Abstract :
The role of linguistics in information access,1 extraction and
dissemination is essential. Radical changes in the techniques of information
and communication at the end of the twentieth century have had a significant
effect on the function of the linguistic paradigm and its applications
in all forms of communication. The introduction of new technical means
have deeply changed the possibilities for the distribution of information.
In this situation, what is the role of the linguistic paradigm and its practical
applications, i.e., natural language processing (NLP) techniques when applied to information access? What solutions can linguistics offer in human
computer interaction, extraction and management? Many fields show the
relevance of the linguistic paradigm through the various technologies that
require NLP, such as document and message understanding, information
detection, extraction, and retrieval, question and answer, cross-language information
retrieval (CLIR), text summarization, filtering, and spoken document
retrieval. This paper focuses on the central role of human language
technologies in the information society, surveys the current situation, describes
the benefits of the above mentioned applications, outlines successes
and challenges, and discusses solutions. It reviews the resources and means
needed to advance information access and dissemination across language
boundaries in the twenty-first century. Multilingualism, which is a natural
result of globalization, requires more effort in the direction of language
technology. The scope of human language technology (HLT) is large, so
we limit our review to applications that involve multilinguality. [Article
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