GADA (General Architecture for Dialect Analytics)

Monthly Lunchtime Research Discussion

In this lunchtime research discussion, we will hear from Dr Fiona Douglas (English) and Dr Eric Atwell (Computing) on the subject of General Architecture for Dialect Analytics.

At the Multimodality conference earlier this year, we presented some challenges in dialect corpus research, drawing on examples in English and Arabic dialect corpus linguistics. We concluded with an outline idea for a research grant proposal, to develop GADA, a General Architecture for Dialect Analytics; to:

• bring together best practice, corpus resources, and tools for English and Arabic dialect analytics.
• address multimodality of dialect by including parallel exploration of: audio recordings, IPA and variant phonetic transcripts, 3arabizi and Kerl non-standard semi-phonetic orthography, standard spelling transcriptions, and capture of dialect from YouTube.
• identify parallels and key differences between English and Arabic dialect studies.

We seek Language at Leeds collaborators to expand this outline idea into an EPSRC research grant proposal. We seek your contributions, including:

important research questions which GADA can address; a wide range of potential uses and users of GADA, in a range of disciplines touched by dialect studies; a requirements specification if GADA functionality; and potential impact of GADA beyond academia.