing together some recent developments in
formal semantics and pragmatics to argue that *utility* should be the
cornerstone of Natural Language Generation. To demonstrate the
benefits of a utility-based approach, we focus on the utility of
*vague* expressions. More specifically, we ask what light Decision
Theory and Game Theory can shed on the question (recently asked by
economists such as Barton Lipman) why vagueness is such a dominant
feature of natural language, and on the related question when and why
NLG systems should generate vague expressions.

The talk is related to the book "Not exactly: in praise of vagueness"
(prospective title), to appear with Oxford University press in the
winter of 2009-2010.

Winter Schedule:

January 16 John Tait (Sunderland)
January 23 Gerhard Jaeger (Bielefeld)
January 30 Pat Healey (Queen Mary)
February 6 Sebastian Moeller [cancelled]
February 13 Alfredo Maldonado Guerra (Microsoft Dublin)
February 20 Dietmar Janetzko (NCI)
February 27 Steve Pulman (Oxford) [cancelled]
March 6 Tim Fernando (TCD)
March 13 Andreas Vlachos (Cambridge)

Spring Schedule:

April 3 Tomaz Erjavec (Institute Josef Stefan)
April 10 Public Holiday
April 17 Josef Van Genabith (DCU)
April 24 Frank Keller (Edinburgh)
May 1 Brian Murphy (Trento)
May 8 no DCLRS
May 15 Kees van Deemter (Aberdeen)
May 22 Elisabeth Andre (Augsburg)

Dublin Computational Linguistics Research Seminar - Index of May 2009 | Index of year: 2009 | Full index