The article presents а critical survey and record of the conference “R. Piotrowski's Readings LE & AL'2017” held in memory of R.G. Piotrowski, a Soviet and Russian scholar philologists, founder of Computer Linguistics in USSR and Russia. It lays stress upon professor Piotrowski's historical and academic impact on Machine Translation development and Computer Linguistics researches in Russia and post-USSR countries and briefly describes his scientific interests and precept. It introduces the Conference main topics, its full Program and describes the academic and research standing of the Conference participants. It also provides the reader with the Conference relevant links.
The II International conference “R. Piotrowski’s Readings LE & AL’2017” (Readings) held on November 27th, 2017 in Herzen State Pedagogical University (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation) was organized by its Philology Department, Educational Technologies in Philology Chair, Theoretical and Applied Computer Studies in Philology Center, Scientific School “Applied Studies of Language and Speech, R.G. Piotrowski’s School”, Empress Maria Feodorovna Library, Herzen University Museum, together with Saint Petersburg State University, Russian Academy of Education and St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPIIRAS).
The Readings were organized in memory of our outstanding colleague and teacher, the founder of Russian Language Engineering (Computer Linguistics), a pioneer of Machine Translation (MT) in Russia Raimund G. Piotrowski. It was thanks to R.G. Piotrowski’s research and writings that not only automatic dictionary building technologies and practical MT systems were developed and applied, but an Evidence-Based research methodology in humanitarian studies and a Language Engineering strategies in research and didactic spheres were formulated and exercised as well.
Raimund G. Piotrowski was a Soviet and Russian scholar philologist, whose sphere of interest were such fields as Romance philology, Quantitative Linguistics and Natural Language Processing. He was the initiator of such schools of Evidence-Based philology as Language Engineering and Linguistic Synergetics (in Russia), originator of Linguistic Automata Theory. Under his supervision the first experimental systems of linguistic technologies (Natural Text Processing systems and practical multilanguage systems of Machine Translation) were created in the Soviet Union [Piotrowski 2007; Piotrowski et al. 1994].
He was a Full member of many academic institutions, both in Russia and abroad; thus, among others, he was Honorary Professor of the UNESCO, Honorary Professor of Herzen State University of Russia, a fist from the East Corresponding Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Actual Member of the Cybernetic Academy Odobleja, Member of the International Society for Computer Linguistics and, of course, of the International Quantitative Linguistics Association.
Raimund G. Piotrowski was the author of more than 300 studies, among which were the following scientific and text books: “Article Formation in Romance Languages” [Piotrowski 2008], “Language Engineering and Language Theory” [Piotrowski 1979], “Text, Computer, Mensch” [Piotrowski 1984], “Mathematical Linguistics” [Piotrovsky 1985], “Linguistic Automaton” [Piotrowski 1999], “Linguistic Synergetics. Reference Positions First Results, Perspectives” [Piotrowski 2006]. Не was scientific editor of the international encyclopedia “Quaintitative Linguistik. Ein internationales Handbuch” [Ko¨hler et al. 2005].
The law of language changes was named as Piotrowski’s law [Best 2008]. 134 PhD and 14 Full Doctor theses were defended under his scientific supervision [R. Piotrowski’s Bibliography 2004].
R.G. Piotrowski was the creator and chief of “Speech Statistics” International Group [Kelich 2008] and Language Engineering Laboratory in the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute named after A.I. Herzen. Within 1948-1954 and 1966-1974 he was dean of foreign languages department in this Institute and chair of French, Spanish, and then Romance Philology Chair.
In the Herzen State Pedagogical University R.G. Piotrowski was the chair of Applied Linguistics Unit with two laboratories: Language Engineering Laboratory and Machine Translation Laboratory, he organized an Interuniversity Centre of Theoretical and Applied Computer Researches in Philology and was its permanent director.
The Readings were aimed both at commemorating the 95-th birthday of the outstanding scientist, our teacher and colleague, and at discussing the present state and achievements in those applied linguistics directions that were largely started by R.G. Piotrowski and his school. Forums like this are also meant to support tradition and consistency in Russian science and to educate and develop a new generation. 2
modern MT systems development, their use and evaluation, automatic dictionaries and terminology databases development and management, statistics in Natural Language Processing and text studies, new approaches in the field of Evidence-Based Philology,
Computer Assisted Language Learning and Language Worker Training. 3
Sergey Bogdanov (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federation), Chair
Ludmila Verbitskaya (Russian Academy of Education, Russian Federation) Vladimir Laptev(Russian Academy of Education, Russian Federation) Andrey Ronzhin (The Federal State Institution of Science. St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation)
Natalia Shubina (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federation)
Andrey Ronzhin (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation), Chair
Alexey Karpov (St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation),
Tatiana Noskova(Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federa
Mikhail Marusenko (Saint-Petersburg State University, Russian Federation) Xenia Piotrowska (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federation)
Olga Kamshilova (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federation)
Alexandr Zubov (Minsk State Linguistics University, Belarus)
Yurij Gorbunov (Togliatti State University, Russian Federation)
Xenia Piotrowska (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federation), Chair
Larisa Beliaeva (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federation) tion)
Olga Kamshilova (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federation)
Olga Demchuk (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Russian Federa
The Readings participants were over 70 researchers – linguists, philologists, mathematicians, IT-specialists and teaching professors from Minsk (Belarus), Paris (France), Zurich (Switzerland), Tbilisi (Georgia), Riga(Latvia), Tallinn(Estonia) and Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tomsk, Irkutsk, Togliatti, Simferopol, Ufa (Russian Federation). The high research level was proved by the participants’ academic level and their research standing: 62% had the status of Full Doctor or PhD in linguistics, pedagogics, mathematics, technology, medicine and biology (Fig. 1).
More than half of the participants (52%) were young scientists under 39 whose interests apportioned the conference topics. 5
Alongside with the Readings site and official Herzen University site the conference events were covered by Herzen University Senate’s newspaper “Pedagogicheskie Vesty” and also by “Gazeta Petersburska” (St. Petersburg Gazette of SPb Polish Society “Polonia”, Monthly).
The Center of Theoretical and Applied Computer Studies in Philology and Empress Maria Feodorovna Library designed and presented an exhibition “In Searche of Evidenсе-Based Philology . . . ” , dedicated to scientific and public impact of R.G. Piotrowski’s life, the history and development of research areas started by him: Engineering Linguistics, Linguistic Synergetics, Psychiatric Linguistics. It’s report available on and Empress Maria Feodorovna Library site.
The Readings Program included Plenary session and Round table “Experimental
of Modern Theoretical and Applied Linguistic Methods and Technologies” and panel talks “Modern Methods of Language and Text Analysis” . The participants presented 24 reports. Video records of the Plenary Session and Round Table discussion are available on Readings site.
27th November 2017, 48, Emb. Moiki, Building 5, St.Petersburg, Big Conference
11.30 – 11. 45. BREAK and Applied Linguistic Approaches and Technologies
Larisa Beliaeva, Alexandr Zubov, Yurij Gorbunov – moderators 15.45 – 16.00 BREAK Mouromtsev, PhD; Gerhard Wohlgenannt, Dr.hab (Full Doctor); Roman Ivanitskiy, MSc, ITMO University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.A Method for Dataset Creation for Dialogue State Classification in Voice Control Systems for the Internet of Things 15.15 – 15.30 Aleksandr Romanov, PhD; Maria Vasilieva, student; Anna Kurtukova, student, Roman Meshcheryakov, Full Doctor, Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics (TUSUR University), Tomsk, Russia. Sentiment Analysis of
15.30 – 15.45 Aleksey Romanov, MSc (PHd student); Dmitry Volchek, MSc (PHd student), ITMO University, Saint Petersburg, Russia; Artem Chirkin, MSc, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Dmitry Mouromtsev, PhD; Arina Sender, MSc, ITMO University,
15.45 – 16.00 Voldemar Nymm, PhD; Xenia Piotrowska, Full Doctor, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Using Stochastic Learning
16.00-16.15 Anna Kupriianova, MSc; Ivan Shilin, MSc (PHd student); Gerhard Wohlgenannt, Dr.hab (Full Doctor); Liubov Kovriguina, PhD, ITMO University, Saint
16.15 – 16.30 Vladimir Makarov, Full Doctor, Minsk State Linguistic University,
16.30 – 16.45 Lev Baburin, PhD, Saint-Petersburg State Institute of Technology (Technical University), Saint Petersburg, Russia. Lingua-Statistic Analysis of the
16.45 – 17.00 Natalia Zaitseva, Full Doctor, Anastasia Ivkina, PhD, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Experimental Systematization of Spanish Flamenco Terminology
17.00 – 17.15 Nikita Mamajev, MSc student, ITMO University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia; Mikhail Marusenko, Full Doctor, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia; Xenia Piotrowska, Full Doctor, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Burrows’s Delta in Athorship Attribution of
17.30 – 17.45 Alina Putintseva, MSc; Liubov Kovriguina, PHd; Ivan Shilin, MSc(PHd student), ITMO University, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Automatic Classification of
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We would like to thank all the participants of the conference, the authors, reviewers and members of Organizing, Program, Post Proceedings and Executive Committees, administration of Empress Maria Feodorovna Library and Herzen University Museum, who helped in the selection of the papers by providing timely assistance.