Language Technology

Overview

About Language Technology at University of Gothenburg

Have you ever wondered how Google manages to find relevant documents, even documents that do not contain any of the words you used in your search? Have you ever wished to get an answer to a question rather than a list of documents? Have you ever talked to a conversational assistant on your smartphone, or to a computer on the phone about travel plans and wished it would work better? Have you ever used translation on the web and wondered how it could be improved?

These are just some of the questions you will explore as a student of the Language Technology programme of the University of Gothenburg is about getting computers to process, use, and understand human language, and involves collaboration between a number of different fields. However, it is not only about research.

Lately, conversational assistants such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple’s Siri have received a lot of attention. These are just some of many examples of high-profile commercial applications of language technology.

Combining theory with a hands-on approach

Teaching is closely connected to research and is characterized by a focus on hybrid approaches combining theoretical and rule-based approaches with statistical and machine learning techniques. You will learn about linguistic theory as applied to language technology, and about modern approaches to language technology, from researchers who are actively engaged in developing current and future technologies. Our teachers are engaged in areas such as text technology and linguistic data resources, grammar technology and linguistic theory, and dialogue technology and spoken interaction. You will participate in hands-on practical training grounded in theory and research, which will enable you to pursue a specialist career in industry or academic research.