SLHS1913: Language and Communication Technologies

The interdisciplinary field of speech-language - hearing sciences has been at the forefront of driving technological changes in our modern society. In this seminar, we will study the history of language technology and the relationship between language and technology that have shaped and continue to shape our day-to-day lives. We will discuss the social impact of technological developments from the invention of writing systems to the cutting-edge applications of brain-computer interface. We will also examine the ethical implications of advances in language and communication technologies. Topics include signs and symbols, script decipherment, automatic speech recognition and synthesis, text-to-speech systems, human-machine dialog systems, machine translation, hearing aid and cochlear implant as well as assistive technologies that support users with language and communication disabilities. Students will have opportunities to watch in-class short videos and demos, conduct speech analysis and synthesis labs, evaluate online text-to-speech systems and machine translation systems, an observe brain imaging experiments in small groups. This is an introductory level course that does not require an engineering background or computer programming skills.

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