Background, research and teaching…

1. Background, research and teaching… Xiaofei Lu APLNG Pro-Seminar September 5, 2007

2. Background • BA, English, Nankai University • A thematic study of Thomas Hardy’s four major novels • MA, English Language, National U of S’pore • The Taiwan issue in the media: a corpus-based comparative study of Chinese and American media discourse • PhD, Computational linguistics, Ohio State U • Hybrid models for Chinese unknown word resolution

3. Research interests • Computational linguistics • Hybrid models for natural language processing • Corpus linguistics • Corpus annotation, processing and analysis • Intelligent computer assisted language learning • Use of NLP technology for CALL

4. Current research • Automatic text complexity analysis • Implementation of metrics for L1 & L2 • Corpus-based complexity metrics evaluation • Assessment of L1 & L2 syntactic development • Assessment of reading & testing materials

5. Current teaching • Fall 2007 • 083S: Communication and the Internet • 588: Computer-assisted Language Learning • Spring 2007 • 597A: Seminar in Corpus Linguistics • 597C (with Bob): Statistical analysis

6. Some pieces of advice • Research topic: doability, impact and life span • Build a research profile early • Read AL, MLJ, TQ, UJCL, CALICO, LLT, etc. • Present at conferences and submit to journals • Relationship with your advisor and committee • Some desirable skills (from my perspective) • Unix tools and programming languages • Corpus annotation and analysis tools • Statistical and linguistic analysis