Nature (NLLB team 2024) reports big progress in neural machine translation (NMN) and projects its ability to upscale to large numbers of languages for which only limited training text is available, without compromising quality. I investigate new proposals for low-resource languages, particularly those not written in formal contexts or containing multilingual ‘code-switched’ text. Existing models rely on users of these languages to translate text, but this results in highly unnatural data, so-called ’translationese’ or use of very limited corpora, for instance Bible translations, which represent restricted domains of language use and are culturally heavily biased (Kuwanto et al. 2024). New proposals overcome these weaknesses through using semantically grounded multilingual written and spoken language (SLU) and a focus on cross-linguistic transfer of learning based on similarity for NMN. This is complemented by storyboard methods, where language users retell content presented as visual stimuli, thus preventing translationese. Similar information is collected by typologists, who investigate shared constructions across languages, or field linguists, who collect data with nonverbal stimuli. Can linguists and AI enter fruitful collaborations also benefitting users of low resource languages, and can NMN models based on training data provided by linguists also improve linguistic theories, or is this hope futile?
Friederike Lüpke is Professor of African Studies and chair of AfriStadi, the Africa Research Forum for Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses on language description and documentation in multilingual settings in West Africa and on small-scale multilingualism worldwide. She is committed to an epistemological and methodological renewal of these disciplines so that they represent and benefit from global perspectives and are able to account more fully for richness and diversity of language use and language ideas.
–
Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH) organizes a weekly Brown Bag Seminar to highlight novel methodological approaches in humanities and social sciences. Bring your own lunch, we bring fresh methodological topics!
There will be a 20-minute introduction to the methodological theme, followed by an open discussion of 40 minutes. The seminars are open to everybody. We expect a multidisciplinary and methodologically curious audience from different faculties and units of the central campus. The most important prerequisite for participation is not methodological expertise, but an open mind towards new methodological innovations and discussion across methodological and disciplinary boundaries.
Please join us on Wednesday 2.4. at 12.15 to listen and discuss!
You are welcome to join us at our seminar room 524 Fabianinkatu 24 A (access via door, not courtyard), 5th floor or online via zoom.
Tapahtuma-ajat
- Alkaa:
- 2.4.2025 12:15
- Loppuu:
- 2.4.2025 13:15
- Tapahtumapaikka:
- HSSH Seminar Room & Zoom
- Osoite:
- Fabianinkatu 24 A, 5. krs, huone 524
- Postinumero:
- 00100
- Postitoimipaikka:
- Helsinki
- Etätapahtuma nimi:
- Zoom
- Etätapahtuma osoite:
- Avaa verkkosivut
Tapahtuman muut tiedot
- Tapahtuman tyyppi:
- Esitelmät ja keskustelutilaisuudet
- Verkkosivut:
- Avaa verkkosivut
- Yhteyshenkilö:
- Anna Jarske-Fransas
- Sähköpostiosoite: