In the context of the ERC Advanced Researcher project STAC
(StrategicConversation), we are seeking a post doctoral fellow for 1
to 2 years to work with STAC members at the University of Toulouse on
discourse parsing for texts and dialogues. We have strong competences
in the theoretical analysis of discourse structure and dynamic
semantics and have worked on discourse parsing for several years. We
have also developed discourse structured annotated corpora in both
English and French. The task in STAC is on the one hand to advance the
state of the art in discourse parsing, especially parsing of
dialogues, and on the other to advance theoretical analysis of
conversations where agents are pursuing diverse and often opposing
goals.  We see the two parts of the project as interdependent.  Better
theoretical models of strategic dialogue will lead to better
annotation models and learning models for their discourse structure.
We are also interested in how discourse structures for dialogues
interact with argumentation structures: both are graph based
representations of aspects of content in a conversation, and we aim to
explore the interactions between the two. (see, for example,
http://www.aclweb.org/anthology-new/C/C12/C12-1115.pdf and
http://hal.inria.fr/docs/00/75/06/18/PDF/gamnlp.pdf)

We are particularly interested in applicants with a background in
unsupervised, semi-supervised or active learning techniques and who
have familiarity with NLP techniques for dealing with chat or dialogue
data. We are in the process of collecting a growing corpus of on-line
chat negotiations that we are seeking to analyze and learn discourse
structure from. Part of this data (estimated  to be 20% of the total
corpus) is annotated both at a level of dialogue acts and at the level
of discourse structure; this data can act as a seed for learning. The
corpus will be complete by summer 2013 and the post-doc is expected to
start in september 2013.

Language:
English and/or French

Period:
1 to 2 years.

Gross salary:
2919¤ (approx. $4000) per month.

Laboratory:
IRIT, CNRS/Université Paul Sabatier
http://www.irit.fr/

Contact: 
stergos.afantenos@irit.fr


About Toulouse:
Toulouse is ideally situated in the heart of Southern France, between
the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean and very close to the
Pyrenees mountains, Spain and Andorra. For more information:
http://www.uk.toulouse-tourisme.com/accueil/index_en.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse
http://wikitravel.org/en/Toulouse