Internship at the Idiap Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland

Learning verb tense translation from parallel corpora for statistical
machine translation

http://www.idiap.ch/education-and-jobs/

Contact: Andrei Popescu-Belis


Description

Applications are invited for a 6-month internship (preferably at the
Master level) in the field of statistical machine translation (SMT).

At Idiap, we are studying methods for using text-level information to
improve SMT, in the context of the Swiss COMTIS project
(www.idiap.ch/comtis). In particular, we have successfully combined
classifiers for discourse connectives with state-of-the-art SMT systems,
showing an improvement on such particles. In collaborations with
linguists, we currently analyze the features that govern the translation
of verb tenses, mainly from English to French. The main challenge for MT
is that there is no one-to-one mapping from English to French tenses,
and the correct choice depends on the context.

The goal of the internship is to design and implement a method for
predicting the translation of verb tenses, applied to English/French
translation (or another European language). First, training data will be
generated by the word alignment of annotated parallel corpora. Then, a
classifier will be trained to predict tense translation based on lexical
and semantic features. Its output will then be used to train and test a
tense-aware SMT system, which will be evaluated in terms of BLEU
improvement but also verb-specific scores (METEOR or ACT).

The applicants should have a background in computer science or
linguistics. Knowledge of computational linguistics and machine learning
would be an advantage. Previous experience with statistical machine
translation would be highly appreciated. The applicants should have
demonstrable programming skills in at least one scripting language such
as Perl or Python, or master a programming language such as Java or
C/C++. Good command of English and knowledge of another European
language (preferably French) are mandatory.

The applications should be submitted before March 15, 2013, with
priority given to those submitted earlier. The internship can start
immediately, but no later than July 1st, 2013. The appointment is for 6
months, with a gross salary of 2000 CHF per month.

About Idiap

Idiap is an independent, non-profit research institute recognized and
supported by the Swiss Government, and affiliated with the Ecole
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). It is located in the town of
Martigny in Valais, a scenic region in the south of Switzerland,
surrounded by the highest mountains of Europe, and offering exciting
recreational activities, including hiking, climbing and skiing, as well
as varied cultural activities. It is within close proximity to Geneva
and Lausanne. Although Idiap is located in the French part of
Switzerland, English is the working language. Free French lessons are
provided.

Idiap offers competitive salaries and conditions at all levels in a
young, dynamic, and multicultural environment. Idiap is an equal
opportunity employer and is actively involved in the "Advancement of
Women in Science" European initiative. The Institute seeks to maintain a
principle of open competition (on the basis of merit) to appoint the
best candidate, provides equal opportunity for all candidates, and
equally encourages both genders to apply.

APB
Idiap Research Institute  |  tel: (41 27) 721 7729
Centre du Parc, CP 592    |  fax: (41 27) 721 7712
CH-1920 Martigny          |  name.surname@idiap.ch
Switzerland               |  www.idiap.ch/~apbelis