About the Future of Corpus Technologies

The International Conference ‘Corpus Technologies and Computational Methods in Contemporary Humanities’ — ConCorT Junior — at the HSE Nizhny Novgorod on April 11-12, 2014 will bring together young researchers who work to advance computer technology in the humanities. An interactive exhibition in memory of Albert Camus, the French writer and philosopher, will open at the start of the conference.

The Conference has been organized by the HSE Faculty of Humanities (Nizhny Novgorod) and the HSE Faculty of Philology (Moscow).

The event in Nizhny Novgorod will draw a lot of undergraduate and postgraduate students who use corpus and other prospective computer methods of research in the humanities.

Guests of the conference will include Roman Leibov, one of the Russian internet pioneers who started the massive trend for LiveJournal in Russia. Today he lives in Estonia. Dr. Dagmar Divjak from the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at Sheffield University (Great Britain) will also read lectures for participants of ConCorT Junior.

The interactive exhibition about Albert Camus, is a brilliant example of how humanities and computer technologies can be combined. Sophie Gindt, Director of the Alliance Francaise cultural centre in Nizhny Novgorod, will speak at the grand opening which will coincide with the start of the conference.

ConCorT Junior aims to provide young researchers with the opportunity to share the results of their studies with the academic community, and to discuss topical developments in digital linguistic resources, which include e-dictionaries and thesauruses, as well as computer analysis of texts.

Conference participants will focus their attention on the future of corpus technologies — a relatively new field in data processing, the opportunities of which are yet to be explored. Corpus technology development reveals new perspectives in various areas of knowledge – from linguistics to IT and business. Modern search systems would be impossible without complicated linguistic analysis, which is why Yandex has supported the development of corpus technologies from the very beginning. Corpus technologies find application in digital translators, in speed learning foreign languages, and neuro-linguistic programming.

Thanks to the achievements of modern corpus technologies, it is possible to model digital semantic fields, when a programme can calculate the spectrum of associations an individual has when using a certain word. This will be very helpful for researchers in related fields of knowledge who are creating artificial intelligence.