Preface Applied Natural Language Processing Nlp and Anlp

Abstract

Applied Natural Language Processing (ANLP) is an emerging field of study concerned with how computational approaches can assist with the identification, investigation, and resolution of real-life language-related issues. The NLP part of ANLP is predominantly (but not exclusively) the domain of computer scientists. It is they who are responsible for most (but not all) of the advancements in textual analysis tools and approaches. The A part of ANLP is predominantly (but not exclusively) the domain of cognitive psychologists and linguists. It is they who predominantly (but not exclusively) apply NLP to linguistic data with the goal of increasing our knowledge of how the mind represents and retrieves knowledge, increasing our ability to mimic human intelligence, and/or increasing our ability to assess and describe how language impacts the world and the individuals and groups within it. We label ANLP an " emerging " field because it is not yet clear whether it is sufficiently focused to draw in researchers under its own gravity. Thus, ANLP could be described as a " field " because, like other fields, it produces knowledge and establishes practices that can be taught and researched. But at the same time, ANLP may equally be described as simply a convenient bucket into which many pieces of otherwise homeless research are dropped. That is, a great many studies simply end up as ANLP, while the studies' researchers would not label themselves as members of the field of ANLP. Perhaps this scenario is to be expected from interdisciplinary studies of real world problems, and therefore ANLP will always be (largely) a field in which we graze rather than sow. ANLP may well be an emerging field, but if it is to lose its modifier, it has to begin forming a recognized identity. With this in mind, we can admit that there is clearly much to be done: There is terminology to be agreed; there are prototypical topics to be established; there are seminal works to be sanctified, and there is a form, a voice, and discourse move that need to coalesce. Of course, all these aspects of any field come largely as a result of convention, and conventions take time. We hope that this book represents a suitable point of departure for such conventions, and that it at least provides current researchers with some guidelines from which to begin, some framework within which to work, and some goals for which …